I have a ton of nostalgic value attached to “Silver Bullet” as it’s one of the first hardcore horror movies I ever remember sitting down to watch, and it’s one of the first werewolf movies I ever saw, too. I fondly remember watching it as a kid with my uncle who’d moved in with us for a while and brought along his Beta tape player and a bunch of his Beta tapes to watch. Along with “The Final Chapter” and “The Making of Thriller” we must have begged him to watch “Silver Bullet” a thousand times, ad nauseum.
In the small, quiet town of Tarker’s Mill, the residents are horrified when locals are mysteriously mutilated by an unknown killer. Deciding to hunt the assailant down after the death of a local boy incites a lynch mob, the body count rises as the identity of the killer is still a mystery. Fate intervenes when a young wheelchair bound boy named Marty encounters a werewolf one night, and the pieces begin to come together when he narrowly escapes an attack. Along with his older sister Jane and Uncle Red, Marty begins a mission to capture the werewolf once and for all and stop its terror.
Thankfully years later, “Silver Bullet” is still a tight, well written and beautifully acted horror film packed with a taut mystery, a great intimate conflict among its protagonists and Stephen King’s trademark ideas about the darker seedier nightmares hiding beneath the surfaces of small towns and suburban America. This one involves a werewolf slaughtering random folks in town, and what becomes a personal vendetta with main character Marty, his sister Jane and their hapless uncle Red. The cast are dynamite with strong performances by Corey Haim, Megan Follows, and Gary Busey respectively, while Everett McGill is a marvelous villain.
It falters here and there in terms of narrative, and the big reveal of the film’s monster, but it still is a great spooky horror film with a charming folktale atmosphere only Stephen King is capable of injecting.
The new Silver Bullet – Collector’s Edition includes the standard Blu-ray edition along with the new 4K UHD transfer (a newly restored 2.39:1 HEVC 4K image). All bonus features are on the standard Blu-ray disc save for the audio commentaries. Featured within the set is an audio commentary with producer Martha De Laurentiis, a commentary with director Daniel Attias, and an audio commentary with the hosts of The Kingcast podcast. There’s also an Isolated Score Selection with audio interviews with composer Jay Chattaway. A Little Private Justice is a twelve minutes interview with actor Kent Broadhurst, who discusses his role, his motivation for having relation to the son, the craziness of filming the werewolves in the church sequence, and more.
Cutting to the Bone is a seventeen minutes interview with editor Daniel Loewenthal, who discusses his start and what led him to doing Silver Bullet, noting that he directed a transformation scene and that Terry O’Quinn wasn’t too pleased about it, and more. The Wolf Within is a sixteen minutes interview with actor Everett McGill; basically it’s ported over from the Red Shirt Pictures interview that appeared on the 2018 Umbrella Entertainment Australian Blu-ray release for “Silver Bullet.” Full Moon Fever: The Effects of Silver Bullet is a twenty one minutes interview with special effects artists Matthew Mungle and Michael McCracken.
This is yet another port over from the Australian Blu-ray, with a fun look back at the making of the movie from the effects point of view. The highlight is that they are never afraid of being honest or poking some good fun with the movie. As well there are some of the more trusty features including The Theatrical Trailer, the original TV Spot, a vintage Radio Spot, and finally, a six minutes Still Gallery.