Craig J. Clark
While 1981 jumpstarted the ’80s werewolf boom in Hollywood and elsewhere, it reached its zenith in 1985, with no fewer than eight werewolf (and werewolf-adjacent) movies coming out between Ladyhawke (March 27, in France) and Vampire Hunter D (December 21, in Japan). The highest concentration arrived in the month of August, starting with Fright Night (adjacent because one of Evil Ed’s supernatural forms is a wolf) and ending with the second Howling film, released in France on August 28. The big winner, however, was the PG-rated comedy Teen Wolf, which grossed $80 million worldwide on a $4 million budget and confirmed Michael J. Fox’s status as a movie star. (While it was shot first, Teen Wolf coming out after Back to the Future allowed it to ride that megahit’s coattails.)
Van-surfing into theaters on August 23, Teen Wolf came in second that weekend (to Back to the Future in its eighth week) and held that spot until mid-September before slipping down the box office charts. Not bad legs for a film released during the dog days of summer – and its longevity continues to this day. How else to explain why Scream Factory’s collector’s edition includes a retrospective documentary that runs nearly an hour longer than the film? Clearly, there are plenty of stories to tell about it and the franchise it spawned (a Saturday morning cartoon, a sequel, an MTV series that lasted six seasons and a movie), but the actual story of Teen Wolf is as basic as you can get.
The day we meet Scott Howard (a then-23-year-old Fox) is about the worst he could imagine. Taking up a full third of the 91-minute running time, the lead-up to Scott’s first transformation (which naturally coincides with the full moon) establishes him as the prototypical put-upon protagonist who’s “sick of being average.” His high school basketball team is an embarrassment, the pretty girl he pines for won’t give him the time of day, he works at his father’s hardware store, and his best friend Stiles constantly ropes him into hare-brained schemes (like getting a keg of beer for the big party that night).
On top of all that, though, are the changes Scott starts to notice, like the long strand of hair growing out of his chest, the fact that he can hear a dog whistle, and the sudden appearance (and just-as-sudden disappearance) of hair and claws on his hands and pointy ears. By the time he flees the party and races home to watch himself wolf out in the mirror, he may regret having said, “I just want my life to change.”
The balance of the film covers Scott coming to terms with his new identity, and his changing social status when the athletic prowess it grants him makes him the most popular guy in school. Even his dream girl takes an interest in him, much to the chagrin of Scott’s childhood friend Boof, who’s nursing her own unrequited crush. While the 1957 B-movie I Was a Teenage Werewolf used lycanthropy as a stand-in for juvenile delinquency, Teen Wolf treats it as the equivalent of a growth spurt. Being “The Wolf” doesn’t solve his problems, though, and even creates a few new ones thanks to repeated run-ins with his jock rival and his school’s suspicious vice principal. In the end, the lesson he learns is it’s better to be himself – and not such a ball hog, so his teammates can share in the glory of winning when he turns their fortunes around.
Having cleaned up at the box office, a sequel was inevitable, but 1987’s Teen Wolf Too was too much of a carbon copy to mark its own territory. Set at college and starring Jason Bateman (as Scott’s cousin Todd), Too swaps out basketball for boxing, but otherwise repeats the original’s story almost beat-for-beat; sensing the rehash, audiences stayed away. Such are the perils of following a success, something director Philippe Mora knew very well when he took the reins of Howling II. “The choice is, do you make a completely different movie or do you copy the first one?” Mora said on the commentary for Howling III. “I veered off into ‘Let’s make a different movie.’” Different is what he delivered.
While it starts out as a direct sequel to The Howling, with the funeral of news reporter Karen White, Howling II (which went out with multiple subtitles, including Your Sister Is a Werewolf and Stirba – Werewolf Bitch) shifts the focus to her brother, hotheaded Montana sheriff Ben (Reb Brown), and her previously unseen colleague Jenny (Annie McEnroe). This mismatched duo accompanies occult expert Stefan Crosscoe (top-billed Christopher Lee, classing up the joint as best he can) to the “dark country,” a.k.a. Transylvania (played by Czechoslovakia), for a showdown with immortal werewolf queen Stirba (Sybil Danning). Not a bad set-up, but Mora was beset by production problems tied to the decision to film behind the Iron Curtain, which at least gave it some local color. Coupled with the variable makeup effects and werewolf costumes (some of which infamously came from 20th Century Fox’s Planet of the Apes collection), Howling II comes out looking much poorer than its predecessor, which had the benefit of a solid script and a game cast of familiar faces. It’s also telling that Mora doesn’t even attempt a transformation scene, although he did send them up when he made his own sequel, Howling III: The Marsupials, two years later.
Even if it’s doomed to live in The Howling’s shadow, Howling II – like Teen Wolf – has its adherents and enough of a following in its own right that Vinegar Syndrome saw fit to release it in 4K with an array of bonus features, including a new commentary by Mora, whose candidness is always refreshing. Just as forthright in his own way was Lee, who, as the legend goes, formally apologized to Joe Dante on the set of Gremlins 2: The New Batch for appearing in Howling II. This is in spite of the fact that he’s one of the few performers who emerges from it with his dignity intact – no awkward werewolf three-ways for our Stefan, thank you.
“Teen Wolf” is streaming on Prime and a few other places. “Howling II” can be found on Tubi and a few other places.
