Full Moon High

Scattershot comedy that was clearly influenced by Brooks and ZAZ but far less refined, Cohen nonetheless had some ideas of his own, and with a sharper script he could have achieved comic gold. The go-for-broke approach is charming, especially for such a low budget film, and the casting of Arkin Snr and Jnr was an inspired touch. Snr plays an arsehole psychologist hilariously while Jnr delivers droll punchlines that produce both groans and laughs with a sly smirk.

It just dawned on me that I have seen every Larry Cohen film made before 1998. There's gaping holes in my Woody Allen and Hitchcock education, but a workmanlike exploitation writer/director from the 70's and 80's? Every movie, usually more than once. Anywho, Full Moon High came out around the same time as Howling and An American Werewolf in London and doesn't approach either in terms of quality. May disappoint, but not in that "I've been ripped off" way. It's almost okay, is what I'm saying.

Low expectations were exceeded as the level of humor was much better than expected throughout. Ed McMahon is a hoot. I don't know where it fits in the werewolf movie hierarchy, which seems to produce passable products with the regularity of the lunar cycle. Damn it all, I tried to tighten this up for long enough. Review over, marked - wasted potential with a silver bullet.

Many years since viewed, but my recollection is that it was pretty amusing. Made four years before TEEN WOLF: coincidence?

Adam Arkin's first starring role I believe, and as usual he is likeable. His dad Alan is also present, playing a psychiatrist in a performance which turns an amiable and moderately amusing low-budget comedy-horror (or comedy using werewolf stories as material, there are no real efforts at producing fear or anything like it) into something much funnier. Shift for director Cohen, who usually does actual horror.

"It says here this is your sixth teaching job in four years. In each school you were sexually assaulted." "Yes." "Your last school was an all-girls school. An elementary all-girls school. For the handicapped." "They started busing in some really bad kids."

who would have guessed that a werewolf would make a good surgeon.