Not All Wolves are Bad: Teen Wolf (1985)

Today I thought I'd take a break from all the horror, and jazz up my Halloween with some lighthearted comedy. That called for a viewing of Teen Wolf starring Michael J. Fox. I had literally zero idea of what was in store for me. I've never even seen what Fox looked like as the wolf in this movie. Of course I suspected that the comedy would be set mixed in with a supernatural or spooky feel to it. But I could certainly envision awkward and funny moments arise as he has to duck and hide his affliction and still maintain a teenager's life. With that as my mindset, I hit play. For those who have seen it, you probably know what's coming. I detail my experience on the other side of the jump!


Michael J. Fox plays Scott Howard, a totally average teenager who dreams of being more. The only thing he has going for him is that he's on the high school basketball team. Too bad they suck. But all that is about to change. Scott is going through some changes, like hair growing in in strange places. But when they talked about this in Health class, they never mentioned the fangs and claws! Hey, but at least he can use his new found powers to help his basketball team win the championship.

Basically, everything I ever thought would be in this movie, wasn't. It wasn't spooky, or scary in anyway, and there were very few awkward scenes. Also, the werewolf changes could happen not only at will, but at any time of the day, on any day of the month. The only thing that the moon seemed to have to do with it, was perhaps it triggered his first transformation, but that was never made clear.

Well this was unexpected

Next, he barely tried to keep his nature a secret at all, even changing into the wolf during a basketball game. Sure everyone is pretty stunned at first, but after only a few moments, and realizing that Scott was now amazing at basketball, everybody loves him. The movie was also really inconsistent with how much the townsfolk seemed to know about werewolves. Scott's father, who is also a werewolf, implies that werewolves are in movies as horror monsters. Another kid even mentions dealing with his kind before. What the hell does that mean? So do people know werewolves are real, or not? Basically, the rules to this world in regards to its knowledge of werewolves is extremely unclear.

I was the most confused at the start of the film when Scott starts having partial transformations. "Where is the attack?" I kept thinking to myself. Finally after he fully changes and his father demands he come out of the bathroom that instant, all my questions were instantly made clear; it runs in the family! On the positive side, this scene was pretty good, especially when we get classic Michael J. Fox panicked ramblings. On the bad side, this was probably the most entertaining scene of the whole film. Certainly the reveal of Scott's father was amusing; I've certainly never seen such a fluffy, well groomed werewolf before. But that means that from here on out the movie just went downhill. Don't even get me started on all the awful music.

"An explanation is probably long overdue."

I knew I shouldn't expect much from Teen Wolf, but I still knew some people had fond memories of it when when they were kids. They must have been pretty young when they saw it. I guess since this was clearly a kid's movie, I can let the simple basketball championship story slide, but there was so much potential here. They never make it clear what people knew of werewolves, but it's clear that some students, even one of Scott's friends, are scared of them, while others hate them. The film touches on a sort of bigotry towards Scott now that they know he's a wolf, but then it never really goes anywhere other than a few shoves on the basketball court. I know the final result is for kids, but it's unfortunate it didn't end up as something more when there's clearly places they could go with it.

Scott soon chooses to live as the wolf almost full time when it makes him popular at school

While I found a small amount of amusement at the start when Scott has to hide his early transformations, and the reveal of his father as a werewolf, the actual transformation scene was awful and his werewolf form is pretty ugly. Also, Fox only really shines as the Fox I enjoy watching in that one scene I mentioned above, and then he's dull, muted and uninteresting for the rest of the film. I also have to say I wasn't a fan of the near total lack of any adherence to any kind of "rules" traditionally linked to werewolves. While I can see how Teen Wolf could have been entertaining to children, it really doesn't hold anything for adults. It's really a shame, I could see potential that they never even scratched the surface of. If you've never seen Teen Wolf, don't bother and keep your vision of Back to the Future Michael J. Fox untarnished.