For a little while there, Silver Bullet seemed like it was heading in the direction of being a brisk but evenly paced little werewolf film, with a veritable rogues gallery of character actors filling the ranks of having fun being werewolf bait and a surprisingly decent lead performance from a younger Corey Haim. Then, it hits the brakes for a bit for an extended barbecue scene and it really doesn't recover its footing, with each subsequent scene feeling more and more disjointed from what came before. Its principle framing device, being narrated by an older incarnation of the sister, doesn't really make a whole lot of sense given how the events are depicted in the film, and Marty's paralysis doesn't really figure into the film in a major way and feels a bit superfluous by the end, adding little to the tension (the big chase scene between him and our hairy villain doesn't even need for him to be paralyzed to work at all). It also proudly features a screenplay by King himself, who seems to take great pleasure in adding as many hokey euphemisms as possible, with kids calling each other boogers, or an old woman taunting her husband about the possibility of making lemonade in his pants; this can either be a positive or a negative. I am reserving a special demerit, though, for the werewolf costuming and makeup itself, which looks more like a bear that is suffering from an allergy in his face, and while it's certainly not nearly as terrible looking as the one featured in MST3K favorite Werewolf, the fact that I'm drawing a comparison to it is not good news at all. Still, it does feature some decent scenes, including an inspired nightmare sequence that is delightfully demented in its ridiculousness, and it doesn't offend deeply enough to make you regret watching it. Forgettable, but competent.
