Stephen King Week: Silver Bullet

Howdy King fans and welcome to Day 1 of Stephen King Week.  I thought I would ease us into the terror with an adaptation of a novella involving a small town in Maine (THE TERROR STATE OF AMERICA!!!!).  Yes, according to the disturbing corridors of Stephen King's mind, all of Maine has these pockets of immense evil.  The real estate market must be hell to move any newcomers in.  Getting back to Tarker's Mills, Maine a quaint little town of close knit community has suddenly be barraged with a series of murders and only two kids and their zany uncle know the score.  This is Silver Bullet.

Heads up!!!

Uncle Red: I mean uh, what the heck you gonna shoot with a .44 bullet at anyway...made out of spoiler?
Mac: How about a werewolf?

This is the story of not of love but a series of unsolved murders and two sibling children coming to terms with one another.  Jane Coslaw (Megan Follows of Boys and Girls, Domestic Life, Anne of Green Gables, Longmire and Reign) narrates our film as she tells us of a summer of excitement, disappointment, bonding and terror.  She views her parents coddle her handicapped brother Marty (Corey Haim of Murphy's Romance, Lucas, The Lost Boys, Watchers, Fast Getaway and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star) and is deemed the favorite so she and Marty are typical in squabbling and snark at one another.  Living in Tarker's Mills is pretty average town but then people start having accidents and then the sheriff (Terry O' Quinn of Stepfather, The Rocketeer, Wild Card, The Good Fight, Earth 2, Millennium and Lost) concludes some of these deaths could be murder of a most grisly manner.

Little pig, little pig, sizzle in my pan.

Marty's bestest bud stays out past curfew...to fly a kite?  I kinda figured it would be drinking some swiped hooch off of Dad's liquor cabinet or toking some weed but okay...a kite.  Flying said kite he is stalked from 360 degrees and handheld zoomed to death, mauled with a paw.  Our local gun toting, liquor drinking chugs feel the cops aren't doing enough and they will take the law in their own hands...assuming they have evolved enough to have thumbs.   The town reverend, Lester Lowe (Everett McGill of Quest for Fire,Twin Peaks, Heartbreak Ridge, The Peope Under the Stairs, Under Seige 2: Dark Territory and My Fellow Americans) tries his level best to get the mob to cease, desist and go home to reflect on how wrong this is.  They ignore their pastor and head out into the woods where several of these good old boys meet a gruesome end.
Curfew in town the annual fireworks show is cancelled so the kids are bummed.  Fortunately their kooky former Vietnam Vet uncle, Red (Gary Busey of A Star is Born, The Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon, Predator 2, Point Break and Piranha 3DD) give the kids some explosives and built Marty motorcycle/wheelchair they dubbed "Silver Bullet"

Our brother and sister team start to put the clues together that these murders could not be the work of a madman but a monstrous creature of legend, a werewolf.   The two work together to smoke out the creature before any more murders happen.

I had a few observations on some goofs I noticed.  this story is supposed to take place in 1976 and yet I saw Diet Coke cans, vehicles clearly from the 80s and the bloody newspaper was dated 1980 so I had a few snickers on this one but the biggest goof was Reggie Jackson's Angels poster in Marty's bedroom.  Reggie didn't join the Angels until 1982.   So with period pieces you need to cover that a bit better with your background.  Not the nastiest werewolf film but a decent story, memorable characters and a good gore tone is established.

Stay back Grandma and NO I DO NOT WANT TO RUB YOUR CORNS!!!