STEPHEN KING'S SILVER BULLET (1985) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray review)

STEPHEN KING'S SILVER BULLET (1985)

Label: Scream Factory 

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 94 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: David Attias

Cast: Corey Haim, Gary Busey, Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn, Lawrence Tierney

Some movies you just watch and let the wonderment of youthful nostalgia freely wash over you, even when the film is not all that great, and for me Silver Bullet (1985) is one of films. It's a movie that was a staple of cable TV during my formative teen years, I have always loved it, despite the bad-looking werewolf that looks like a man in a skinny bear-suit.

The film is told in flashback by an woman named Jane who is telling the story of her paraplegic younger brother Marty (Corey Haim, License to Drive) and how a series of grisly murders occurred in their town in 1976. The film is based on Stephen King’s novella 'Cycle of the Werewolf', with the author also writing the screenplay for this film. It opens with the murder of a drunken train yard worker, his head ripped clean from his body by some unseen furry beast. The town's Sheriff (Terry O'Quinn, The Stepfather) attributes the headless corpse to a simple drunken train accident, but soon the bodies begin piling up, including a woman found torn to pieces in her bedroom after being attacked a more properly the werewolf, though after you get a glimpse of this thing you will understand why they keep it hidden and only fleetingly seen for the rest of the film. 

The local gathering at the bar begin murmuring about there a maniac being on the loose in their town, and with the sheriff beginning to lose the confidence of the people a lynch-mob is formed. The angry mob  storm into the fog shrouded swamps looking for the killer, but they are shredded by the beast in short order. The ill-fated vengeful trip into the foggy swamps is a good bit of atmospheric fun, but also a bit campy, with the largely unseen werewolf lurking beneath the thigh-high fog, at one point taking a baseball bat away from a cranky bar owner, Laurence Tierney (Midnight), and beating him to death with it, the creature's black hairy clawed-hand reaching above the fog with the bat in hand bringing it down on poor Tierney, who at this point must have been thinking to himself 'how did I end up in this turd!?!'.

Back to the kids, we have the young version of narrator Jane (Megan Follows, TV's Reign) and her wheelchair bound younger brother Marty (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys). The pair have the usual adversarial sibling relationship, but it's made clear in several scenes that despite annoying one another they care for each other quite a bit. Enter into the equation their drunken Uncle Red (played by the drunken actor Gary Busey, The Buddy Holly Story) who arrives to watch the kids while mom and dad go on a bit of a vacation, because of course you're going on vacation when a killer loose in your town, and of course you leave the kids with your drunken brother, right? 

Quicker than you can say 'bad influence' Uncle Red builds a speedy motorized three-wheeled wheelchair for Marty to zip around town in, calling it the Silver Bullet. He then gives the kid an armful of fireworks and lets him loose into the night - with a killer on the loose mind you - to shoot fireworks off a bridge. it's here that Marty has a close encounter with the werewolf, just barely managing to get away after firing a bottle rocket straight into the it's eyeball! Returning home Marty tells Uncle Red and Jane about the frightful encounter, but of course they do not believe the hairy-tale at first, but eventually they do come around to the idea, melting down the family's silver valuables to create a single werewolf-killing silver bullet. 

As they have no idea who the werewolf is Jane goes about town collecting cans while keeping an eye out for any newly single-eyed citizenry. It turns out that the local reverend, played Everett McGill (The People Under the Stairs), is the werewolf. At first the reverend seems anguished and torn by his moon-lit monster affliction, but as the killings continue he seems to become more and more consumed by the beast. At one point to illustrate this inner-conflict the reverend suffers a nightmare about his parishioners transforming into werewolves in church pulpits before him, it's fun pulpy stuff. As a man of God he attempts to keeps his murderous tendencies aimed at the sinful folk in town, in his own twisted mind believing he is actually saving their souls from eternal damnation by tearing them apart. When he realizes that the kids have identified him he then turns his one-eyed werewolf on the siblings, which leads to an anticlimactic ending, but like a lot of other bad films I tend to enjoy, I still manage to love it every damn time, thanks to the oodles of ingrained nostalgia.

I fully admit this werewolf film has more than it's share of lame bad-film shenanigans, but it;s also a hoot, Gary Busey is a firecracker in this movie, every scene he's in is laced with quotable gems. At the same time the look of the werewolf is a stinker, but Everet McGill is pretty great as the man of the cloth with a deadly secret.

Audio/Video: Stephen King's Silver Bullet (1985) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory in 1080p HD framed in the original 2.35:1 widescreen. This looks to be the same HD master used by Umbrella Entertainment for their release, the grain is nicely managed, the image is crisp and the colors look accurate and nicely saturated. The English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 audio sounds good, dialogue is clear and special effects and the score from Jay Chattaway (Maniac Cop) sounds great, a creepy and dramatic, mixing of orchestral and electronic elements, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Scream Factory carry-over nearly all the extras from the Umbrella release, beginning with an audio commentary from Director Daniel Attias moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures. Felsher does a great job mining the conversation for nuggets and tidbits. Attias never directed another feature film after this film, turning to TV where he has enjoyed a prolific career, directing all sorts of great TV stuff, from Six Feet Under to the Hulu series Castle Rock. We also get an isolated music score with an audio interview with Composer Jay Chattaway, also moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, the interview lasts for about 38-minutes, then the isolated score kicks in.

Actor Everett McGill shows up for a 16-min interview, speaking about his relationship with Dino De Laurentis, the motivations for the characters, his guilt and anguish, donning the hairy costume after initially not wanting to, and his appreciation for how sensitive to the material the director was, working with Corey Haim and the make-up process.

Special Effects Artists Michael McCracken, Jr. and Matthew Mungle appear for a fun 21-minute interview, the juiciest of the bunch, too. They discuss the day that Carlo Rambaldi's (E.T.) ill-fated were-bear suit arrived on set and how it didn't quite meet Dino De Laurentis's expectation, falling a bit below the mark and over-loaded with cable to operate it. These guys did not create the werewolf itself but worked on the various transformation scenes, speaking of how they were achieved using old school latex effects. They also spin a fun tale about one of the actors wanting to keep their werewolf make-up on after they wrapped for the day, saying that they were on their way to a sex-party! 

Archival extras are buttoned up with a theatrical trailer, TV spot, radio spot and an image gallery  that includes promotional and behind-the-scenes stills, cool make-up effects shots and sculptures, lobby cards and various home video releases. The one thing not carried over from the Australian release from Umbrella is a 26-min interview with Martha De Laurentis, which is too bad, it was a solid extra, but Scream Factory sort of make-up for it with a new audio commentary from Martha de Laurentis. It's just a little irritating that there's that one extras we don't get on this release, I am sure you other collector's will feel my pain.

Onto the new stuff, we get three brand-new  exclusive extras produced by Red Shirt Pictures for Scream Factory;s release.  We get an 12-min interview with actor Actor Kent Broadhurst who played the grieving father in the film, he discusses having to improvise his overwrought mourning scene, having to compensate for the shortcomings of the kid's corpse, which apparently looked so bad it wasn't usable in the film. Not gruesome awful mind you, just not well-done by the FX team. He also discusses the nightmare scene involving parishioners turning into werewolves in the pulpits and how much work that entailed, including a warning from the assistant director that the actors should remove their contact lenses lest they end up laminated to their eyeballs! 

We also get a new 17-min interview with editor Daniel Loewenthal who discusses his early career editing porno before getting into horror movies on Troma's Mother's Day. He also gets into creating suspense through editing and the failure of the film at the box office. 

The last of the new stuff is an audio commentary with Producer Martha De Laurentis Moderated By Michael Felsher. I have not gotten too deep into this one yet, but it does sort of make-up for this disc not carrying over the Martha De Laurentis interviews from the Umbrella release.  

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the original poster art plus a new illustration from artist Devon Whitehead, the latter of which is also featured on the limited edition slipcover that accompanies the first print run, as well as the disc itself. I didn't love this artwork when I saw it online, but holding it in my hand and looking at it I think i does capture the pulpy charm of this werewolf flick.   

Special Features:

- NEW Audio Commentary With Producer Martha De Laurentis Moderated By Michael Felsher 

- NEW Cutting To The Bone – An Interview With Editor Daniel Loewenthal (17 min)

- NEW A Little Private Justice – An Interview With Actor Kent Broadhurst (12 min) 

- Audio Commentary with Director Daniel Attias moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures
- The Wolf Within – An Interview with Actor Everett McGill (16 min) 

- Full Moon Fever – Interviews with Special Effects Artists Michael McCracken, Jr. and Matthew Mungle (21 min)
- Dino's Angel Takes on Lycanthropy: Martha De Laurentis Remembers SILVER BULLET (26 min) HD
- Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Composer Jay Chattaway moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures. (English Dolby Digital 2.0)
- Theatrical trailer (1 min)
- TV Spot (1 min)
- Radio Spot (1 min)
- Still Gallery (73 Images)  

Silver Bullet (1985) gets a fantastic Blu-ray from Scream Factory, it might not offer a new transfer but this is a solid-looking release and it is stacked with extras that get into the nitty-gritty of the film. While the film might not be shown on cable as much as it did back when I was a kid I can pretty much guarantee I will be watching this film quite a bit, it still has plenty of that youthful nostalgia and I will be smiling the whole way through,, shitty looking werewolf and all. 

CUJO (1983) (Eureka Limited Edition Blu-ray Review)

CUJO (1983)

 Limited Edition Box Set (4000 Units)

Label: Eureka Entertainment
Region Code: B
Rating: Cert. 18
Duration: 93 Minutes 
Audio: English LPCM Mono, DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Danny Pinatauro, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter 

I do not remember loving Cujo (1983) when I first saw it on a TV-edit broadcast presentation sometime in the 80's, but the story of an adulterous but loving mother and her young son trapped in a Ford Pinto whilst under attack from a rabid St. Bernard dog is solid stuff. The problem for me then was that there was so much slow-burning melodrama leading up to the frothy finale, but watching it now many years later the film has aged very well, my opinion is a bit kinder. Now older, but certainly none the wiser, I can appreciate the domestic turmoil of ad-exec Vic (Daniel Hugh-Kelly), and his adulterous wife Donna (Dee Wallace, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), but then there's a subplot about a kids cereal account that the ad-exec husband is working on that goes nowhere and drags what could have been a slow-burn down to a sad-crawl. 

Though I will say that the idea of a kids cereal that due to a red-dye ingredient makes kids shit bright red stool is rather funny when you think about it, especially when coupled with an an equally unfortunate bit of ad campaign verbage. There's another subplot about an abused wife of a local mechanic winning the lottery and fleeing town, an arc with no payoff really, other than to reinforce the notion that there's no one to help this mother and child later on. 

The titular dog here starts off as a very family friendly sort of beast who one day while chasing a rabbit through the woods is bitten on the nose by a rabid bat, with the canine succumbing to the illness, driven mad  and killing his owner, who is the local mechanic in town, the one whose wife won the lottery and ran off earlier. 

Which brings us to the cheating mom's failing Ford Pinto with it's dashboard lit-up like a Christmas tree with red-warning lights, pulling up to the mechanics shop where the car conks out completely just as the rabid dog lays siege to the mother and child inside. This stuff is the saving grace of the film, somewhat erasing the slow threads of the first two-thirds of the film with the snarling, foaming-at-the-mouth dog attacking the car with a mighty fervor, trying to get in there and tear this mother and son up with it's gnashing teeth. Trapped in the car over the course of two days in the sweltering heat, the young boy and mother begin succumbing to heat exhaustion, with the increasingly desperate mom trying to fight back, ultimately having to face-off against the snot-eyed, rabid beast with a baseball bat in a last ditch effort to save her son who is on death's door.

The film is certainty flawed with random threads that go nowhere, slowing this things down to a crawl at times, but Dee Wallace turns in an electrifying performance as the terrorized mother who will do anything to save her young son, the same cannot be said for her affair with an ex played by her then husband Christopher Stone (The Howling), for a real-life couple they had zero chemistry together. The practical make-up effects used to give the dog it's bloodied, snot-eyed, and foamed-mouth rabid looks are still terrific looking, plus the animal trainers did great work bringing the usually lumbering St. Bernard breed into the realm of terror with a combination of trained dogs, a man in a suit, prosthetics and even a different breed of dog in a St. Bernard suit, to make this normally docile dog into a growling image terror.

Audio/Video: Cujo (1983) arrives on 2-disc region-B locked Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment in 108op HD widescreen (1.85:1) looking good, though comparing it to the 2009 Liosngate Blu-ray release it does look to be the same transfer, this is not a new 2K scan of the elements. That said, the grain is well-managed for the most part, and colors are solid, but the film's dingy brown color range that doesn't really shine, but overall I still found it to be a pleasing watch in HD, it's just not dazzling the way a new scan would have allowed. Audio comes by way of of English LPCM Mono and DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles, dialogue is crisp and clear, with the wonderful score from Charles Bernstein (A Nightmare on Elm Street) springing to life in the mix. 

While the A/V presentation doesn't look to be a fresh scan Eureka really hot a home run with the extras here, packing in over seven hours worth of goodies to paw your way through, beginning with a brand new audio commentary from  super-fan Lee Gambin, author of 'Nope, Nothing Wrong Here: The Making of Cujo', a thorough and well-rounded exploration of the film and it's source novel. Notably Eureka do not carry-over the previous audio commentary with director Lewis Teague, so maybe hang onto those Blu-rays from Olive Films and Lionsgate for that specific extra. 

We also get a wealth of interviews, beginning with star Dee Wallace who shows up for a 40-min interview beginning with getting Cujo following the blockbuster success E.T., loving the role of a strong woman. Stating she did not read the novel and was not a fan of the original end for the young boy.  There's some conversation about the original director Peter Medak (The Changeling), and what it was like working with his replacement Lewis Teague (Cat's Eye), and also with her husband on the film. The star also speaks of how much of a toll the role was for her physically and emotionally. Wallace also speaks on the wardrobe and make-up FX, plus working with the trained dogs.

Composer Charles Bernstein gives a 35-min interview discussing his process creating the score, speaking of individual themes, describing the film as a "delicious film to score", and ending the interview by playing some of the Cujo theme at on piano at his home studio. 
   

Stuntman Gary Morgan speaks for 25-min about being a stuntman in the dog suit, he having appeared in quite a few films as an animal. Speaking about what it was like to be working in a suit, how it got old and smelly real fast, so much so that it had it's own room as no one wanted to store it in theirs. He speaks about how laid back the trained dogs were and what a challenge it was to get them appear to be viscous, using a "critter cage" to excite them, and how the rabid dog foam was actually egg whites, which the dogs would eat, and sharing some of his favorite memories from the shoot. 

Stunt woman Jean Coulter (Jaws 2) speaks about getting the role, working with director Lewis Teague and star Dee Wallace. Going into working with the dogs, saying they mostly worked with one main dog, and how one was particularly mean. The most horrific story is of how playing with the dog nearly resulted in her losing her nose, which was left hanging by a thread of skin, and how doctor's were able to reattach it! She gives a lot of credit to stuntman Gary Morgan who was working in the dog suit, and talking about some other film gigs where director's had crazy demands for her.   

Casting director Marcia Ross speaks about her early career working on a pair of Walter Hill (Hard Times) films, going into the auditions for Cujo, including how Billy Jacoby (Bloody Birthday) auditioned for the role of the main kid, but being a bit too old for the part. 

Special effects designer Robert Clark talks for 13-min about working with Karl Lewis Miller to fit the dogs costume, including a Labrador that wore a St. Bernard costume! He also discusses creating prosthetic special effects, including the jaws of the dog and casting the head, and making a reference to his work on the dachshunds in rat costumes, killer rat film Deadly Eyes (1982)! 

Dog trainer Teresa Miller shows up for a 28-min interview recalling Cujo, which her father worked on when she was 17. Describing her father training the four dogs for months before filming, and how strange having been around them felt afterward when she saw the film and how viscous they were made to act. She also discusses her father suggesting the producers use Doberman's instead of low-energy St. Bernards in the film, finally resorting to putting a Labrador in a St. Bernard suit to achieve some of the on-screen action.     

Extras on disc one are buttoned-up with Laurent Bouzereau's 43-min making-of doc 'Dog Days: The Making of Cujo' (2007), which is still a terrific watch, featuring interviews with some people not interviewed on the new extras, including director Lewis Teague, cinematographer Jan de Bont (Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker) actor Danny Pintauro, late Producer Robert Singer and Editor Neil Travis. We also get a trailer and TV spots for the film. 

Exclusive to the limited edition release is a bonus Blu-ray disc containing a Q&A with star Dee Wallace moderated by Lee Gambin, this was filmed at Cinemaniacs & Monster Fest 2015. Wallace fields questions about her career. Also on the bonus disc is a 28-min interview with critic and author Kim Newman seated on that familiar looking couch in his mother's basement discussing the numerous Stephen King film adaptations. I'm a fan of Newman's writings and film musings, so hearing him ramble on here about King adaptations and the career of director Lewis Teague was a pleasure. 

This limited edition set also includes a 60-page booklet with new writing on the film by Lee Gambin, author Scott Harrison, and Craig Ian Mann; illustrated with archival imagery from the film’s production. Plus you will get a cool-looking hardbound slipcover with artwork by Graham Humphreys and a reversible art option from illustrator Justin Osbourn. 

The extras assembled for this are terrific, the only thing missing here would be a definitive new 4K scan of the film which would have made this already definitive release even more definitive. 
  

Special Features: 
- New and exclusive feature length audio commentary by Lee Gambin, author of Nope, Nothing Wrong Here: The Making of Cujo
- New interview with Dee Wallace (40 mins)HD
- New interview with composer Charles Bernstein (35 mins)HD
- New interview with stuntman Gary Morgan (25 mins)HD
- New interview with stuntwoman Jean Coulter (21 mins)
- New interview with casting director Marcia Ross (20 mins) HD
- New interview with visual effects artist Kathie Lawrence (13 mins) HD
- New interview with special effects designer Robert Clark (12 mins)HD
- New interview with dog trainer Teresa Miller (28 mins) HD
- Dog Days: The Making of Cujo – archival documentary on the film’s production (43 mins) 
- Original Trailer(2 min) HD 
- TV Spot #1 (1 min) HD 
- TV Spot #2 (1 min) HD 

Disc Two - Limited Edition Only
- Q&A with Dee Wallace from “Cinemaniacs & Monster Fest 2015”, moderated by Lee Gambin (101 mins)HD 
- New interview with critic and author Kim Newman (28 mins) HD

Cujo is a film that has gotten better with age for me, the melodrama and loose story elements still sap it of it's thunder to a degree, but the final leg of the film with the formerly docile dog succumbing to it's rabid ways and the harrowing survival story of the mothers and son is still powerful stuff. The new 2-disc limited edition Blu-ray is stacked with hours of extras that are sure to please fans of the film.