Why Don’t
They Remake
The Howling?
By Brian Patrick McKinley
I love movies and, just like I’m sure some of you do, I
often despair that Hollywood has run out of original
ideas since they seem to remaking every movie that
was ever successful, regardless of how little anyone
wants to see it remade. On the other hand, have you
ever found yourself watching a great older movie and
thinking: “Damn, if they took this same story and
remade it with today’s special effects, it would kick
ass!”
I have and one of my oft-considered such movies is
the classic The Howling.
The original, written by John Sayles (based on a novel
by Gary Brandner) and directed by Joe Dante, told
the story of a reporter named Karen (Dee Walace
Stone) who is traumatized during a meeting with a
serial killer named Eddie Quint (Robert Picardo). On
the advice of a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Wagner
(Patrick MacNee), she and her husband Bill (Dee’s
real-life husband Christopher Stone) go up to a
mountain retreat filled with odd-balls and New Agers
who all seem very friendly. Naturally, everyone in the
colony turns out to be a werewolf and worse, Eddie is
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