The Howling

The Howling

Cover of The Howling
Author	Gary Brandner
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	The Howling
Subject	Werewolves
Genre	Horror novel
Publisher	Fawcett (1986 reissue)
Publication date	1977
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	0-449-13155-6 (1986 reissue)
OCLC	17204958
Followed by	The Howling II

The Howling is a 1977 horror novel by Gary Brandner.^[1] It was the inspiration for the movie The Howling (1981), although the plot of the movie was only vaguely similar to that of the book.

Brandner published two sequels to the novel, The Howling II during 1979 (later republished as Return of the Howling) and The Howling III: Echoes during 1985. Neither sequel was used as the basis for any of the subsequent Howling movies; however, minor elements from the The Howling III: Echoes novel are in the film Howling VI: The Freaks.

The fourth movie of the series, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare made during 1988 is the closest adaptation of Brandner's original 1977 Howling novel, though even this differs in parts.

Plot summary

When middle-class Karyn Beatty is attacked and raped in her Los Angeles home, she suffers a miscarriage and a nervous breakdown. She and her husband, Roy, leave the city and go to stay in the secluded California mountain village of Drago while Karyn recuperates. Although the town offers Karyn a quiet lifestyle and the locals are friendly, Karyn is disturbed when she continues to hear a strange howling sound at night coming from the woods outside of their new home. This further disrupts her marriage as Roy believes she is becoming more and more unstable, but Karyn is adamant that there is something in the woods.

As tension between the couple increases, Roy begins an affair with one of the local women, a shopkeeper named Marcia Lura. However, on his way home, Roy is attacked in the woods by a large black wolf. Though the wolf only bites him, Roy becomes sick for several days. He was bitten by a werewolf, and has now become one himself. Karyn eventually discovers that the town's entire population are all actually werewolves, and becomes trapped in Drago. She contacts her husband's best friend, Chris Halloran, who comes up from Los Angeles to rescue her. Chris arrives with some silver bullets which he had made at her insistence.

That night, the two of them fend off a group of werewolves (one of which is Karyn's husband, Roy) and Karyn is forced to shoot the black werewolf (revealed to be Marcia Lura) in the head. In the commotion, a fire breaks out at Karyn's woodland house which sweeps through the woods and the entire town of Drago is engulfed in flames as Karyn and Chris escape from its cursed inhabitants. However, as they flee, they can still hear the howling in the distance.

References