Full Moon High

1981 "He's today's teenage werewolf… only the rules have changed!"
4.7| 1h33m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 09 October 1981 Released
Producted By: Filmways Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

High-school quarterback Tony Walker is bitten by a werewolf and transforms into a growling beast that hungrily chases down beautiful girls.

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Reviews

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Scarecrow-88 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.
Sturgeon54 I'm not kidding about that summary and vote! The video distributors have packaged this as just another typical '80s werewolf movie, but it is in fact the greatest parody of the horror genre that you can imagine, having done for the horror movie what "Blazing Saddles" did for the western. I have seen plenty of comedies - good, bad, stupid, weird, etc. (usually walking away unimpressed), and I think that comedy must be the most difficult genre for filmmakers and actors to work in - it takes just the right kind of touch to make things successful, and part of that is having good ideas. "Full Moon High" is bulging with good ideas - so many, in fact, that it can easily put the Zucker/Abrams team of "Airplane" and "Naked Gun" to shame. One of the best of these is the very presence of Ed McMahon in a starring role as a John Birch-style right-wing crackpot. The jokes, non-sequiturs, wisecracks and word-play are literally non-stop and everything, including the kitchen sink, has been thrown in. The ironic tone is very similar to that of "Back to the Future." Some people (i.e. almost every reviewer here) must have been turned off by the spirit of anarchy here, but I almost died of laughter, and this is one of those movies in which you never know what kind of insane situation will transpire next. Since B-movie extraordinaire Larry Cohen had not made a straight comedy before this, one gets the sense that he was making up for lost time by including any joke he or his collaborators could think of. If Mel Brooks had made this, the critics would have labelled it a comic masterpiece, but because it was made by Cohen, it has been dismissed as schlock. Critical reviews have called this movie too "silly." SILLY? What is a comedy supposed to be - serious?! Anyway, I laughed out loud more for this movie than any other I can think of. Cohen makes fun of everyone - himself included, with plenty of references to his usual brand of low-rent film-making; he and the actors must have had a complete blast making this.The humor is very Mel Brooks-ish, and anyone who loves Jewish humor or watches a lot of B-movies (especially horror) will love this. Trust me: the movie isn't too hard to find, and as long as you accept it for what it is - a roller-coaster of belly laughs with no pretense of social value whatsoever - then you'll truly enjoy it!!One sidenote: this movie should somehow go down in history as the one thing Bob Saget ever starred in (albeit briefly) that was actually funny.
sugar-bear Whack!!! I got this movie because Elizabeth Hartman was in it. I was disappointed to find out she was in like two short scenes towards the end. Other than that I was basically hitting the fast forward button the entire time. Some teenager goes on a trip to Romania with his Dad and gets bitten by a wolf and turns into a werewolf if there's a full moon. He kills his father and friends. About 30 years past but he doesn't age a bit and enrolls in a high school. There he meets a shy teacher whom he ends up biting and then has kids with her. This movie sucked and I don't recommend it to anyone. Read War and Peace instead. Only Ms. Hartman did a great job. Check out a very young Bob Saget in this one!!
werewolf138 Yeah....this movie's bad but here's something you have to realize before watching it (and you probably should have while watching it): it's supposed to be. The thing about this movie I guess is that it seems to only be funny to the right people: a) huge werewolf fans and b)people with a really low-brow sense of humor, and I'm proud to say I'm both. Some of the best jokes in this movie were the worst ones, like some of the newspaper headlines ("Werewolf easts Chinese, hungry again 30 minutes later"...please tell me somebody got the double-meaning) or the Romanian woman who reads palms for entertainment (I read 14 last week, I couldn't put one down til I was finished!)But if you watch it for no other reason, watch for Bob Saget; this is probably the best god damn thing you'll ever see him in.