Review of Silver Bullet

Introduction

Tarker`s Mills is a typical peaceful American town, which is disturbed by the appearance of mutilated bodies. No one in the town knows who or what`s responsible for these killings, but they know that law enforcement is coming up with zilch and it`s time to take matters into their own hands. Time for some private justice. We see one-by-one getting their comeuppance in a variety of ways. At this point we can guess what is responsible, though we can`t see everything for ourselves, just yet. We`re told the story with narration from Janey (Megan Follows) told in the past tense, and this adds a certain fairytale like quality to the story which I thought was a nice touch as it worked well.

Silver Bullet is a horror movie, as you might have guessed, and was made in 1984, though set in 1976. The cast are good, Gary Busey as the unreliable Uncle, a very young wheelchair bound Corey Haim (who I always mix up with Corey Feldman), Everett McGill as the Pastor and Megan Follows as Corey`s older sister. They all turn in cool performances so it was enjoyable watching them onscreen. The sibling relationship between Marty (Haim) and Janey (Follows) is typical of most siblings I know, except mine, and we watch them go through this together trying to convince Busey of what they think is going on.

Video

The video is amazingly sharp and detailed for a movie made back in the mid 80s. We get a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer with hardly a scratch on it anywhere. Colours are well balanced with good levels of contrast and blacks and this makes it very easy to watch. No visible signs of any problems at all.

Audio

The sound is somewhat lacking in Silver Bullet. We get a mono track in several languages and this sounds pretty clear, but unfortunately lacks any real bite and shows the age of the film. The underlying music score however does sound good and had me tensing up!

Features

We`re presented with an animated front to the menu which is then all static once you select an option. From here we can choose Scene Selections, Trailer and Set Up. The Trailer is as you would expect, while Set Up contains English, German, Spanish and Italian language and 7 subtitle options. Lastly here we can choose Director Commentary. Director Commentary with Daniel Attias is good. He doesn`t talk a lot but can remember things quite clearly so he`s pretty interesting to listen to.

Conclusion

The DVD sleeve proudly proclaims this as `Stephen King`s Silver Bullet`, as though looking for that extra bit of cachet to help it sell. It worked on me to begin with and I was rather intrigued to see it, after all Stephen King wrote the screenplay so it`s got to be worth seeing, right? Debatable more like. Silver Bullet was made 17 years ago and it shows in the production design, but this isn`t where the problem lies. The problem is with the film itself in the way the story is being told. It has lots of nice moments and there`s pretty good pacing from start to finish with good music to keep the right amount of tension where needed. The climactic finale however is, well let`s just say it`s a bit on the soft side. I`m sure that left up to your imagination the book, which this is based upon, would be better.

The first time I watched this movie I have to admit to feeling the suspense and I enjoyed it. But once you`ve seen it, you`ve seen it and there`s nothing here that you haven`t seen before. This doesn`t hold much replay value and plays more like a TV movie than anything else; the storytelling, while good, just doesn`t thrill enough. The special effects are okay in some places, and hokey in others. Having said this, if you want to see it, rent it, don`t buy it.