Joe Dante was the first of a generation of science-fiction and horror movie fans turned filmmakers. Dante grew up contributing articles to the seminal fanboy mag Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958-82). Dante’s films come jam-packed with genre in-jokes and cameos from actors and directors – The Howling features cameos from genre greats such as Kevin McCarthy and Kenneth Tobey, director/producer Roger Corman, Famous Monsters editor Forrest J. Ackerman and Dick Miller credited as his A Bucket of Blood (1959) character Walter Paisley (a gag that Miller would repeat in subsequent Dante films). Indeed, The Howling is less a werewolf film than it is a film of werewolf movie in-jokes. The characters are named after werewolf movie directors – George Waggner, director of The Wolf Man (1941); Roy William Neill, director of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943); Terry (or Terence) Fisher, director of Curse of the Werewolf (1961); Fred (or Freddie) Francis, director of Legend of the Werewolf (1974); Earl Kenton, director of House of Frankenstein (1944); Sam Newfield, director of The Mad Monster (1942); Jerry Warren, director of Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1959) and Lew Landers, director of Return of the Vampire (1944). There are throwaway gags with Big Bad Wolf cartoons and The Wolf Man (1941) playing in the background and, most amusingly, moments like the tv station’s cutting to a dog food commercial after Dee Wallace’s on-air transformation. It was Joe Dante’s influence primarily that gave birth to an industry of deliberately bad science-fiction movies and an ongoing in-joke of littering the names of genre people and characters throughout films. Indeed, Dante single-handedly revived the career of Dick Miller who then became used by other filmmakers as a kind of shared joke/good luck charm.

The Howling is nominally based on a 1977 novel by Gary Brandner, author also of the book that became Cameron’s Closet (1988). The film is actually more interesting than the book chiefly through having little to do with it. The script is filled with holes and parts that do not make sense, the problem largely being (as with many Joe Dante films) that Dante allows his gags and genre in-jokes to take centre stage.

Without the jokes, most of The Howling would otherwise be a competent B film – but for one scene. It was a scene that at the time made audiences sit up and pay attention and made The Howling into a cult film – this being Robert Picardo’s transformation into a werewolf in the middle of the film. It’s a show-stopping set-piece that for once and put the old Lon Chaney-type lap dissolves into their grave. Makeup effects artist Rob Bottin provides an arsenal of air-bladder effects that allow jaws and fangs to extend out, shirts to rip a la Incredible Hulk, and ears, fur and feral teeth to grow out in real-time. It was a dazzling shostopper of a set-piece at the time. The Howling, along with An American Werewolf in London (1981) the following year, gave birth to a new breed of horror film that focused on air-bladder transformation effects. This fad included the likes of The Thing (1982), The Beast Within (1982), Cat People (1982), Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Company of Wolves (1984), Fright Night (1985) and The Blob (1988), before CGI transformation effects came to dominate.

The Howling gave impetus to a number of careers – Dee Wallace next went on to play the Mom on E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and played roles in films like Cujo (1983), Critters (1986) and The Frighteners (1996), among numerous others. She also married Christopher Stone who played her husband in this film. Robert Picardo made his acting debut here and went on to play in most of Joe Dante’s subsequent films, before becoming famous as the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001). Despite making a memorable appearance here during a sizzling love sequence, Elizabeth Brooks failed to go onto make any career as a B-movie queen that she eminently could have. The script comes from John Sayles, who wrote Joe Dante’s Piranha, and would go on to write scripts for several other B-budget films like Alligator (1980) and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) before becoming an eminent independent filmmaker with the likes of The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), Men with Guns (1997), Limbo (1999), Sunshine State (2002), Case de los Babys (2003), Silver City (2004) and Honeydripper (2007).

Joe Dante’s subsequent films were:– the third episode of the anthology Twilight Zone – The Movie (1983), Gremlins (1984), the fine Explorers (1985), Innerspace (1987), segments of the comedy skit anthology Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), the suburban paranoia black comedy The ‘Burbs (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), the excellent Matinee (1993) about a genre fan’s childhood, the toy wars film Small Soldiers (1998), the witty toon adventure Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) and The Hole (2009). Dante also created the delightful smalltown paranoia tv series Eerie Indiana (1991-2) and produced the short-lived The Osiris Chronicles (1998), as well as the film adaptation of the comic-book legend The Phantom (1996).

The Howling was followed by a number of sequels:– The Howling II/The Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch (1985), The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987), Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988), The Howling V: The Rebirth (1989), Howling VI: The Freaks (1991) and Howling: New Moon Rising (1995). Only the first sequel is even remotely connected to this. In all of these, Joe Dante’s jokey style has been abandoned and the focus is on (cheap) transformation effects. All of the sequels are terrible.