It's the Spring of '76 in the small Maine town of Tarker's Mills, and a most disagreeable fiend of the Canis lupus variety is wreaking considerable havoc upon the townsfolk. First, a drunken railroad worker finds himself on the unpleasant receiving end of a decapitation; given his well-known fondness for the almighty bottle, his death is written off as an accident (passed out on the tracks, ya know). Next, a pretty blonde woman is mauled to death in her bedroom right before attempting suicide with a handful of pills; after all, her jerk of a beau had brushed her off earlier with the classy statement, "It may be your baby, but it ain't my bun in the oven." Then the town's teen troublemaker is done in while flying his yellow kite in the park; but when we first see him in the film, he runs over a cockroach with his bicycle, so perhaps "what goes around, comes around", huh? After three grisly deaths in a town the size of a postage stamp, you'd think the FBI would descend upon Tarker's Mills like a tick on a june bug; instead, the hapless sheriff and dimwitted deputy are launching an investigation that's assessed as being "about as effective as a submarine with screen doors". Of course, the frustrated citizens who form a non-sanctioned posse aren't any more effective; instead of doing spread-out parallels in the woods, their quaking-in-the-boots selves bump into each other and say things like, "Bob, are you gonna make lemonade in your pants?" Nah, the only ones who stand a chance of ridding Tarker's Mills of this seven-foot-tall hairy varmint is eleven-year-old, wheelchair-bound Marty (played by Corey Haim), his wise-beyond-her-years older sister Jane (Megan Follows), and their thrice-divorced, Wild Turkey-swigging Uncle Red (Gary Busey). (Oh, and did I mention the local bartender carries a bat around with him that has "The Peacemaker" etched into it? Didn't think so.)

Suffice to say, Silver Bullet isn't meant to be taken seriously as a straight horror tale. Adapated by Stephen King from his novelette Cycle of the Werewolf (which showcased some truly stunning graphics by the renowned Berni Wrightston), it's a ninety-four-minute comedy chiller that elicits more in the way of laughs than palpitations. The director, Daniel Attias, whose theatrical debut this is, displays a decent eye and knack for 'Scope composition, though I suspect a good deal of this is due to the stalwart efforts of cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi, who managed to give some visual prowess even to Stephen King's hoary directorial debut Maximum Overdrive a year later. But he's an absolute zero as a scaremeister. Not only does Attias make perfectly clear a few football fields away who the next ill-fated victim is to be, but he prolongs their upcoming demises with so many unimaginative tracking shots and red herrings that the stock "Boo!" moments punctuating the creature's eventual appearance are rendered obsolete because we're beyond caring and just want the damn scene to be over with already. With an inability to use the camera suggestively and tighten the scenes for maximum suspense, the director's forced to rely way too much on the awful music score by Jay Chattaway, who's done good work with B-movie director William (Maniac) Lustig but whose work here is overstatedly bombastic -- it threatens to lift the roof off the ceiling during the horror moments and send you gagging during the saccharine dramatic ones. Blending horror and comedy into an overall whole is quite a chore for most directors because they fail to understand that both elements have to be fully realized (going fifty percent on each doesn't add up a one-hundred-percent success), which is why the tone in films like Silver Bullet are almost always inconsistent, and why we're afforded a masterpiece like George A. Romero's Creepshow only every decade or so.

As much ragging on the film as one can rightly do (especially in regard to the whodunit angle -- it wasn't wise to cast a sinister-looking actor in the part, even if his character's profession is seemingly disarming), the experience isn't a total wash. For one thing, the scene transitions have been edited with adroitness and snap by Daniel Loewenthal. A shot of several coffins inside a church right after the private justice-seeking citizens have been offed is good for a hearty guffaw. And the performances by Haim, Fellows and Busey are outstanding, especially the latter's. Busey is as ingratiating here as he was menacing as the Psychos 'R Us mercenary in Lethal Weapon; and what's miraculous is that his role is full of trap doors into maudlin depths, and he expertly sidesteps every one. There's a scene where Uncle Red reconsiders taking a nip from his flask during the funeral of Marty's best friend, and another where he's elated over presenting Marty with a custom-built, high-speed motorized wheelchair called the Silver Bullet (hence the film's title), and Busey, a keen and perceptive actor, filters out the mundane and replaces it with a knowingness that seems to be saying, "No, that's exactly what the audience is expecting me to do. Let 'em get a load of this instead." Everything Busey does here is unexpected -- he gives Uncle Red an uninhibited boisterousness that jolts the film with a shot of high-wire energy whenever he's on-screen -- and he sinks his teeth into the film's best dialogue with relish (upon becoming a part of Marty's werewolf-catching scheme at the risk of catching the wrath of his own sister, he quips, "I'm gonna wind up singing soprano in the Vienna Boy's Choir.") Without Busey, the talented Haim and Fellows would still lend Silver Bullet some heart, but not it's life force and soul.

I doubt, though, that most people going into Silver Bullet are doing so to appreciate some commendable performances (or some truly atrocious ones as well -- especially the one by Kent Broadhurst, as a grieved father, who can't even say a line like "How dare you." without sounding like he's auditioning to the Shakespearean gods). Even creature affectionadoes will come away considerably disappointed, which is a shame in light of the participation of the award-winning special-effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, who copped two Oscars for his extraordinary work in Alien and E.T. The werewolf on dubious display looks more like Smokey the Bear than a blood-thirsty, terrifying beast, and though Attias tries the Ridley Scott/Alien method of not showing too much of it, it still comes off as nothing other than a man in a creature suit. Failing to invoke so much as an iota of primal fear, sounding oddly like Godzilla when it gets POed, and with a pair of hokey glowing red eyes, it's by far the least frightening werewolf I've ever seen. (It's a shame the silver screen, and not just a silver bullet, couldn't do it in.) Gorehounds will be somewhat sated during the film's opening passages, but after that the emphasis switches mostly to cutaways of blood splatters, and they'll probably be asleep by then, anyway, what with all that talkin' going on in between. And sorry to be the ultimate killjoy, but even those seeking out some gratuitous nudity or sex will be sorely let down: the closest sexual reference is when Uncle Red tells Marty he feels like a "virgin on prom night" before presenting him with his new four-wheel get-up-and-go. Bottom line: For a scrumptiously enjoyable Gary Busey performance, check out Silver Bullet; for a fun and scary werewolf film, check out Eric Red's underrated 1996 Bad Moon instead, please.

In keeping with Paramount's affinity for bare-bones DVD releases, one shouldn't be too surprised by the skeletal treatment given Silver Bullet. Granted, given Paramount's inexcusable reluctance to put chapter stops on their LaserDiscs during the '90s until late in the game (even after a second-tier brand like Image Entertainment started doing it), their having chosen to not even include a lousy theatrical trailer in this package is a new low even for them. Yet, truth be told, I could actually care less. For this marks the first time Silver Bullet has been made available on home video in its original J-D-C Scope-shot, 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and the anamorphic transfer's pretty much a beauty. Blacks are deep and reasonably glossy, shadow detail is impressive, flesh tones are consistent, grain is kept to a minimum even in the nighttime scenes, and no edge enhancement is detectable. As for the 2.0 Mono, it's not exactly dexterous in the channel-separations department but is surprisingly punchy and distortion-free. Overall, this DVD isn't quite on par with Anchor Bay Entertainment's excellent one of Maximum Overdrive, but it's close.