While visiting Romania with his CIA dad, Tony(Adam Arkin), quite a talented high school quarterback seen as the savior to lead his team finally to a victory over rival Simpson, is told by a would-be palm-reader(..in Romania, the people are not allowed many books, so she took up palm reading)that he would be bitten by a werewolf("When the moon is full, don't make any appointments..you will be busy."). Well, who would have thunk it..Tony is in fact bitten and his life would be forever changed. After his father unfortunately dies in a mishap within his bomb shelter(!)under odd circumstances(firing at his werewolf son inside a metallic bomb shelter isn't a very good idea, especially if the bullet doesn't leave the room and bounces around like a pinball gone berserk), Tony travels the land through endless years, until he's tired of packing, and returns decades(..and many US Presidents)later to hopefully lead his football team to a win over Simpson..a task he abandoned long ago. What was once a very white, clean-cut high school has indeed changed into a ghetto of drug use, violence, and perversion. To get an idea of what the early 80's Full Moon High school's prom party resembles, think Studio 54 with teenagers..

Larry Cohen's parody of werewolf flicks, among others things, is crammed full of gags, homages, and in-jokes. My favorite sequences contain one in the sex-ed classroom where Tony reveals to the 80's class his werewolf transformation and the introductory scene to Dr. Brand(Alan Arkin, who steals the film when Kenneth Mars isn't on screen), quite possibly the worst psychiatrist on Earth. His task to talk down a jumper leads to two men falling off a balcony..the jumper and a fireman (trying, at first, to talk him out of it), both fuming mad at Brand! Brand even tries to get Tony to sign a waver for his body's being donated to science so he can get his wife a fur coat! Kenneth Mars had me rolling in the floor as a homosexual football coach(..and later in the 80's as the Principal)who likes to pat his players on the behind..his scene where Tony's unloading the truth to the sex-ed class is classic. The film is loaded with inspired casting choices..just littered with funny characters and the cast interpretations..such as Ed McMahon as a very conservative military blowhard who actually looks identical to Joseph McCathy standing next to his photo in the bomb shelter(..always talking about commies), Joanne Nail as bulging eyed Ricky in present day who falls for the werewolf, Elizabeth Hartman(A Patch of Blue)as a mousy, nerdy sexually molested(..and molester)teacher who finds an attraction towards Tony, James Dixon as a deputy(..his great scene has him stealing a line from his police chief reciting it to Dr. Brand who begins mouthing the words to himself for memorization), Roz Kelly as Jane, an undyingly devoted female desiring Tony for only herself constantly demanding he ravish her, and Bill Kirchenbauer as Flynn, Tony's long-time pal and now the police chief who only got Jane after his friend left town. Can not forget JM J Bullock as Flynn's closeted gay son trying to fit in at the school hoping to find a dame with hilarious results.

I like how the film pays homage to the werewolf genre such as when he's on the prowl..he's often referred to in the papers as Jack the Nipper because he likes to bite his victims on the cheek..and I'm not talking face. He's seen more as an annoyance than danger. The homages to Carrie and Psycho are nice, and the violin shtick is also amusing. Cohen tosses so many zingers at the viewer, eventually one has to stick. Obviously in a comedy such as this, not every joke hits it's mark, but many do. The cast makes this worthwhile. The film looks cheap on the typical Larry Cohen budget. Notice the 50's scenes where the obvious old cast members that would show up down the road wear glaring wigs. Loved Adam in the lead..he is the perfect foil for the gags that follow him and the zingers he lets fly from Cohen's script. The film moves quickly, rarely catching a breath. I liked this horror comedy more than most it seems.

In continuing to review werewolf movies in chronological order, we're still at 1981 with probably the most obscure one yet, one that I didn't even know of its existence till a few weeks ago when I saw it listed on Wikipedia before then finding it on YouTube. It seems to mainly be inspired by the Michal Landon-starred I Was a Teenage Werewolf as Adam Arkin plays a teen named Tony (like Landon) and it takes place during the late '50s (like IWATW) but then moves on through the years (as exemplified by the changing of the presidential portraits though the one after Carter was meant to be a joke) before Tony comes back to his high school of the title to once again play football having not aged during that time. I'll stop there and just say while I was pretty amused much of the time, there were also many places where I wondered if maybe it could have been funnier. I did like the scenes involving Ed McMahon as Tony's father and Adam Arkin's real dad-Alan-as an insulting shrink. Oh, and also the scene involving his new girlfriend and her tying up Tony in bed was also fun in an adult humor kind of way. So on that note, I say give Full Moon High a look.

One of those films you can guess the entirety of simply from the title, this disjointed movie from Larry Cohen is definitely one of his lesser films. It's kept watchable through the sheer level of gags on offer (often with lots of sight jokes that are very missable if you're not concentrating) although most of the one-liners are excruciating. A better than average cast do their jobs well even though their characters are limited to doing/saying mainly one thing. Sadly the low budget often shows, with the film cutting away from the action on more than one occasion, and also in the ridiculous werewolf makeup which reaches new lows in tackiness (seemingly a riff on I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF's makeup but with hardly the same impact).

Adam Arkin is the good-natured high school boy who is turned into a werewolf while blundering in Romania. From then on, he turns into a wolf basically every night (bizarre moon cycles then) and is stalked by a mystery violinist who pops up at every occasion and quickly becomes repetitive. His mad father (played hilariously by Ed McMahon) believes that a nuclear bomb will explode at any minute and is ready to take refuge in his bunker. An inordinate number of homosexuals are also present at Full Moon High to admire Arkin, giving plenty of room for lots of jokes and laughs in the men's locker room! The film's highlight undeniably has to be a cameo by Arkin's father, Alan, as a loud-mouthed shrink who attempts to make a man stop from committing suicide by hurling abuse at him! Otherwise, this is strictly business as usual, and pretty cheesy in a bad '80s kind of way, complete with absurd fashions and silly dialogue. With only a few funny bits and a lot of complete nonsense, I would recommend this to nostalgia buffs or Cohen fans only.