*originally posted july 12, 2019
OK folks...time for VHS of the Week:
Ok so I totally slacked ass on my VHS duties because I was busy vacationing my face off these last few weeks. What can I say: maybe if Cape Cod vacation rentals still included VCR’s among their amenities I woulda been more productive. Seriously...it’s always like 6 people trying to figure out what the WiFi password is...and me in the corner trying to figure out what even is WiFi. Can’t we all just put our phones away and pop Bloodsport into the VCR? If only! So anyway...it’s summer...and when it’s summer I always get severe 80’s horror movie urges. Maybe you are a regular reader and already know this...but I’m probably the most nostalgic person alive. If they gave out a trophy for “Most Nostalgic Person Alive” they would give it to me. About 10 years ago I seriously considered opening a restaurant called the Nostalgia Factory...where it was always 1995 (sample cocktail list item: Bloody Glove--a Bloody Mary served in a ripped Isotoner glove!!). Anyway...when I was growing up it was a requirement that a summer’s day end with a movie...usually watched on a gold corduroy couch in a wood paneled basement with pictures of Ronnie James Dio and Rob Halford that had been torn out of issues of Hit Parader and tacked onto the walls. Said viewing would be preceded by a trip to the video store, of course, where some crazy older cousin or crazy aunt or crazy aunt’s crazy boyfriend would take me to the horror movie section and force me to pick out the VHS with the gnarliest looking cover. I think I done seen ‘em all: Phantasm, Chopping Mall, Prom Night’s 1 though 3, Sleepaway Camp. There is one flick, though, that scared me in ways that no other film of that era did...and it’s this one: Stephen King’s Silver Bullet. Like...pants shitting, hiding under the bed screaming scared. A little history: in 1987 my great-grandparents brought me to Richland, Washington for the summer (south WA tri-cities area=summer paradise). At some point some crazy older third cousin brought home Silver Bullet for me to watch and it literally fucked me up (and yes I know what literally means). So they showed me this werewolf flick and got me in a state. Then they brought me up to this middle of nowhere logging town called Mossy Rock that looks JUST like the town in Silver Bullet. I was so terrified I would guzzle Jolt Cola all night so I could stay up and watch out for the werewolves that I was positive were coming to kill me. I refused to even look at the VHS jacket of this movie for years after that fateful summer. In my early 20’s, confident that there were no werewolves on the loose in Roslindale (just the 2-legged Miller High Life guzzling werewolf who lived on South street from 2001 to 2006 (that’s me! awwwooooo!!!)) I finally went out and rented Silver Bullet again. I was still afraid to watch it but my buddy Chris watched it while I was at work one night. Our conversation went something like this:
Chris: Did you say this is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?
Me: YES!!!
Chris: Were you fucked up when you watched it?
Me: No...I was 8 years-old
Chris: Oh. Well...it sucks..and is not scary.
I mean...he wasn’t entirely wrong. I watched it last fall for VHSOTW but I fell asleep/drank too much wine/cat ate my notes so I never got around to writing it up. It’s boilerplate Stephen King: small town in Maine...monster on the loose...etc etc. It’s the summer of whenever whenever and a werewolf starts chowing face on the residents of Tarker’s Mills. The movie is initially narrated by the teenaged Jane...who is not the main character of the movie and only in about 1/3 of the scenes. Even though the movie takes place in the present day Jane sounds like she’s about 95 in her narrations...which means she’s speaking to us from the year 2045 for reasons that are unclear. The main character is a kid named Marty, played by Lucas star and Corey who died (Haim). Marty is in a wheelchair, so that sucks, but he has this crazy motherfucker of an uncle played by a playing himself Gary Busey who is always coming around to do things that you probably shouldn’t do for children in wheelchairs...like feeding them beer and buying them fireworks and supercharging their wheelchairs with the engine from a Porsche 944. So yeah...like I was saying...one by one the townspeople start getting themselves tore up by this werewolf and whatnot. Marty kind of rolls with the punches until the werewolf eats his best friend. The best friend’s dad finds his body in a gazebo and starts howling about how the kid has been torn to pieces. That still moved the needle on my scare-o-meter a little...not gonna lie. Marty decides that he’s gotta find out who this prick bastard friend-killing werewolf is. Sure as shit...it’s the local reverend...who is totally Big Ed from Twin Peaks! Now you know dude is gonna come for Marty when the next full moon rolls around...but that’s cool ‘cuz Uncle Gary Busey hooked the kid up with a silver bullet. And you know werewolves got that terrible silver allergy! Apparently there was some behind the scenes controversy on this flick because Stephen King wanted the werewolf to stay in the shadows until the very end (like the shark in Jaws!) but the filmmakers wanted to go buy an Alf costume, shave it, cover it with fake blood, and let that fucker rip. Stephen King lost. The wolf isn’t very scary. So the kid kills the wolf and everyone lives happily ever after. Well...not Corey Haim. And I guess him being dead and all means that a sequel probably isn’t going to happen. Although, despite doing more drugs than both Corey’s combined and crashing his motorcycle and being friends with Donald Trump, Gary Busey is somehow STILL ALIVE! So I guess anything’s possible. It’s a goddamn crazy mixed up world we live in.