The horror film The Howling is considered one of the better horror films of the 1980’s. When it first came out, I went to see it on the first weekend it was showing. My wife and I weren’t married yet and we went to see this on a date. Just outside of the theater while we were waiting to get in, we saw some friends who had just watched it. They didn’t like it and warned us that it was bad. They had walked out early on the film. I didn’t trust our friends taste in horror movies. This was the same person that didn’t like Night of the Living Dead. Either way, I enjoy watching bad movies too, so their warning didn’t discourage us. We were convinced that we would have a fun time that night.
When we entered the theater, we noticed the theater was packed. The only seats we could find were relatively close to the screen and off to the side. There was a couple sitting in front of us. The man seemed to be nervous about watching a horror film. I reached my hand out like I was going to grab him, but my girlfriend grabbed my arm to prevent me from doing anything. I didn’t plan on really grabbing him. I was just messing around. I thought I would have some fun trying to make her think that I was going to do something. During the opening credits, I noticed that Slim Pickens was in the film. I told my girlfriend that if Slim Pickens was a werewolf, I was leaving. Soon they got into the story of the film was going and it turned out to be a good. My expectations of horror films in the 80’s had gotten to be low. This one was good enough that when Slim Pickens was revealed to be one of many werewolves in the film, I stayed in my seat. But I did consider my original threat.
