Movie Review: Teen Wolf (1985)

Genre: Creature Comedy 

Director: Rod Daniel  

Starring: Michael J. Fox  

Running Time: 91 minutes  

Synopsis: High schooler Scott (Michael J. Fox) is noticing some uncomfortable changes in his body. An average basketball player on the school's lousy team, he ignores the attention of girl-next-door Boof and pursues the more glamorous Pamela, although she already has a boyfriend. When Scott discovers that he can transform into a werewolf, his father explains that this is a family legacy. Scott-as-a-wolf is an awesome basketball player, and his team becomes dominant, but fame and popularity come at a price.

What Works Well: Michael J. Fox brings a winning personality to the central role, and rides the hairy ups and downs with natural appeal. The school society's easy acceptance of a werewolf in their midst provides a cool undercurrent, while Coach Finstock (Jay Tarses) maximizes the impact of his few scenes by mastering low-energy comic irreverence. 

What Does Not Work As Well: This defanged extrapolation of An American Werewolf In London and Michael Jackson's Thriller leverages the popularity of werewolves at the lowest possible budget. Here the creatures are reduced to a bad mask and a bit of fur on the hands, and they otherwise go about their business like everyone else. Director Rod Daniel has one surfing-on-top-of-a-van trick up his sleeve, and deploys it twice, to the same music. The "be yourself" theme is handled with the subtlety of incessant howling at the moon, while the antics of Scott's friend Stiles are sometimes funny but ultimately irrelevant and occupy excessive time and space.

Key Quote:

Coach Finstock: There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.

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