The last time that werewolf movies prowled onto the TV schedules was a month ago, with An American Werewolf in London, closely followed by Teen Wolf.
In June, these films had just missed the full moon and it’s happened yet again this month with The Howling tonight and a repeated showing of MJ Fox as a wolf on Sky Movies Comedy tomorrow. There’s definitely something lunar about the scheduling of these shapeshifting creature features.
In The Howling, troubled news anchor Dee Wallace Stone goes with her off and on-screen husband Christopher Stone to stay at a rural retreat that just happens to be run by werewolves.
Check out this clip featuring last month’s American werewolf transformation back to back with tonight’s monster metamorphosis from The Howling. Which one do you think is the more effective?
No, what do you think – wouldn’t it be great if TV schedulers started scheduling these werewolf features to show on full moon dates? How much fun would that be?
This month’s full moon was last Tuesday 7th July – the day of Michael ‘Moonwalker‘ Jackson’s memorial, which incidentally means that when the lovely Brooke Shields talked about Michael perched in a crescent moon, she must have been imagining the King of Pop in another galaxy, because our local orb was as full as it could be.
And it’s especially because of Michael Jackson and last week’s full moon that my desire for a lycanthropic movie at this time of the month has increased substantially. You see I always get crazy dreams during this time and I’ve got used to them, but I tell you, a bit of wolf howling would have been far more welcome during my slumbers than the relentless Michael Jackson soundtrack that accompanied my nocturnal adventures for two nights last week.
Clearly instigated by the non-stop Jacko media circus, Billie Jean, Human Nature, I Just Can’t Stop Loving You and Man in the Mirror played on a loop on the first night. Being my favourite Jackson tracks this wasn’t too bad, just exhausting.
However, on the second night I was subjected to the mawkish We Are the World, Earth Song, and Heal the World as well as Say Say Say – not so good.
What’s most ironic considering it was a full moon, is that Thriller didn’t feature at all. So, glutton for punishment that I am, I’m posting a link to that here.
The Howling is showing tonight on ITV4 at 10.05pm
