Director: Larry Cohen
Script: Larry Cohen
Cast: Adam Arkin, Ed McMahon, Roz Kelly, Joanne Naid, Bill Kirchenbaur, Elizabeth Hartman, Louis Nye, Kenneth Mars, Alan Arkin
Running time: 95 minutes
Year: 1981
Certificate: 15
Four years prior to the release of Teen Wolf, and released in the same year as werewolf classics An American Werewolf in London and The Howling, Larry Cohen wrote and directed this goofball homage to 1950s teen horrors such as I am a Teenage Werewolf / Frankenstein. Cohen is probably best known for his other genre films such as It’s Alive, Q; the winged serpent, The Stuff, The Ambulance and God Told Me To.
Unlike the above films, Full Moon High revels in its high camp tone and Airplane – lite humour and is, therefore, something of an acquired taste. Unfortunately, it’s neither scary nor particularly funny, although it certainly tries very hard to extract its laughs.
Our anti-hero is Tony Walker (Adam Arkin), a typical 1950s high-school kid, although he looks like he’s pushing thirty. He’s a star player on the football pitch and is popular with the ladies and guys alike. Unfortunately, his mother is out-of-the-picture so he’s living with his right-wing, CIA agent and playboy dad, played with gusto by Ed McMahon. When Tony’s dad insists that his son accompany him on a business trip to Romania, Tony finds himself the victim of an animal attack, although he quickly discovers that he was actually lucky to survive the attack as the creature in question was actually a werewolf. He’s informed by a strange lady in the hotel restaurant that he’s now cursed with immortality and will change into a beast every full moon, hence he’s not to make any appointments during that monthly cycle…
Back in America, Tony inadvertently is responsible for his father’s death, so goes on the run for over twenty years, visiting lots of different countries, including China and the United Kingdom. When he finally returns to his hometown, he discovers that so much has changed, except for his burning desire to put his old high school, Full Moon High, onto the football map. So, with that goal in mind, he pretends to be his own son, and enrols at his old school to try and make his school football team great again. He initially struggles to fit in, although his previous girlfriend, now 20 years older than him, and now married to one of his friends, still keeps hitting on him.
Full Moon High gets 100 per cent for effort, but considerably less for actual delivery. The film has some really interesting ideas, as one might expect from Larry Cohen, but doesn’t really make the most of them. For example, the immortality angle is a wonderfully rich idea, and should have been more thoroughly utilised. Highlander later went on to exploit this element to the hilt, in more ways than one, but Full Moon High does little to mine this rich source of pathos and human angst. Sadly, Cohen is too busy throwing tons of gags up on the screen, hoping that at least a few will stick, probably in the hope that the audience will be too busy chuckling to notice the weak plot, and groan-inducing dialogue.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some amusing lines and sequences, but like much of Cohen’s friend Mel Brooks’s oeuvre more of the gags slide than stick. When accused of being a killer, Tony reveals that he’s “more of a nibbler – I’ve never killed anyone’, a statement backed up by a couple of scenes where his victims complain about sore bottoms, which he’s obviously targeted during his rampages. My favourite lines include Tony moaning about the pain of his changes as being ‘worse than root-canal surgery’ and his dad commenting on his hairy form, stating – ‘that’s the worst 5 O’Clock shadow I’ve ever seen…’ I also liked some of the corny newspaper headlines relating to the werewolf attacks, such as WEREWOLF ANNOYS COMMUNITY and, in London, where they refer to him as JACK THE NIPPER.
It helps that Adam Arkin is quite charismatic and gets away with lots of cheesy lines, just off the back of his likeable charm. One example being the following exchange between a more recent female admirer and Tony, where she says – ‘You’re really quite a fox, you know’, to which he replies – ‘Not exactly, but you’re close…’
Adam’s real-life dad, Alan, makes a strong impression in a later supporting role as a tough psychiatrist who specialises in ‘tough love’, and who later shoots the werewolf with a silver bullet. Fortunately, Alan Arkin always brings gravitas to whatever role he plays.
Full Moon High spends much of its running time throwing everything into the mix and subsequently parodying various themes, including Cold War paranoia and plane hijacking. However, it’s considerably darker than other comedies that were made around the same time, being much more subversive and anarchic. Although, I’m still not sure what the whole fiddle-playing running joke was all about…
Sadly, the visual effects are pretty basic, especially since they were created by Rick Baker alumnus, Steve Neill. Hence, werewolf fans, like me, don’t even get to appreciate some groovy change sequences. However, the Werewolf of London / Henry Hull inspired make-up kind of works, especially in some of the less well lit sequences.
All in all, it’s not too surprising that Full Moon High is quite an obscure film, but Eureka should be thanked for at least giving us the chance to finally watch this tax shelter anomaly. And, any film that features Pat Morita from the Karate Kid films can’t be all bad.
Extras include –
Audio commentary with Steve Mitchell, director of the 2017 documentary King Cohen – An interesting commentary where Mitchell goes into quite a bit of detail regarding the history of the production company behind the film, namely Filmways Productions, before they were bought out by Orion Pictures. As one would expect he also talks in depth about Cohen’s career and about how his films were received both on and off the grindhouse circuit. I also learned that Pat Morita was originally a stand-up comedian, self-titled as ‘The Hip Nip’, obviously in less PC days.
Archival Audio commentary with director Larry Cohen, moderated by Steve Mitchell – A solid commentary where the director reveals that he was persuaded to go down the comedy route by various actors and crew who regularly worked with him, saying that he was really funny and should try making an out-and-out comedy sometime. He reveals that he turned his own living room in New York into a Romanian hotel room to save money and that the horse that was in the same scene as the initial werewolf attack went berserk and broke one of the cameras. Larry comes across as a very interesting guy and Mitchell proves to be a good foil for his frequent anecdotes.
Today’s Teenage Werewolf – A new interview with film writer Michael Doyle, author of Larry Cohen; The Stuff of Gods and Monsters (25 mins) – Doyle, who has clearly spoken at length in the past with Larry Cohen, is clearly very knowledgeable about the film and its director. Apparently, the inspiration for Full Moon High came to Cohen after the end of his first marriage and he became something of a lothario and therefore wanted to write about some of his experiences as a single young man. He apparently also liked the idea of using a monster that could articulate its feelings and frustrations, which is one of the reasons that he went down the werewolf route. Doyle also shares the sad story of actress Elizabeth Hartman who died a few years after the film was released at the relatively young age of 43.
Growing Pains – A new essay on the history and evolution of the teenage werewolf on film by werewolf expert Kaja Franck, author of ‘The Ecogothic Werewolf in Literature’ (18.5 mins) – A more serious analysis of the film, but still quite interesting with Kaja seeing Full Moon High as an OTT portrayal of youth culture, replete with exaggerated performances, which I’d kind of agree with. She notes that the film is making fun of the paranoia culture of the time, an example being of the school drills, preparing for an atomic bomb strike, which are preposterous now that we more fully understand the nature of atomic warfare. Franck clearly sees Full Moon High as being a stepping stone between I was a Teenage Werewolf from the 1950s and Teen Wolf from the mid-80s.
Original Theatrical trailer (1.39 mins) – A silly, but fun trailer replete with a tagline that informs punters that they’ll have ‘a howl of a good time’ if they go and see the movie.
