Stephen King’s Only Werewolf Movie Finally Returns to Streaming (& It’s Free)

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Now streaming on Tubi, Silver Bullet was released in 1985 and is based on King’s 1983 novella Cycle of the Werewolf. The film stars Gary Busey, Everett McGill, and Corey Haim along with Megan Follows, Terry O’Quinn, Lawrence Tierney, Bill Smitrovich, Kent Broadhurst, David Hart, and James Gammon. King wrote the screen play for the film himself. While Silver Bullet is a horror movie by definition, it’s surprisingly not especially scary. It didn’t do especially well with critics, but over the years, the movie has earned a reputation for being a solid werewolf movie, and a particularly interesting performance in Busey’s overall career.

Silver Bullet Might Be the Most Underrated King Adaptation

In Silver Bullet, young paraplegic boy Marty Coslaw (Haim) comes to believe that the series of violent and grisly murders taking place in the small town of Tarker’s Mills are being carried out by a supernatural creature — a werewolf. This leads Marty and his sister Jane (Follows) and Uncle Red (Busey) to investigate, only to find out an important and respected figure in the town is behind it all. The film performed modestly at the box office, despite being disliked by critics.

The thing about Silver Bullet, though, is that it’s not the bad movie that critics at the time made it out to be. If anything, it suffered from its era. The 1980s were very much King’s to own in terms of horror adaptations. This is the decade that gave us Cujo, The Shining, Christine, Firestarter, and so many more. It’s natural that any King movie would be compared against the others and Silver Bullet isn’t exactly a The Shining. It’s also very much just a move of the ‘80s more broadly, particularly when you look at the effects. Those could certainly be better, but that’s the case with most movies — especially horror movies — of the era. If you take those things into consideration and just watch Silver Bullet for what it is, it’s pretty simple to appreciate. You have a classic ‘80s horror film, Busey is entertaining as all get out, and the film has some satirical tones to it that give it just a little bit more depth than the critiques would lead you to believe it’s capable of. It’s also just kind of fun to see Follows in a horror movie when it came out the same year that she starred in the miniseries that many fans know her best for — Anne of Green Gables.

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