By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
“I’m too old to play Hardy Boys meet Reverend Werewolf!”
Now everyone knows how much I love the movie Silver Bullet. I have watched it too many times to count since its release in 1985 and have never ever gotten bored. Based on the Stephen King novella Cycle of the Werewolf, the movie is far superior to the actual book. Marty Coslaw and his sister Jane, discover there is a werewolf in their town of Tarker’s Mills, Maine in 1976 and their only ally is their drunken uncle Red (Gary Busey). Everything is much more focused than in the novella but it takes a certain person to make a character stand out. In the case of Silver Bullet, it is actor Everett McGill that steals this movie as one of the best characters in horror history.
Like Uncle Ted in Bad Moon, Lowe is not really the villain. He is a victim of being bitten by a werewolf and forced to turn every full moon. However in this version, Lowe is always a wolf but becomes ‘wolfier’ the closer the full moon gets. This is demonstrated when the Reverend kills Stella Randolph. Stella has been having an affair with a married man and fallen pregnant. Jane witnessed the married man denying he was the father leaving Stella facing life as a single mother. Knowing the shame that would bring upon her family, she plans to kill herself due to her sin.
Unknown to the audience Reverend Lowe has somehow found out her secret and in his muddled part human mind he is doing Stella a huge favour. The wolf part of him needs to kill but the human part reasons that he can kill two birds with one stone by killing Stella. If she commits suicide as planned, she will burn in Hell forever with her unborn child but murdered, their souls will go to heaven. As the full moon is not due for a while, the wolf part can still reason as a man would. This would come from the horse’s mouth later in the most pivotal scene in the movie. When Lowe traps Marty on a bridge and intends to make his death look like an accident. Lowe confirms his reasons for murdering Stella and the language is interesting here. Lowe says he can’t kill himself due to his religion and Stella’s death was an act of salvation and is clever enough to make Marty’s death seem like an accident. The wolf part of him has been grafted into his religious beliefs.
At the movie’s opening, railway worker Arnie Westrum is beheaded. Could it be Lowe killed him to spare him a painful death from alcoholism? Was Milt Sturmfuller killed because he was an abusive father and it was just punishment in Lowe’s head as the law would fail his daughter? While Milt and Arnie’s deaths seem like accidents, Stella’s is pure out and out murder.
Lowe is a very tortured character, much more than Lon Chaney Jnr ever was as the Wolfman. Lowe has his faith in God and, knowing what he knows, he must stand on the pulpit each Sunday and try to console the frightened citizens especially after the murder of young Brady Kincaid while flying his kite and ignoring curfew. This is an indication the wolf is becoming more prevalent as Brady is simply a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a werewolf is hunting. He has been ripped apart in a savagery that the Sheriff (Lost’s Terry O’Quinn) is left a quivering heap repeating the Lord’s prayer over and over and almost driving his father to the brink of insanity. In a dream sequence Lowe’s entire congregation transform into werewolves. Startled from his sleep, Lowe begs God to let it end.
Lowe knows full well he is responsible but still does his religious duty and preaches every Sunday even presiding over the funerals of his victims. You get a sense that he has accepted his life and his only way to make amends for it is carry out the Lord’s work and guide those families impacted by his actions as a wolf. When the town gets fired up over the lack of arrests and police action, they launch a vigilante hunt for the killer beast. Lowe tries desperately to stop them from going and return home instead. He knows what will happen as he will turn and with the knowledge of an entire slew of humans out in the open, it will be a bloodbath. It is but done in a comedic way that amplifies the fear. Lowe still has enough human left that he beats the bar owner to death with his own baseball bat named the Peacekeeper. He also takes it back with him and hides it in his garage so police cannot get to it. Indeed when Red convinces the Sheriff to check the Reverend out, he is beaten to death as Lowe transforms into the wolf before him crying out in agony that it isn’t his fault.
A werewolf is bad enough but one that can think and reason is worse even if it thinks it is acting in the name of God. A beautiful nuance in displaying Lowe’s slow move into full werewolf is his facial hair. At the beginning of the movie, he is clean shaven but as the movie goes on his five o’clock shadow becomes more prevalent. Needless to say Marty and Jane manage to convince Uncle Red they are right and lay a trap for the Reverend. A slave to his urges, Lowe attacks their home, smashing his way through the wall. Red is thrown across the room and it is up to Marty and Jane to fire the silver bullet that takes down Lowe once and for all. And in the tradition of Scream, the villain returns for one last scare.
Lowe is a tragic figure that is simply a slave to his dark urges and personifies that troubled soul that dwells within in every person cursed by the power of the full moon. His extra burden came from the fact that he was a man of God who could only make sense of it all by placing his faith in a higher power.
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