By Nick Younker (staff@latinpost.com)
The 1981 film was based
loosely on the series of books written by author Gary Brander. Though it had
some similarities to the original works, it had many more differences.
The film was directed by
legendary Joe Dante and was produced on a $1.5 million dollar budget. For that
time, the budget was quite modest and the return on investment was quite
substantial, drawing in nearly $18 million at the domestic box office alone
with no international data available at Box
Office Mojo.
The original film
starred Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone (who later married in real life) and
centered around a news anchor's special report on a serial killer on the loose
in the Los Angeles area. After a near fatal encounter with the murderer, she is
sent to a remote village resort so she can recuperate from her traumatic
stress, only to be met with a colony of werewolves that intend to either
assimilate her or eat her, according the IMDb.
The film was released in
1981, which was considered the year of the werewolf because "An American
Werewold in London" was also released that year. Also, the film
"Wolfen" came out in 1981, but it was not as successful as the other
two movies.
According to Bloody Disgusting, this movie is also a pioneering film in the
horror industry due to its use of quality special effects, an emerging
technology at the time, for the werewolf transformations. This excluded and
pre-dated the use of computer-generated effects (CGI), which have been met
across the board with mixed criticism from the horror community.
Check out this video below
from the 1981 film.