All Fur One And One Fur All

As part of the Summer Shocks retrospective running over at Shock Till You Drop, managing editor Ryan Turek has taken a look back at the often-neglected Wolfen (1981). Having the misfortune of coming out the same year that The Howling and An American Werewolf in London raised the bar for werewolf cinema, Wolfen looked awfully weak, what with no transformation FX to give it that competitive edge. Nowadays it look like some kind of almost-classic in need of rediscovery, a horror film of rare adult character. It also carries an eerie foreshadowing of our post-9/11 age. It's haunting to listen to characters in this New York City-set film (this is one of the greatest NYC movies ever shot, by the way) discussing the threat of global terrorism with frequent shots of the Twin Towers dominating the skyline.

It's fitting that Wolfen is about shape-shifters as it's an altogether different animal from most horror films. Director Michael Wadleigh came up with something compelling and it shows. Unfortunately, it just wasn't immediately obvious to most audiences at the time.

To read Ryan's full Wolfen review, click here.

Summer Shocks 1981: Deadly Blessing

When I was in junior high, I had a friend whose parents were way more permissive than mine when it came to R-rated movies. I couldn't even see them on cable but this kid saw all the new horror releases on the big screen. When we got together at the beginning of school in the fall of '81, the first movie I asked him about was Deadly Blessing. The TV spots and newspaper ads for it had terrified me over the last month of summer vacation and I had to know if I was right to be pissing in my pants over it. Having gone to the drive-in to see it with his parents, he assured me that it was one of the best horror movies he had ever seen, reserving high praise for the spider-in-the-mouth dream sequence.

When I finally saw the movie for myself on VHS, I was not disappointed. It remains such a terrific shocker (rewatching it just the other week, there was a 'gotcha' scare involving Sharon Stone's character in a barn that 'got me' so badly - even though I knew it was coming - that I damn near sprained my neck!) and it's such a key movie in Wes Craven's filmography (bringing dream imagery into his work in a big way) that I'm puzzled as to why it hasn't been given a Region 1 DVD release.

Whatever the reason for its absence on disc, here's hoping that one day it'll get the exposure - and the wider fanbase - it deserves.

To read my full Deadly Blessing review click here.