Scream Factory fires a SILVER BULLET into Carlo Rambaldi's "werebear" with their collector's edition Blu-ray.

The first full moon at the tail end of spring 1975 brings a series of brutal murders to the small town of Tarker's Mills. The first victim is a drunken railroad worker (James Gammon, MACON COUNTY LINE) whose decapitation could have been an accident. Unwed mother-to-be Stella Randolph (Wendy Walker), however, is torn apart in her own bedroom. Sheriff Joe Haller (Terry O'Quinn, THE STEPFATHER) is at a dead end and loud-mouth Andy Fairton (Bill Smitrovich, SPLASH) is riling up the locals into a mob in search of private justice (partially to drum up business for his gun store). When young Brady (Joe Wright) breaks the town's five o'clock curfew and is torn to pieces, not even Baptist preacher Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill, QUEST FOR FIRE) is able to prevent Tarker's Mills from becoming a ghost town. While the locals are still fearing a maniac in their midst, young paraplegic Marty (Corey Haim, THE LOST BOYS) discovers that the killer is a werewolf when he fires a rocket into the creature's eye. When his alcoholic Uncle Red (Gary Busey, THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY) does not believe him, he confides in his sister Jane (Megan Follows, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES) who finds his story hard to believe as well until she encounters the one-eyed assailant in human form. When the killer makes an attempt on Marty's life, brother, sister, and skeptical uncle set the stage for a final confrontation with only a single silver bullet in between them and a monster.

Based on the Bernie Wrightson-illustrated Stephen King novella "The Cycle of the Werewolf" and adapted by King himself, SILVER BULLET – the title referring both to the projectile and the motorized wheelchair souped up by Uncle Red – was the fourth of six collaborations between King and producer Dino De Laurentiis (DUNE). Narrated by Tovah Feldshuh (BREWSTER'S MILLIONS) as the older Jane, the film sets itself up as a memory piece exposing the ugly underbelly of a small town, but the revelation that killer is an actual werewolf rather than a serial killer ("Psychos are more active in the moonlight," says Uncle Red to Marty to refute his logic) reveals the film's deployment of white trash characters for comic relief and gory comeuppance, even though some throwaway dialogue does give a possible reasoning for the choice of certain victims. The tone of the film is rather schizoid with its young protagonists, touching family drama, and occasionally lyrical scoring by Jay Chattaway – particularly the theme song "Joy Ride" heard in instrumental when Marty takes the Silver Bullet for a ride and a version sung by Rob B. Mathes over the end credits – clash with severed heads, clawed skin, torn faces, eye injuries, and battered skulls comparable perhaps to FRIGHT NIGHT without the humor. The pre-animatronic werewolf of Carlo Rambaldi (POSSESSION) is a letdown, looking more like a "werebear" (a term coined by producer De Laurentiis) while the bladder effects and reverse motion transformations are nothing we have not seen before in the other werewolf films of the era. Haim and Follows make sympathetic leads while Busey also turns in a wonderfully nuanced performance (especially given his history with substance abuse). McGill's performance is workable in an inconsistently written character, with much of the characterization he and director Daniel Attias – who never directed another feature but went on to direct TV dramas from TRUE BLOOD, THE KILLING, SIX FEET UNDER, RAY DONOVAN with episode credits in the hundreds – discuss in the extras is buried in subtext.

Released theatrically by Paramount, the film managed to remain entertaining even in horrendously panned-and-scanned laserdisc and VHS. When Paramount got around to releasing it on DVD in 2002, it was barebones but the anamorphic widescreen transfer was very welcome. Territories in which the film was owned by Studio Canal – including the UK, France, and Germany – got an anamorphic DVD that included an audio commentary (as part of a treasure trove of such releases that also included PRINCE OF DARKNESS, THEY LIVE, SHOCKER, ORCA, DEEP STAR SIX, and THE CHANGELING). Germany got the first Blu-ray release carrying over the old extras while Umbrella's region free Australian Blu-ray – inaccurately labeled Region B on the rear cover – featured the same transfer but some new extras provided by Red Shirt Pictures' Michael Felsher. Scream Factory's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray also features the same master. Clarity is improved over the DVD transfer enough to reveal that the softness of some night exteriors is an effect of the limited depth-of-field of lenses shooting wide open (especially noticeable in reverse angle shot over Haim's shoulder when Busey takes a step back and goes out of focus). Bowing of horizontal lines are noticeable in some of the wide angle shots, and a falloff in sharpness is evident in a couple shots. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is clean, with clear dialogue, effects, and Chattaway's synthesizer score coming through nicely. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.

Most of the extras have been carried over from the Umbrella Blu-ray along with some brand new ones produced for the Scream edition. Ported over is the newer audio commentary track with director Attias moderated by Felsher in which Attias discusses leaving UCLA Film School for a DGA assistant director trainee position for a few years on films like AIRPLANE, ONE FROM THE HEART, E.T., and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE – before going back to school to complete his thesis film which landed him an agent and SILVER BULLET. He admits that he was not attracted to the horror so much as the family dynamic – including improvising a sequence to emphasize this between Busey' and Robin Groves (THE NESTING) as Marty's mother – and admits that there is a tonal inconsistency because he wanted a PG film and De Laurentiis wanted more violence. He also recalls having to communicate in broken French with cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi (THE DAMNED) or through his camera operator son Daniele (SANTA SANGRE), and being dissatisfied with the werewolf effects. He shares his recollections of the North Carolina shoot and the cast – although he demurs from discussing Haim's troubled life at length – while Felsher points out the many character actors including O'Quinn, James A. Baffico (DAWN OF THE DEAD's Wooley), Lawrence Tierney (THE PROWLER), and William Newman (MONKEY SHINES). Also ported over is an audio interview with composer Chattaway, also moderated by Felsher, in which he discusses his early works with William Lustig and Joseph Zito (INVASION U.S.A.) and how collaborations editor Daniel Lowenthal (THE BIG SCORE) got him SILVER BULLET. Of the film score, he discusses the importance of the Synclavier's digital sampling abilities and the sampling of real wolf howls towards developing the score. The interview occupies the first thirty-eight minutes of the track and includes discussion of other credits, while the score selections play from then to the seventy minute mark (the remainder defaults to the feature audio).

Producer Martha Schumacher, later Martha De Laurentiis, appeared in a video interview on the Umbrella release which has been dropped here in favor of a second audio commentary track hosted by Felsher. She discusses her beginnings assisting casting director Cis Corman on WOLFEN and then starting as production accountant on the De Laurentiis productions RAGTIME and the two AMITYVILLE sequels (as well as falling in love with De Laurentiis) and then being promoted to producer when she told De Laurentiis of her plans to leave and independently produce a film for some friends. She also discusses establishing a studio in Wilmington as well as the productions of THE DEAD ZONE, FIRESTARTER and CAT'S EYE. Of SILVER BULLET, she confirms that slated director Don Coscarelli (PHANTASM) did not shoot anything on the production, the multiple versions of Rambaldi's design, the casting of Haim with the goal of creating another child star after Drew Barrymore on the prior two films, as well as her contemporary reactions to the film (finding the scenes between Haim and McGill scarier than the monster scenes).

Also new to the Blu-ray is "A Little Private Justice" (11:51), an interview with actor Kent Broadhurst (SILKWOOD) who played Brady's father. He recalls the novelty of playing a more sympathetic character after usually being cast as villains, not wanting to see the corpse of his character's son before the scene was shot only to discover Attias on set panicking because of the laughable corpse prop and suggesting that he could deliver the appropriate emotional reaction without the camera having to show the body. He also recalls his big emotional scene in the bar as well as the hardship of the nightmare sequence in which actors had to endure five hours of make-up appliances only to then be warned that the heat of the lights could laminate the contact lenses to their eyes (requiring another three hours of removing enough make-up to take out the lenses and then re-applying the make-up). Also new is "Cutting to the Bone" (16:39), an interview with editor Daniel Lowenthal (ALIEN FROM L.A.) in which he reveals that he started out editing porn films before producer Charles Kaufmann introduced him to the mainstream by hiring him for the Troma pickup MOTHER'S DAY, followed by collaborating with Joseph Zito on films like FRIDAY THE 13TH IV and MISSING IN ACTION before being offered SILVER BULLET (after Attias approached some bigger editors). He recalls going on location to start cutting the film, consulting with Attias on some coverage during the shoot, directing some second unit inserts, and having to recut the chase scene overnight with Attias after an assistant gave De Laurentiis an extremely rough assembly that had the producer questioning his ability.