Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday! This week’s post is all about the fantastic werewolf film, The Howling! With its compelling mystery, amazing special effects, and terrifying community of antagonists, The Howling truly withstood the test of time. So, beware of smiley faces, don’t forget your silver bullets, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Rick Baker was originally in charge of this film’s special effects, but he had to leave to work on An American Werewolf In London. Rob Bottin stepped up and finished everything for the rest of The Howling.
• There were quite a few times during filming where Robert Picardo (Eddie Quist) really pondered his life choices during the hours he had to spend in makeup. He stated, “One day, after spending six and a half hours in the makeup chair, I was thinking, ‘trained at Yale, two leading roles on Broadway. My first acting role in California, my face gets melted in a low-budget horror movie.’ All the crew had to say was, ‘Bob, next time, read the script all the way through first!’”
• In the scene where Terry (Belinda Balaski) called Chris (Dennis Dugan) from Dr. Waggner’s (Patrick Macnee) office, you can see a picture of Lon Chaney Jr., the original Wolf Man, on the office wall.
• Karen White’s (Dee Wallace) transformation at the end of the film was noticeably filmed very close up. This was done because the film’s budget was exceeded by the time the scene had to be shot. Because there was no money for the sets anymore, it had to be shot in director Joe Dante’s office.

• The characters George Waggner, R. William Neill (Christopher Stone), Terry Fisher, Fred Francis (Kevin McCarthy), Erle Kenton (John Carradine), Sam Newfield (Slim Pickens), Charlie Barton (Noble Willingham), Jerry Warren (James Murtaugh), and Lew Landers (James MacKrell) were all named after directors of werewolf movies.
• It’s because of their work on this movie that Joe Dante and one of the film’s producers, Michael Finnell got to work on the Christmas hit, Gremlins. There is even a connection between the two films as reporter Lew Landers, played by James MacKrell, appears in both.
• The morgue attendant (John Sayles) mentioned the case of Stuart Walker. Stuart Walker was the director of the 1935 film, Werewolf Of London.
• The Howling was filmed in 28 days, give or take a couple of days for re-shoots.

• As we all know, Elisabeth Brooks (Marsha Quist) appears fully nude in this film. What you might now know was that her nude body was shown without her consent. She was convinced by filmmakers that her body would be smoke-screened by a bonfire and audiences wouldn’t see a thing. She had no problem being nude in front of the crew and her co-star, but she had no idea so much of her would be shown in the final product. She ended up seeing a picture of herself by the fire in Playboy before the film was even released. She was understandably very upset at the deception.
• While shooting this film, Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone were engaged in real life. They were married until his passing in 1995.
• Joe Dante was very vocal about his disdain for the novel this film was based on and how he believed they improved everything with the movie. During a lecture at the Hollywood Scriptwriting Institute, he bad-mouthed the book and was confronted by the man who wrote it, Gary Brandner, who was sitting in the audience.
• In Walter Paisley’s (Dick Miller) shop, you may see a very noticeable corpse by the entrance. It was the same corpse that was used in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This happened because Robert A. Burns was the art director for both films.

• Not only was Gary Brandner the author of The Howling, we was also the screenwriter for the movie’s sequel, The Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf.
• The r**e porn video that Eddie forced Karen to watch was created just for the movie. The discomfort on Dee Wallace’s face was understandably genuine.
• Joe Dante noted Rob Bottin as a perfectionist. On the first day of filming Eddie’s transformation, Bottin took so long perfecting the makeup on Robert Picardo, that the day was over and everyone was sent home to avoid overtime. Picardo ended up having to sleep in the makeup so they could film the scene the next morning.
• Annette Haven was approached to play Marsha Quist, but she turned it down due to the screenplay’s violent content.

• Before Eddie pulled the bullet out of his head, he told Karen he wanted to give her a piece of his mind. This line was improvised by Robert Picardo.
• When Karen transforms into a werewolf on the news broadcast, it cuts to a couple in their living room watching it. The man on the couch was horror director, Mick Garris.
• Dee Wallace was the one who suggested that her werewolf look differed from the rest. She told the crew that she wanted to be a pretty, feminine wolf. Rob Bottin had difficulty accomplishing this as the final product looked like a “female Wookie.”
• It’s been speculated that after shooting Karen, Chris turned the gun on himself to avoid being convicted of murder or being hunted down by the rest of the colony of werewolves that survived the fire.