Full Moon High

In continuing to review werewolf movies in chronological order, we're still at 1981 with probably the most obscure one yet, one that I didn't even know of its existence till a few weeks ago when I saw it listed on Wikipedia before then finding it on YouTube. It seems to mainly be inspired by the Michal Landon-starred I Was a Teenage Werewolf as Adam Arkin plays a teen named Tony (like Landon) and it takes place during the late '50s (like IWATW) but then moves on through the years (as exemplified by the changing of the presidential portraits though the one after Carter was meant to be a joke) before Tony comes back to his high school of the title to once again play football having not aged during that time. I'll stop there and just say while I was pretty amused much of the time, there were also many places where I wondered if maybe it could have been funnier. I did like the scenes involving Ed McMahon as Tony's father and Adam Arkin's real dad-Alan-as an insulting shrink. Oh, and also the scene involving his new girlfriend and her tying up Tony in bed was also fun in an adult humor kind of way. So on that note, I say give Full Moon High a look.

This horror spoof contains enough corny jokes to last you a lifetime, but is generally harmless and even has a certain schlocky charm. Produced on an obviously low budget and sloppily directed by Larry Cohen, it tries to do for werewolf flicks what "Airplane!" had done for disaster epics the previous year, but it's just too "unpolished" to succeed. (**)

One of those films you can guess the entirety of simply from the title, this disjointed movie from Larry Cohen is definitely one of his lesser films. It's kept watchable through the sheer level of gags on offer (often with lots of sight jokes that are very missable if you're not concentrating) although most of the one-liners are excruciating. A better than average cast do their jobs well even though their characters are limited to doing/saying mainly one thing. Sadly the low budget often shows, with the film cutting away from the action on more than one occasion, and also in the ridiculous werewolf makeup which reaches new lows in tackiness (seemingly a riff on I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF's makeup but with hardly the same impact).

Adam Arkin is the good-natured high school boy who is turned into a werewolf while blundering in Romania. From then on, he turns into a wolf basically every night (bizarre moon cycles then) and is stalked by a mystery violinist who pops up at every occasion and quickly becomes repetitive. His mad father (played hilariously by Ed McMahon) believes that a nuclear bomb will explode at any minute and is ready to take refuge in his bunker. An inordinate number of homosexuals are also present at Full Moon High to admire Arkin, giving plenty of room for lots of jokes and laughs in the men's locker room! The film's highlight undeniably has to be a cameo by Arkin's father, Alan, as a loud-mouthed shrink who attempts to make a man stop from committing suicide by hurling abuse at him! Otherwise, this is strictly business as usual, and pretty cheesy in a bad '80s kind of way, complete with absurd fashions and silly dialogue. With only a few funny bits and a lot of complete nonsense, I would recommend this to nostalgia buffs or Cohen fans only.

A surprising misfire from the usually reliable Larry Cohen (God Told Me Too, Q, etc.), Full Moon High tries so hard to be funny and fails miserably, even with decent turns by Ed McMahon(!) and Kenneth Mars. Alan Arkin looks embarrassed throughout his performance and son Adam simply looks numb. This makes Teen Wolf look like a comedy classic.

Yeah....this movie's bad but here's something you have to realize before watching it (and you probably should have while watching it): it's supposed to be. The thing about this movie I guess is that it seems to only be funny to the right people: a) huge werewolf fans and b)people with a really low-brow sense of humor, and I'm proud to say I'm both. Some of the best jokes in this movie were the worst ones, like some of the newspaper headlines ("Werewolf easts Chinese, hungry again 30 minutes later"...please tell me somebody got the double-meaning) or the Romanian woman who reads palms for entertainment (I read 14 last week, I couldn't put one down til I was finished!)

But if you watch it for no other reason, watch for Bob Saget; this is probably the best god damn thing you'll ever see him in.