YMMV / Silver Bullet

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Lowe trying to stop the hunters from going after the werewolf because he's afraid they'll actually manage to kill him, or because he's genuinely concerned for their safety and knows he'll slaughter them all? Is he even aware that he's the werewolf at that point in the story (if he isn't he could still either be afraid for them, or for their quarry)?
  • There's also the question of whether or not Lowe is genuinely a man of God and the victim of a horrific curse that he has absolutely no control over (his dream implies that he takes absolutely no pleasure in being a werewolf) or if he's just a horrible human being from the start and a self-righteous murderer who uses religion as an excuse to go out and commit the kind of atrocities that he does. It's also possible that he was a good man who tried to maintain some semblance of faith despite his curse but once he loses his eye due to Marty, he goes off the deep end and fully embraces his murderous tendencies and tries to murder Marty both in human form and wolf form.
  • Another possibility is that it's just as Marty and the others theorize; that Lowe's humanity waxes and wanes with the moon. Meaning that he's at his most human during a moonless night (which is likely when he had the nightmare) and is at his most monstrous (even as a human) when the moon is full.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Herb Kincaid only appears in four scenes and he just sits in a church pew without doing much in two of them. However, the way he grieves for his dead son and turns a Shaming the Mob moment into a Shamed by a Mob moment make him one of the most memorable characters of the film.
  • Sheriff Haller, who is seventh in the credits, gets some respect for his moments of trying to reason with the mob and being willing to consider Marty's claims as the investigation continues. Being played by Terry O'Quinn doesn’t hurt.
  • Virgil Cuts, the affable gas station attendant who's nice to Marty and provides a bit of levity during the mob's werewolf hunt.
  • Mac, the gunsmith who makes the bullet and implies to Red that he has an idea of what it's for.
• Fridge Logic: How could Reverend Lowe have known that Stella Randolph was pregnant? Or that she was planning on committing suicide?
  • Fridge Brilliance: He found out later, and was using it to justify his actions.
    • Or it could simply be that she told Reverend Lowe while looking for some spiritual guidance.
    • Perhaps the confessional gave Lowe a fresh selection of victims, struggling with alcoholism or suicidal thoughts, that he could target without attracting the suspicion of the authorities.
• Genius Bonus: Anyone familiar with werewolf legendry will realize that the Revealing Injury that exposes Lowe is not the first time such a beast has been exposed in this manner. There is also the ancient legend of Michel Verdun.
• Heartwarming Moments: Marty giving Jane money for new pantyhose after hers gets ruined by his and Brady's prank, and the two apologizing to each other.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Gary Busey and Everett McGill both appearing in this movie is interesting, considering both actors would go on to play The Dragon facing off against Steven Seagal as Casey Ryback in the Under Siege films (Busey, who plays Uncle Red, would later play Commander Krill in Under Siege, while McGill, who plays Reverend Lowe, would later play Marcus Penn in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory).
  • One of the hunters who goes to hunt for the werewolf looks and sounds like an elderly Eric Cartman.
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood features two major references to this film - namely the pack setting up shop in a place called Tarker's Mills and featuring a one eyed werewolf - that wears an eye patch.
• Jerk Ass Woobie: If you subscribe to the theory that the man behind the werewolf is more the victim of a curse than a murderous self-righteous hypocrite, then Reverend Lowe will come across as this. If we're to go by what the book said about his backstory, he had no say in becoming a werewolf and it was even shown in the movie how he hated the curse and considered it a nightmare. Even when he made the conscious attempt to try to murder Marty in his human form, it can even be argued then that after losing his eye, he was pretty much driven off the deep end anyways. So depending on how sympathetic you find him, Lowe finally getting shot and killed at the end can pretty much be considered a mercy kill at that point.
• Narm: Herb Kincaid's way, way over the top delivery of lines like "My son was TORN TO PIECES!!!" aims for heartbreaking but lands on unintentionally hilarious.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • The dream sequence where churchgoers transform into werewolves could be frightening, but when one of the werewolves starts banging away on the piano it veers into silliness.
  • The main werewolf itself can be partly considered this. It looks good in bits and pieces, but it's not the most convincing werewolf in a werewolf movie at all for the most part. Still doesn't make the movie any less creepy than it already is.
  • The effects themselves are actually pretty good. However, the werewolf design incorporates just the right bits and pieces of human and wolf anatomy to look far more like an angry furry than a bloodthirsty man-beast.
    • Brandon Tenold describes the werewolf as looking more like a were-wombat.
• Signature Line:
  Uncle Red: I'm a little too old to be playing The Hardy Boys meet Reverend Werewolf.
  Aspinall: It's under the fog. It's right here with us.
• Signature Scene: Marty being attacked on the bridge and shooting out the werewolf's eye.

• Special Effects Failure:
  • When the group of hunters in the woods is attacked by the werewolf, one of the attacked hunters is very obviously replaced with a goofy-looking rubber dummy.
  • The werewolf face in general has been described by some as looking more like a stuffed bear head. Rather amusingly, the werewolf effects were done in part with the creative team behind Teddy Ruxpin (who handled the furring of the wolf costume for creators Carlo Rambaldi and Michael McCracken, Jr.).
• Squick: The scenes of Reverend Lowe transforming into (and back from) the werewolf, complete with sound effects. Yeeuck.
• Values Resonance: Alcoholic he may be, but Uncle Red's views on Marty's disability (that he shouldn't be treated differently because of said disability) matches the views of many people with disabilities to this day.
• Values Dissonance: In the film, the father of Marty's love interest really hates Marty, makes a remark about how he's a "damn cripple" who'd end up on welfare and says if it were up to him, he'd personally electrocute every disabled person. While this attitude is clearly not supposed to be sympathetic within the film itself (notably, he shares a name with an abusive jackass from the original novel that the narrator condemns as "first-class grade-A shit"), where Marty is a bright kid whose wheelchair doesn't limit him that much, this kind of casual and vicious ableism makes the character look even worse than originally intended.