Today! Because underneath all that hair you’re still a dork, Scott –
Teen Wolf (1985)
Directed by Rod Daniel
Starring Michael J. Fox (x3), James Hampton, Jerry Levine, Susan Ursitti, Lorie Griffin, Mark Arnold, James MacKrell, Jay Tarses, Matt Adler, Mark Holton (x4), Scott Paulin, Doug Savant, Harvey Vernon (x2), Gregory Itzin (x3)
Ladies and gentlemen, you could be doing anything in the world right now, but instead you chose to be here, at Knowingly Undersold, so one of the great treasures of the film universe could be fully revealed. There are a few movies on this list that justify the entire enterprise for me – some are random, overlooked gems back in the 300s, and a few are still to come, but none have been as written about more all-time by yours truly than Teen Wolf.
Just to quickly recap virtually everything I’ve ever said about this movie, on this blog, in various old reviews, and to strangers on the street – Teen Wolf a hugely underrated, surrealist masterpiece of a town’s collective shrug at the fact that there is a living, breathing horror movie monster attending the local high school and taking girls to bowling alleys on dates. It’s an allegory for accepting people for who they are, deifying those with marginally better athletic abilities, and puberty, in the guise of an ’80s teen comedy wherein the token chubby character (named, creatively, Chubs) is instructed to eat a bowl of Jell-O out of a girl’s tank top. The mania of the teenage wolf infects the community, with zero blowback from the authorities or the government at large, I guess because they are winning basketball games, with the exception of the almost entirely silent character Lewis, played by Matt Adler, who manages to be the lone “voice” of opposition, The One Who Walks Away from Omelas, if you will. There is also some insinuation that this werewolf infiltration has been going on for some time, and basically no one talks about it or much cares, and what does that say about this city? Does that make them more accepting of people’s differences? Or are they ashamed? It’s a fascinating example of differing cultures and societal norms in America.
What does Scott’s method of beer drinking say about us as a people?
Knowingly Undersold 