THE HOWLING (1981)
Starring Dee Wallace and Patrick Macnee
This nearly classic werewolf film, which came out the same year as John Landis' "American Werewolf in London," is the last great, serious lycanthropy film. While "American" was great, it was played primarily for laughs. "Howling," meanwhile, may be a B-movie, but is dead serious about its subject. While "American" had plenty of shocks, this is genuinely scary.
Wallace plays a TV news anchorwoman who, after being sexually assaulted by a psychotic in an adult movie arcade (she was on assignment to connect with the psycho for her TV news show), attempts to recuperate in a health resort where there appears to live a community of werewolves.In this universe, werewolves can operate in the day and humans infected by a werewolf bite can basically transform themselves into one of the beasts at will.
This film boasted the first real werewolf transformation scene, where you saw the subject's skin and jaw structure change right before your eyes. It was done without computer animation and, in my opinion, looks superior to the Silicon Graphics-style transformations that are cranked out by film companies today. Elisabeth Brooks is hot as a female werewolf and has a jaw-dropping, fireside nude scene that will keep teenage boys talking for decades. Brooks, tragically, died in 1997 of cancer after starring in only a few movies, one of which was "The Howling."
John Carradine has a small part as one of her brethren and B-movie veteran Dick Miller has a small part as an occult bookshop owner. In short, this is a must-see for any horror fan. There are a lot of other cameos from classic B-movie actors, plus an over-long one featuring producer Roger Corman in a phone booth.
Unfortunately, it launched a god-awful series of films, most of which were shot in foreign countries.