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4.7/10
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A popular high school football player becomes a werewolf after a trip to Romania, and struggles to come to terms with his new reality.A popular high school football player becomes a werewolf after a trip to Romania, and struggles to come to terms with his new reality.A popular high school football player becomes a werewolf after a trip to Romania, and struggles to come to terms with his new reality.
- Director
- Writer
- Stars
Jim J. Bullock
- Eddie
- (as Jm. Bullock)
Laurene Landon
- Blondie
- (as Laureen Landon)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
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Silly movie is really, really funny. Yes, it's got its dead moments, it can be a bit too obvious, it declines a bit in the second half and the story is an incoherent mess, but it's laugh out loud funny all the way. And it's worth seeing just for Ed McMahon as a right wing kook. This movie is in the same class as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, another incredibly funny, underappreciated film.
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.
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.
6tavm
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.
Man, was I disappointed.
1) Adam Arkin is more whiny than Ross Geller from 'Friends'
2) A great cast is wasted (Kenneth Mars, Alan Arkin, Ed McMahon, Pat Morita, Louis Nye) with this amateurish script.
3) The movie suffers from horrible pacing. It jumps around through in a jumbled, confusing manner.
4) The story doesn't even make sense. Why does he want to break the football streak? What about the stupid violin music? None of it is explained.
5) It's not even funny. It's like a bunch of accountants trying to do improv, saying "Lookit me! Lookit me I'm being funny!" This was a bad attempt at making another "Love At First Bite".
I like Larry Cohen movies, but man he failed here. I couldn't wait for the credits to roll. Horribly disappointed.
1) Adam Arkin is more whiny than Ross Geller from 'Friends'
2) A great cast is wasted (Kenneth Mars, Alan Arkin, Ed McMahon, Pat Morita, Louis Nye) with this amateurish script.
3) The movie suffers from horrible pacing. It jumps around through in a jumbled, confusing manner.
4) The story doesn't even make sense. Why does he want to break the football streak? What about the stupid violin music? None of it is explained.
5) It's not even funny. It's like a bunch of accountants trying to do improv, saying "Lookit me! Lookit me I'm being funny!" This was a bad attempt at making another "Love At First Bite".
I like Larry Cohen movies, but man he failed here. I couldn't wait for the credits to roll. Horribly disappointed.
Did you know
- TriviaThe werewolf make-up special effects were done by Steve Neill who had been a protégé of Rick Baker who did the make-up on the same 1981 year's Le Loup-garou de Londres (1981).
- GoofsWhen the kid is visiting his fathers grave at the cemetery the head stones side changes from a rough rocky surface to a smooth sharply cut one. It changes from a real head stone to a fake one when the father's name is shown.
- Quotes
Miss Montgomery: Come back you premature ejaculator!
- ConnectionsFeatured in Troldspejlet: Troldspejlet Special: Ulvehyl ved fuldmåne (1992)
- SoundtracksWhen the Sun Goes Down
by Janelle Webb (as Janelle Webb Cohen) and Gary William Friedman
Vocal by Shezwae Powell
- How long is Full Moon High?Powered by Alexa
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- Ein Werwolf beißt sich durch
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