Noirs that aren't #1: The Howling (1981)

Los Angeles news anchor Karen White (Dee Wallace) uses herself as bait to catch serial killer Eddie Quest (Robert Picardo), arranging to meet him in a downtown porno theater. When Eddie ambushes her the police fire on him but he escapes, leaving Karen traumatised and unable to recall what she has seen. Karen's therapist Dr Waggener (Patrick Macnee) recommends she submits to his treatment at a remote commune called "The Colony," but once Karen arrives, she begins to suspect that Waggener and his followers share a secret, and that Eddie is not far away.

Based on a 1977 novel by Gary Brandner, the shooting script was co-written by John Sayles and directed by Joe Dante. Like An American Werewolf in London, the film is knowing but The Howling has an unseemly, adult quality. It's realistic in the way you don't want a horror to be. The tone is unsettling and the characters are disconsolate. Even the daytime scenes are bleak. When Karen discovers a woods cabin surrounded by ferns she deduces that it once belonged to Eddie, and enters its maze-like corridors in the time-honoured fashion. This is an old trick. Halloween did it in the dark and Alien did it in space but Dante does it in sunlight, and it makes things worse. We don't want Karen to go in there, we know that she will, and we know that we would, too, because it's a sunny day.

Likewise we would trust Patrick Macnee, because he was Steed in The Avengers. We know the Colony, like any cult, is all smiles on the surface. It's a horror movie, right? These are but the tropes. But the laughs are uneasy and the sex is sleazy from both the audience's and the characters' point of view. Elisabeth Brooks as the femme fatale is hard and grubby. The practical special effects, which were at a technical peak in 1981, are explicit and disgusting. When Dante can't film the monsters straight he switches to Dutch angles and silhouettes. He's trying to be funny. It's not.

I respect The Howling because it makes me queasy. Every character is bad and doomed; the atmosphere is horrible, the set up is hokey but the story draws you in. James Ellroy said "the great theme of noir is, you're fucked." For me The Howling's psychological themes, self-destructive protagonist and industrial daylight make it less of a horror and much more of a noir.