It is important to put this type of film in context; you see, "teen" movies really didn't exist before the 1950s. Rebel Without a Cause was one of the first films about the teenage experience and angst specifically for teenagers. Rebel was a huge success and it holds up well even today; the acting is subtle, and the problems are realistic. Suburban anger, car racing, school violence - Rebel Without a Cause spoke to many about the 1950's teen experience. I'm not exaggerating when I call it a teen-film masterpiece.
Trying to get into this new teen-themed market, Sunset Productions released several teen-themed films, including a film about a similar rebellious James-Deen-esque boy, this time starring future Bonanza star Michael Landon. However I Was a Teenage Werewolf is no Rebel Without a Cause.
God, where do I start? First of all, there is no question that I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a B-movie. No splashy technicolor for this film; not only is the film in black and white, but the low quality of the footage makes it look more like a classroom PSA than a feature film. In fact, that's what most of the acting most resembles too.
The movie begins where most PSA's do: at school. Landon's character, Tony, and another "teen" (who looks like he's in his twenties) are in a fight. Because in the 1950s they clearly had nothing to do other than intervene in schoolyard scraps, the police come and break it up. A detective takes Tony aside and tries to talk to him about his anger problem. Tony just scowls moodily and mutters: "Well, people bug me." To which the detective gives the most 1950's response possible: "That's right, hide behind jive talk: 'People bug ya.'"
Jive talk? JIVE TALK?! The fact that the comment is so bizarre and semi-racist is only matched by the fact that saying someone "bugs" you is so commonplace nowadays that it is bizarre to think that would ever be seen as "edgy" or "hip."
It soon becomes clear that Tony has a problem with his anger. There is no examination or explanation as to why; the anger problem just "is." This could be an interesting parallel or connection between the idea of "animal instincts" and the fact that Tony is sure to be our werewolf by the end of the movie. But no, the movie doesn't go that route. Instead, it gives us a terrible and completely unconnected to anything else in the film musical scene:
I just... what? What did I just watch? What does this have to do with werewolves? And no, there are no other musical numbers in the film. It is just this one, inexplicably bad song.
Oh, by the way, the one blond girl is in a clown costume because it is Halloween. This also could make a great connection to the werewolf story-line: black magic, full moons, the witching hour. But no, the movie doesn't do that either.
Instead, after about forty minutes of watching Tony bum around with his friends and get angry at people, he finally agrees to go to a "doctor" for his problem. The doctor says he is going to use hypnosis and a sedative to supposedly cure Tony of his anger. However, it turns out he is actually going to turn Tony into a werewolf. Uh, why? Because science. That's why.
Shockingly, Tony turning into a werewolf is actually where the movie becomes more boring, which is almost impressive given how bored I was with the film's first half. However, it seems that wondering how the werewolf is going to be integrated is more entertaining than actually seeing the werewolf. What's especially odd is how they don't follow werewolf lore at all. First of all, Tony doesn't turn into a wolf under the full moon, but instead based on a ringing bell noise (connected to the hypnotism). This allows him to change during the day, which was clearly necessary because any night shots in this film are horrendously awful and fake looking.
So, yes, a bell rings in the school gym, and Tony turns into a werewolf and attacks a gymnast who is practicing on the balance beam. We get our first main look of the wolf-Tony in this scene, and he appears upside-down because that is how the gymnast sees him. That actually is pretty clever, but the silliness of the wolf make-up ruins the effect a bit.
From then on, everyone is on the hunt for wolf-Tony. The scenes of the police trying to chase the wolf down are by far the worst shot in the whole film, making it painful to watch rather than "suspenseful." This is especially unfortunate because this "hunting" scene goes on forever and is a good chunk of the film's final arc.
One bizarre detail is that the film takes the time to have the janitor of the police station be a gypsy (a nod back to The Wolf Man and similar stories, maybe?) and tell one officer about the myth of the werewolf. However, this janitor only appears in that one scene and never returns. And everything he says is actually useless because, as previously mentioned, Tony was changed through a science-fiction-style serum and hypnosis, not magic and thus doesn't even seem to follow werewolf "rules" or lore at all. It is a bizarre scene and just one of many red herrings that seem to (wrongly) suggest where the film is going.
So, Tony eventually changes back into a human and rushes over to his doctor's office to see what is happening to him. Here, we actually do get some decent acting from Michael Landon. However, it is not enough to actually make Tony seem like an actual round character with an arc. Not even close.
In his haste to document his "amazing discovery," the werewolf transformation is triggered again and Tony "rampages" in a way that is supposed to seem like an out of control animal (as opposed to a young man flailing around in make-up, which is what it actually is and looks like). The police arrive for no reason that seems to make sense and Tony is shot dead, the only way a werewolf movie like this can end.
Then the detective, who gave Tony advice at the film's beginning, stands over the body dramatically. "Oh!" I remember thinking. "This is it! This is where they make the dramatic statement which tells us the meaning of the movie!" Would they reach back to the beginning of Tony's story and talk about his anger? Would they mention teens being out of control? Would they mention how 'strange' things get around Halloween? Or how teens need to watch out for people trying to take advantage of them? Any of those would make sense with the film's disjointed plot.
Instead, the policeman shakes his head and says that, after the media tells the story of what happened, "One thing will be clear; it's not for man to interfere in the ways of God."
But that wasn't mentioned hardly at all in the movie! What was the point of the entire beginning of the film, then, and worrying about Tony's anger issues? Why did we have to take time to get to know his friends? Why have the musical number? Heck, why focus on the teens at all if the "lesson" was about the doctor trying to be God? Isn't that just the moral of Frankenstein anyway?
This film is terrible, and not even quite in the way where it is so bad that it becomes good again. It is important in that it started the "teen monster" genre, but I'm not sure if that's something we should really applaud it for. If you want to watch a classic, black and white werewolf film, stick with The Wolf Man. Even for laughs, this film really isn't worth it.
Rating: 1 out of 5 bites
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