… American horror film based on the 1983 Stephen King novella Cycle of the Werewolf.

…

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 43% of 23 critics’ reviews are positive.[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 26 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable” reviews.[13]

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four.[14] Ebert admitted that he thought that the film was a parody of the novella and of King’s work in general, but said that he enjoyed the film.[14] Conversely, Vincent Canby of The New York Times dismissed the film as “very low-grade Stephen King fiction” and thought the werewolf “looks less like a wolf than Smokey Bear with a terrible hangover.”[15] Variety wrote, “‘Silver Bullet’ is a Stephen King filmette from his scriptette from his novelette which may sell some tickettes but not without regrettes … the kids have a silver bullet, the only known power that will stop a werewolf. Unfortunately, there’s no known power that will stop films like this.”[16]

Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one star out of four and called it “a limp retelling of the werewolf legend that is about as frightening as a rubbery Richard Nixon mask.”[17] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “The human drama gives ‘Silver Bullet’ an extra warmth—and Marty’s handicap and ingenuity make him a more attractive hero. But, with the exception of one startling dream sequence (a church congregation in mass vulpine metamorphosis), ‘Silver Bullet’ never really surprises you.”[18] Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post remarked that the plot “is about as suspenseful as looking at your watch to see which minute will pop up next,” but Gary Busey’s lively performance “almost makes the movie bearable.”[19]

In a retrospective review, Felix Vasquez Jr. of Film Threat and Cinema Crazed[20] wrote, “‘Silver Bullet’ features one of the best climaxes in a horror film thanks to director Daniel Attias, and garners a very entertaining and creepy story that develops beyond a typical werewolf movie. When I think of great horror films, when I think of great werewolf films, and when I think of a great King film, I think of this.”[21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bullet_(film)

Stephen King’s Silver Bullet (1985) is the movie for this Sunday’s “monsterdon” watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, May 3 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live text commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• tubi (WARNING you may have to enable DRM which might make adblockers unavailable) (availability varies by country): https://archive.org/details/silver-bullet-1985_202511
• archive: https://archive.org/details/silver-bullet-1985_202511
• it’s usually streamed on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• pluto (WARNING last I checked Pluto had ads that uBlock Origin didn’t catch): https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/movies/5955aba5491f7ff12f598ce0
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/silver-bullet