A teenager transforms into a werewolf and finds himself forced to live as a high schooler eternally.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Larry Cohen
Starring: Adam Arkin, Alan Arkin, Ed McMahon, Roz Kelly, Joanne Nail, Pat Morita
With the likes of An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Silver Bullet, Teen Wolf, TV's Werewolf and Michael Jackson's Thriller promo, the werewolf was the monster du jour of the 1980s. Less remembered is writer/director Larry Cohen's 1981 comedy Full Moon High, which possibly suffered from being released too early in the '80s werewolf craze. Had it come out a few years later, like Teen Wolf, audiences might have been more in tune with its distinctive send-up of monster movies.
Cohen's film mocks the 1950s b-movies of his youth, with I Was a Teenage Werewolf the most obvious inspiration. Adam Arkin plays Tony, a high school jock who becomes a teenage werewolf after being bitten by such a creature while accompanying his secret agent father (Ed McMahon) on a spying mission in Romania in the early 1960s. Before he gets into mocking monster movies, Cohen delivers a spoof of Cold War thrillers that predates the spy-jinks of the more successful 1984 spoof Top Secret!.
Then it's into full-on b-movie pastiche as Tony returns to suburban America and finds himself transforming into a werewolf with every full moon. After embarking on a "nibbling" spree, Tony decides he must get away from his hometown before he is caught. Borrowing from the vampire myth, Cohen has his werewolf cursed with immortality, meaning Tony remains a teenager forever. 20 years later he returns to his home town and re-enrols in his high school, hoping to finally lead the school's football team to victory against their local arch rivals.
It's probably not a coincidence that 1985's Teen Wolf also features a subplot about its young werewolf using his physical skills to excel at sport (basketball in that case). While he liked to jump on trends, Cohen's films often felt ahead of their time. Full Moon High simultaneously plays like a movie that would have felt dated in 1981 with its mid-century b-movie references and dad jokes, but it also features some Thriller-esque werewolf dancing. In its over the top portrayal of teen delinquency and high schools turned into warzones, it pre-empts the '80s wave of Blackboard-Jungle-on-coke exploitation thrillers like Savage Streets and Class of 1984. From a commercial point of view, Cohen's problem here was that he was mocking a cliché that had yet to actually become a cliché.
The jokes are very much of the "take my wife...please" Catskills variety, but some of them are so silly that you can't help but laugh. Johnny Carson's sidekick McMahon is the perfect vessel to deliver Cohen's cringeworthy one-liners as Tony's macho dad. Arkin makes for a charismatic lead and sells the distinctive tone Cohen is aiming for, and had the movie been a hit you imagine he might have had a bigger career. Arkin's dad Adam pops up late on as a cynical psychiatrist, and Cohen employs his brand of sardonic wit to good effect. Margot Robbie lookalike Joanne Nail is adorably goofy as Tony's love interest.
At a certain point the gags start to fade like a werewolf's fur retreating back into flesh the morning after a full moon. The final act is almost laugh free as Cohen tries to wrap everything up and gets too caught up in his plot rather than continuing with the silliness. With the It's Alive series, Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff and The Ambulance, Cohen successfully blended comedy with genre thrills. Full Moon High sees Cohen lean too much into comedy, neglecting the horror element. As John Landis proved the same year, it's possible to make a werewolf movie that's simultaneously funny and scary, but Full Moon High has no interest in the latter, likely the main reason it has failed to develop the cult following of other werewolf movies of its era.
Full Moon High is on UK bluray from October 19th from Eureka Entertainment.