It’s already been confirmed that director Andy Muschietti is bringing The Howling to Netflix as soon as he’s done filming The Flash, but the reason that this movie is kind of needed, at least one reason that feels apparent, is that it might help to bring the feeling of what a werewolf movie is back in line. It’s easy to think that a lot of people might scoff at this and wonder what in the world I’m talking about, especially since The Howling poked a bit of fun at the whole werewolf legend as well in its own way. But the long and short of it is that The Howling took the myth in a direction that was kind of fun and at the same time more than a little creepy since the whole idea of an entire commune filled with werewolves makes a lot of sense, but it’s also something that defies easy explanation and conventional wisdom when it comes to keeping the secret of such a place. Back when The Howling was made there was no internet and finding out the truth of something like this would have required a person to actually travel to the location.
These days the security of such a spot would be compromised by Google Earth and social media without question since it wouldn’t take much time to find such a location. But that’s one reason why we need The Howling back, since the whole idea of secrecy and keeping a community hidden away from the rest of the world isn’t nearly as possible any longer. But imagine a community of werewolves that were computer literate and tech-savvy, now that would be terrifying. A group of lycanthropes that knew how to hide in a world where privacy comes at a premium would definitely be something that might up the ante when it comes to horror. There would also be the need of the group to feed, and as a lot of people know, werewolves aren’t too picky when it comes to their prey since if it bleeds and can serve as a meat source, most werewolves are going to be all over it.
The overall need for a return to the slightly campy but definitely creepy werewolf movies is one that comes from the fact that practical effects haven’t exactly been the norm lately as CGI has taken over in a big way for the past two decades and what used to scare the hell out of people has become kind of commonplace and even silly. It’s likely to cause a bit of debate, but The Howling was one of the few werewolf movies of its time that managed to create effects that were definitely disturbing and were likely to cause nightmares back in the day. Not everyone has given up on practical effects, and even the marriage of practical effects and CGI has managed to produce a few scenes here and there that have been impressive. But the idea of The Howling is that it’s more or less a movie that was great because it focused on the werewolves in a way that as though it was focusing on the monsters in their natural habitat. That might sound a bit odd, but when one really thinks about it, observing a movie monster in their own habitat makes them feel a little more dangerous and in some cases a little more believable.
This is what The Howling and a few other werewolf movies have done that’s been impressive over the years, taking things back to the basics that people remember, the environments that are the scariest and the most likely to terrify people in the theaters or watching at home. This is why we need The Howling since it took things back to a place and to a level that made the monster movies a bit more enjoyable. Yes, it was a bit campy, but in one of the greatest ways since the whole concept of a werewolf commune where the werewolves could change whenever they wanted, not just during a full moon, was by far one of the best parts of this movie. It’s a hope that once Muschietti brings his vision to life that it will be every bit as impressive as it needs to be in order to really capture the attention of the audience and the fans that have loved The Howling for years.
It will need an update no doubt, even if the time period is kept the same since it’s been a while since the movie was released, decades in fact. But the fact is that a lot of people might agree that we need a return to the types of horror movies that we grew up with, as today’s horror movies aren’t all terrible, but they’re still a far cry from what we remember at times.
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