Teen Wolf (1985)

Teen Wolf is really one of the cheesiest horror comedies of it's day, and sometimes, that cheesiness factor depreciates the enjoyability factor. I think it's winds up being a love it or hate it movie. I'm still mixed about it, loving some of the characters (smart ass styles), a few of the sequences (werewolf transformation at unexpected moments), and a bit of the music. But Michael J. Fox turns his character, Scott Howard, into the epitome of hopeless nerd (though not looking like one), even though he's more of just a quiet kid who's not popular or anything like that, and that, for me, makes the movie often difficult to appreciate, despite the little goodies scattered throughout.

Scott Howard has an identity crisis. Uh...he's a werewolf. Howl at the moon, scratch behind his ears. The whole bit, thanks to werewolves being a long part of his family lineage. For a kid like Scott Howard, high schooler who's a fairly poor basketball player and super shy around the girls, this is bad news. His self-esteem is shot altoghether, especially when his inner wolf makes an appearance in a big way...during a game on the basketball court.

But, maybe being a teen wolf isn't so bad afterall because with the fur and fangs, Scott has also developed something of an alter ego, allowing him to do things he couldn't as just plain Scott Howard. Now, he's an individual. And with that, he's popular, he can play basketball, he can breakdance, he gets good grades, and he can even surf on top of a moving vehicle without falling off. Scott Howard seems to have it all.

But Boof (Susan Ursitti), Scott's closest friend and the girl who really likes Scott (more than his superficial infatuation with the popular girl Pamela Wells (Lori Griffin), encourages Scott to get rid of the wolf image. It was fun for a while, but what she admired was the real Scott. This being in part a romantic comedy, Scott will soon realize that Booth is really the girl for him, and being the wolf is turning him into something he's not, or at least not something he's proven that he could do on his own. As many of these films always teach the viewers, Scott's got to learn to gain some self-confidence in himself is he's ever going to expect to do things the teen wolf Scott can do (only without being a wolf). In other words, he'd probably be able to do just what teen wolf could do, if he could only muster up the guts to try hard enough. And Boof is just the proper guidance he needs to realize that.

Teen Wolf...too bad it was so damned sentimental. If Scott wasn't so horribly nerdy and uptight, then the characters could've had a little fun with the story, maybe even using some stupid humor. Heck, for a theme repeated so many times, you've got to be creative. One of the few treats in the movie, however, is Jerry Livine as Scott's friend Stiles who finds Scott's wolf dilemma to be an excellent money making opportunity. Stiles is always a guy who's looking for a good time, anyways. And hell, this is also one of Matt Adler's earliest appearances as Louis, Scott's timid friend. The music is kind of good too, for 80s dance and rock.

Unfortunately, they even made a sequel to this dumb movie.