After a traumatic encounter with a serial killer, TV presenter Karen White takes a career break and checks into The Colony, a rest centre, where she is pursued by nightmares about him. On a night of the full moon, the killer reappears and attacks the rest home.

Sandwiched between Piranha and Gremlins, Joe Dante, a cineaste adept at filming in a Roger Corman commando mode, reinvigorates the classic werewolf myth. No need for silver bullets or nocturnal transformations, Dante’s werewolves attack in packs and can morph in plain daylight whenever the urge strikes. Shortly before the release of John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, Dante had already made his own mark on the werewolf film, thanks to the spectacular low-budget transformations by special effects genius Rick Baker, and to his denunciation of the media society’s rampant voyeurism.