Teen Wolf (1985)

TEEN WOLF

TEEN WOLF (1985) Three stars

During the review of SILVER BULLET, TEEN WOLF came to mind and then I looked up a rather negative review I wrote 10 years ago.

A decade later, I recommend TEEN WOLF for the very things I once mocked. Here’s the original two-star review (with only small edits):

“TEEN WOLF almost succeeds in spite of itself and I do mean in spite of itself.

“The film stockpiles a nuclear arsenal of cliches. Next time I see Kim Jong-Il I will ask him what he thinks of the film, in between our usual rap session ‘bout FRIDAY THE 13TH films. Let’s see, I’ll have to make a list otherwise my brain will explode and that cannot happen before Finals Week, let alone Dead Week.

“I’ll briefly mention 1) the Nebraska small town setting; 2) the loving, single widower and his teenage son protagonist on their own; 3) the teenage son protagonist feels he’s doomed to an eternity of being “average” until he finds out that he can be a teenage werewolf just like Michael Landon and the Cramps song before him; 4) the protagonist’s hipster and profiteer best friend; 5) the “fat guy” fifth wheel nicknamed, oh you’ll love this one, “Chubby”; 6) The Blonde = Bad Girl and The Brunette = Good Girl formula; 7)the protagonist lusts after the Blonde, actually succeeds in sleeping with the Blonde as the Wolf, and ends up realizing his undying love for the Brunette in the final act though she prefers “average” Scott Howard over the Wolf; 8) the Blonde’s Evil Overlord of Brooding Hot Shot boyfriend and the protagonist’s eternal foil; 9) the Evil Principal; 10) the wise guy head basketball coach who spits out incantations of advice rejected by Fortune 500 fortune cookie companies; 11) the scene where the protagonist faces down a wily old liquor store veteran who’s heard every scam ever to purchase some alcoholic contraband for a monster party; 12) The Monster Party; 13) The Big High School Dance; and I believe I’m done after this one, 14) The Big Game. Sorry, I apologize in advance for missing a few there.

“Once we grant the film’s central premise, that werewolf genes run down a family’s genetic line, which sounds too much like TWILIGHT for its own good before Taylor Lautner was even born, what’s wrong with a few generic movie standards? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except for when taken in tandem our friendly standards make for a generic motion picture spread. TEEN WOLF almost set the cliche land speed record.

“Michael J. Fox makes for a likable, charismatic protagonist and his energetic movie star performance lets us live through standard, predictable material. He enlists us on his side, whether he’s average small town boy lined up to inherit his father’s small town hardware store, Scott Howard, or his alter ego, ultra-cool and ultra-hip and dazzling slam dunker “The Wolf.” Fox essentially plays the Lon Chaney existential dread film werewolf crossed with John Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (at least for the big dance sequence and the big preparation for the dance sequence) and Julius Erving, as well as having issues with anger management and teenage angst.

“Do teen wolves get pimples? TEEN WOLF fails to address several burning questions. Especially not a PG-rated TEEN WOLF. Fox plays these scenes ‘bout as good as any actor possibly can and we stomach him through every predictable change like, for example, how Scott Howard transforms himself into above average when he’s the Wolf: He can dance, he can act, he can surf on slow-moving customized Wolf vans, and he can play mean basketball. Scott Howard eventually turns his back on ‘Wolf Mania’ and decides to be himself for The Big Game.

“James Hampton must have enjoyed playing a humble, sagely teenage protagonist’s old man in TEEN WOLF, considering his past as evil public relations man in THE CHINA SYNDROME and his future as evil federal regulatory agency man in PUMP UP THE VOLUME. Susan Ursitti breathes some fire into her standard issue role as the Brunette / Good Girl and this is both good and bad, good because it makes our lives relatively less boring and bad ‘cause we get even more frustrated by the wait for the inevitable dramatic (overdue) realization made by the protagonist that she’s meant for him, forever. The Bad Girl and her maligned Evil Overlord of Brooding Hot Shit boyfriend are the only characters who fail to entertain us, interest us, et cetera. They’re not very good performers and it’s painful waiting for their inevitable downfalls.

“Surely Teen Wolf’s impressive slam dunk artistry did not inspire Spud Webb, the 5’7” Atlanta Hawks point guard who prevailed in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest at the 1986 NBA All-Star Weekend in Dallas, besting his own Atlanta Hawks teammate, Dominique Wilkins. Michael J. Fox, why he’s short and he’s Canadian, two proverbial strikes against him, so naturally it takes a stunt double werewolf for him to slam dunk. I would have thought a werewolf’s claws would have made playing basketball like a proverbial artiste virtually impossible. Anything goes, in the movies.

“Hey wait, lovely lads and lovely ladies, I recollect another standard trotted out by TEEN WOLF. The montage. The “Winning Streak” Montage. The Car Surfing Montage. The Big High School Dance Montage. The Big Game Montage. Hyperkinetic action scored by a hyperkinetic rock song. For the big dance montage, we get a bad theme song namedropping “The Big Bad Wolf.” It’s an unwritten rule that any 1980s movie referencing itself in song, like PROM NIGHT and BETTER OFF DEAD, will turn out crap. When in doubt, filmmakers, yes, bring on a montage of hyperkinetic action (basketball, dancing, violence) scored by hyperkinetic rock music. TEEN WOLF competes with THE HEAVENLY KID and OVER THE TOP for montage land speed record. I bet the composers do not put TEEN WOLF down on their permanent record.

“Oh, now I remember a couple more standard tricks exploited by TEEN WOLF. Slow motion. BONNIE AND CLYDE and THE WILD BUNCH used slow motion to brilliant effect, as did early Bruce Lee karate films, but lesser films like BLACK BELT JONES made slow motion passé, not to mention its overuse on sports television. Want to see Teen Wolf slam dunk for what feels like the hundredth billionth time? Watch TEEN WOLF! Want to see “average” Scott Howard’s lay-up that barely makes it around the cup and in? Watch TEEN WOLF!

“Now, here we have a standard within a standard: late in the game, Scott Howard gets clotheslined on a final shot layup attempt by his eternal foil (at least for 90 minutes eternity) and his team, the Beavers, are down by one point and two made free throws will naturally win The Big Game for the Beavers.

“Howard steps to the free throw line … his eternal foil stares him down … he makes the first one, smoothly … the second free throw … it’s released … it’s looking good … it’s SLOW MOTION … slower and slower … oh no! … it hits the back of the rim … slower and slower and even slower motion … it touches almost every corner of the rim … and it finally rolls in … reaction shots galore … NO MORE SLOW MOTION … and the crowd storms the court in celebration of either the end of the Big Game, the end of the movie, the end of shooting the movie, or all three simultaneously. I’ll bet on all three ‘cause I know they were solid pros.

“Rod Daniel, oh what a director, this here Rod Daniel. TEEN WOLF perhaps represents the peak of Rod Daniel’s cinematic directorial career, TEEN WOLF up against the Dudley Moore-Kirk Cameron body switch masterpiece of dreck cinema LIKE FATHER LIKE SON and the BEETHOVEN sequel. I favor a slam-dunking, breakdancing Teen Wolf over a born again Kirk Cameron (Jesus couldn’t save Kirk Cameron’s acting) and Charles Grodin overshadowed by a dog. At least, Daniel had the decency not to direct TEEN WOLF TOO. On this or any other job, you win some, you lose some.”

Not sure what came over me when I wrote that review 10 years ago, especially since I have enjoyed TEEN WOLF many times over the years. A lot of the success of TEEN WOLF has to do with Michael J. Fox at the center. After all, with Jason Bateman in the title role instead, TEEN WOLF TOO proved to be a disaster, although that’s partly because TEEN WOLF did not require a sequel.

Silver Bullet (1985)

SILVER BULLET (1985) Two stars

“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.”

— Spinal Tap lead singer David St. Hubbins

That’s one way to describe the Stephen King adaptation SILVER BULLET, which has left viewers from day one debating whether or not the film makers were intentionally parodying Stephen King and werewolf movies by making so many individual details ridiculous.

Many reviewers just considered SILVER BULLET to be laughably bad and not in the good way, hot on the entrails of previous laughably bad King adaptations CUJO and CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

Watching SILVER BULLET for the first time in many, many years, I must admit the internal split and acknowledge the fine line between stupid and clever.

Let us consider:

— We have a narrator (Broadway standout Tovah Feldshuh) who sounds like an old woman, although it’s only nine years after the main events depicted in the film when she was 15 years old. Feldshuh’s even listed as playing “Older Jane.”

— Gary Busey plays Uncle Red, a womanizing drunkard who dotes on paralyzed prepubescent protagonist Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim), Jane’s younger brother, and makes the boy customized wheelchairs called “The Silver Bullet.” I remembered the second wheelchair most from previous viewings of the film when I was roughly the same age as Marty.

— That second wheelchair, oh wow, just let me tell you that you’ve not enjoyed a complete moviegoing life until you’ve seen the scene where our priest / werewolf (Everett McGill) stalks Marty and his souped-up “Silver Bullet” in broad daylight. Marty’s second great escape is even greater than his first.

— Uncle Red should have pursued a career in wheelchair manufacturing.

— This review gives away the identity of the werewolf. Big deal. The movie tips off the identity almost immediately, but, of course, in a movie like SILVER BULLET, the townspeople are nincompoops and it takes young ones like Marty and Jane to figure out the truth. Those nincompoops are on an epic scale of nincompoop. I mean, it’s tipped off so obviously that “WEREWOLF” should have flashed on the screen below the character. They all should have died.

— The nincompoops form a “Citizens Action Brigade” in the first 30 minutes … after four killings. They load up on guns, load up into trucks, head out into the woods, step into traps, et cetera. Two nincompoops produce one of the great dialogue exchanges from the Planet X. …

Maggie Andrews: What’s the matter, Bobby? You gonna make lemonade in your pants?

Bobby Robertson: I ain’t scared!

— The werewolf resembles a black bear. After the technological advances made in the werewolf movie just four years earlier by THE HOWLING and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, SILVER BULLET set the species back years.

If they remade SILVER BULLET today, would the original be called a “classic”? Undoubtedly yes, of course, because every old movie remade automatically becomes “classic.” We’ve heard that incessantly about the 1989 PET SEMATARY, for example.

SILVER BULLET, like PET SEMATARY, is not a classic by any definition — “Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind” or “A work of art of recognized and established value.”

For crying out loud, TEEN WOLF — released a couple months before SILVER BULLET — stands up better.

Leprechaun (1993)

LEPRECHAUN (1993) One star
“Just turn off your brain and enjoy the movie.”

Sure everyone’s heard that argument before in their lives when you have the sheer audacity not to enjoy a movie that somebody else holds dear. You think it’s dumb, stupid, idiotic, a waste of precious time, et cetera, and you think, hey, wait, how can you possibly enjoy anything by turning off your brain. I found this priceless bit of information on the Internets, “You may have heard that the brain has a pleasure center that lets us know when something is enjoyable and reinforces the desire for us to perform the same pleasurable action again. This is also called the reward circuit, which includes all kinds of pleasure, from sex to laughter to certain types of drug use.”

This train of thought occurred during LEPRECHAUN, a “brainless” film that left my reward circuit rather unrewarded and so my brain traveled elsewhere. I wanted to enjoy the movie, but it was a 92-minute slog that indulged thoughts like, for example, why did I not just watch the far superior KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE again or, after seeing Mark Holton in the role of Ozzie in LEPRECHAUN, maybe I should have looked up TEEN WOLF instead, films that reward my reward circuit because they’re not dumb, stupid, idiotic, wastes of precious time. (Are you glad that you bought that LEPRECHAUN box set for cheap at Walmart in Grove, Oklahoma, boy genius? How are you going to get through that series, especially since you rarely drink anymore?)

“Leprechaun brainless” entered into Google returned 22,700 results and you guessed it, “Just turn off your brain and enjoy the movie” receives airing in the defense of director Mark Jones’ magnum opus. In fact, the first search result calls LEPRECHAUN “a hilariously bad horror movie” and features the line “It ain’t the greatest, but it’s good for brainless entertainment.”

The Cheat Sheet calls LEPRECHAUN the sixth funniest B-movie of all time — TROLL 2 and TOXIC AVENGER top the list and other gems in the top 25 include No. 8 KILLER KLOWNS, No. 9 PIRANHA, and No. 22 PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The Cheat Sheet illustrates the case for LEPRECHAUN with a still from LEPRECHAUN 3 captioned as being from the first LEPRECHAUN.

The only laughs that LEPRECHAUN generated from me are what one might call bad laughs.

What’s a bad laugh?

It’s the experience of the following dialogue exchange, for example, from the Luciano Pavarotti bad laugh masterpiece, YES, GIORGIO (1982).

Giorgio Fini: Pamela, you are a thirsty plant. Fini can water you.

Pamela: I don’t want to be watered on by Fini.

Or the disclaimer at the end of Irvin Allen’s THE SWARM: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hardworking American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.”

Or finding both the killer doll in CHILD’S PLAY and the killer leprechaun in LEPRECHAUN laughable in a bad way.

Did I mention that LEPRECHAUN runs 92 minutes?

Why, oh dear Lord why.

It runs those 92 minutes at a snail’s pace. No, make that at the pace of a three-toed sloth, a mammal that averages a distance of only 0.15 miles per hour.

LEPRECHAUN feels like it moves 15 minutes per hour, so we’ve just seen GONE WITH THE WIND rather than LEPRECHAUN. Ha!

For example, there’s a sequence where the leprechaun kills a police officer that makes five minutes feel like forever.

And that just about describes LEPRECHAUN.

Barring her uncredited role as “Dancer in McDonald’s” in another epic cinematic train wreck known as MAC AND ME (1988), Tory Reding was Jennifer Aniston’s first feature film role. You might have missed her as Ferris Bueller’s sister in 13 episodes of “Ferris Bueller” (TV).

Apparently, Aniston, who’s been in her fair share of bad movies outside her 1999 duo of OFFICE SPACE and THE IRON GIANT (voice work), feels more than a wee bit embarrassed by LEPRECHAUN. I can totally sympathize with her.

LEPRECHAUN is neither good enough nor bad enough to be any good.