Silver Bullet

Silver Bullet (1985)

Timing: 1:35 (95 min)

6.545/10
577

6.803/10
8454

6.4/10
35000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 59

Actors and characters

Release date

1985-10-10

Country

United States, Italy, Netherlands

Production

Paramount, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Famous Films Productions, Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, International Film Corporation (II)

Genre

Horror

Budget

$7 000 000

Revenue

$12 361 866

Website

Director

Daniel Attias

Actors

Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Tovah Feldshuh, Megan Follows, Corey Haim, Terry O'Quinn, Robin Groves, Leon Russom, Bill Smitrovich, Joe Wright
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Dino De Laurentiis, Martha De Laurentiis

Operator

Armando Nannuzzi

Composer

Jay Chattaway

Artist

Audition

Jeremy Ritzer

Editing

Daniel Loewenthal, Tommy Dorsett
All team (50)

• According to director Daniel Attias, Gary Busey improvised in many scenes (for example, when Uncle Red enters the gun shop). Attias stated that he asked screenwriter Stephen King for his opinion on this, and King did not object to the improvisations.
• The dream scene involved 70 extras, divided into four groups according to the degree of makeup and corresponding costumes. This included about a dozen fully made-up and costumed actors, who were used in close-ups, and the rest, who were filmed from a distance and were given makeup quickly, just to look menacing, and most importantly – to create the impression for the viewer that the room was packed.
• Tarkers Mill, the setting for the film, is a fictional town in the Stephen King universe. It borders locations from other King books that have also been adapted for the screen, including, in particular, Chester's Mill from the series “Under the Dome” (2013-2015), Derry from the film “It” (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1990), and Castle Rock from the films “Needful Things” (Frazier Clarke Heston, 1993), “Cujo” (Lewis Teague, 1983), and “Pet Sematary” (Mary Lambert, 1989).
• Creating the werewolf costume took three months. After final decisions were made regarding the appearance (using three-dimensional clay models), the entire costume was made from foam rubber and polyurethane and covered with natural bear fur. Six people remotely controlled the head (the distance reached nine meters).
• Marty and Jane give Uncle Red a silver medallion and a cross to be melted down into a silver bullet. This contains a subtle reference to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, possibly the most famous werewolf legend in history, from which the myth arose that only silver bullets are effective against them. According to the legend, this creature terrorized the vicinity of the town of Gévaudan for three years. After the creature killed the wife and child of a local hunter, he melted down a silver cross (a family heirloom) into a bullet and ordered the priest to bless it three times. This legend became so popular that its elements became part of many fictional works about werewolves.
• The exterior of the main characters' house was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, while the interior sets were built on studio soundstages. In the 1990s, the house was moved slightly to make way for a shopping center.
• The scene with the firecrackers on the bridge was filmed in two takes, several months apart. Filming wrapped in the fall of 1984, but it soon became clear that the bridge scene needed to be reshot. The crew didn't return for the reshoots until four months after principal photography had concluded, and they found that the bushes and trees surrounding the location had already almost lost their leaves. They had to spend a lot of time and effort finding angles from which this wouldn't be noticeable.
• Stephen King specifically requested that the werewolf not appear particularly remarkable, so it would differ from the huge, shaggy monsters that had flooded screens and book pages between the early and mid-1980s. The result was a creature that resembled a bear more than anything else, and had no particularly noteworthy features. Upon seeing what special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi (1925-2012) had created at King's request, producer Dino De Laurentiis (1919-2010) demanded that the creature be redone, but King and Rambaldi refused. De Laurentiis was given an ultimatum (he could either accept the monster as it was, or cancel the project altogether), and he backed down. A modern dancer was hired to perform inside Rambaldi's costume, but De Laurentiis didn't like his performance either, and in the end, Everett McGill, who played the priest, performed a significant portion of the scenes in the werewolf costume.
• Gary Busey performed a significant number of the stunts himself. Near the end of the film, in the scene where he is thrown onto furniture, a compressed air catapult had to be used. When Busey's character hit the mirror, the shards caused him several injuries (in particular, one shard pierced his hand, causing bleeding). And his reaction, as he breaks through the wall, was genuine and not at all acted, because the scene had not been rehearsed (but was filmed in one take).
• Gary Busey performed a significant portion of the stunts himself. Closer to the end of the film, in the scene where he is thrown onto furniture, a compressed air catapult had to be used. During the filming of the scene where Busey's character hit the mirror, the actor cut himself on the shards (one of which pierced his hand, causing bleeding). And his reaction to the werewolf breaking through the wall was genuine and not at all acted, because the scene had not been rehearsed (but was filmed in one take).