Full Moon High review.
A full moon is on the rise. It’s time to look back at another werewolf movie for this cycle’s Full Moon Feature. This month…we tackle Larry Cohen’s oddball comedy, Full Moon High.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Full Moon High
Directed by Larry Cohen
Written by Larry Cohen
Starring Adam Arkin, Roz Kelly, Ed McMahon, Joanne Nail, Bill Kirchenbauer, Elizabeth Hartman, Louis Nye and Alan Arkin
Full Moon High Review
If you are familiar with the work of Larry Cohen…you’ve probably seen some badass B-movies in your time. Unfortunately, Full Moon High isn’t one of them. To be honest, this is a mess of a movie. It manages stretches of entertainment…casually losing focus too often to form a satisfying narrative. Of course, these Full Moon Features tend to focus more on the werewolf aspects of the story. Well, Full Moon High isn’t much of a werewolf movie either. It does, however, feature an interesting and unique bit of werewolf lore that is worth sinking our teeth into.
Tony (Adam Arkin) gets bitten by a werewolf while on a trip to Transylvania. It immediately destroys his life…which, due to the werewolf curse, has him stuck as a teenager. Attempts to turn his life around years later only bring more troubles to his doorstep.
That is as close to a plot synopsis as I can manage for Full Moon High. To say the plot meanders at times would be an understatement. The climax of the film sees Tony rushing the football field in wolf form to score a touchdown. This is years before Teen Wolf put a teen wolf on the basketball court. It’s pretty much the only comparison to be made between the two teen wolf led comedies. Where Teen Wolf had a cohesive story with memorable characters and a consistent tone…Full Moon High shifts focus so often it feels like it has been cobbled together from multiple movies.
It is, however, occasionally quite funny. Ed McMahon (yes, that Ed McMahon) turns in an entertaining performance as Tony’s father. It plays against McMahon’s famous persona in surprising ways. He’s not the only cast member who completely buys into Cohen’s B-movie fun…but he is the only one that is delightfully jarring to watch play his character. His death as a result of firing a gun inside of his fallout shelter is a fair representation of what Full Moon High is. The bullet whizzes around the shelter…ricocheting off walls while McMahon cartoonishly follows it around. The kill shot happens off-screen. That’s Full Moon High in a nutshell.
Which brings us to the film’s use of werewolves. We’re talking cheap costumes and off-screen transformations. Given that Full Moon High is more interested in being an early 80’s comedy than a classic werewolf story…it’s understandable. Tony’s wolf is kept in shadows as often as possible. It has the same effectiveness that a sloppily patched together Halloween costume would. At one point, police take down a man wearing an ape costume confusing it for the werewolf at large. It probably isn’t done as an intentional joke on the quality of their costume…but it works as one.
The rules here are just as random as the rest of the movie. A silver bullet is believed to be the cure…but the ending proves that untrue. Instead, like most of the movie, it’s played as a sloppy joke about inflation…with a fourth wall break to boot. Transformations don’t appear to be lunar based. In fact, Full Moon High never seems to settle on any specific rule regarding it. The story makes the filming of a transformation a key plot point…which makes the act being done off camera doubly annoying.
The most interesting thought that Full Moon High has regarding its werewolves deals with the frozen aging process. Cohen makes it the major plot point of the movie. Tony is able to attempt a redo on his life…effectively picking up where he left off. Cohen throws multiple romantic interests at him instead of digging down on the pathos of the scenario…but it’s a clever concept for a movie that doesn’t go out of its way to treat the werewolf story with much care. Arkin is game for whatever Cohen throws at him. He fully commits to both the comedic side and wolf parts in equal measure. It feels like he’s in two different movies…but he’s putting in the work for both.
Full Moon High starts off funny enough to overcome the sloppiness. It loses its way in the comedy department for a long time…but does manage to get it back in the third act. Adam Arkin’s real life father Alan Arkin arrives as a doctor who wants to dissect the werewolf. His deadpan humor gets the comedy back on track and focuses the wolf story for the first time in a long time. The actual ending of Full Moon High can best be described as “busy” or “loud”. It plays more like a parade of one-liners than an emotional resolution to Tony’s story.
If you imagine Larry Cohen making a werewolf movie…it probably turns out a lot different in your head than it does in practice. Full Moon High intends to be a comedy more than a werewolf story…but is too unfocused to deliver even that. Cohen made much better movies than this (Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, It’s Alive, God Told Me To). I’d recommend seeking out one of those. Those in search of a good werewolf tale to watch during the full moon will find little more than one interesting idea on display. An American Werewolf in London and The Howling came out the same year as Full Moon High. Those are, obviously, far better places to start.
Scare Value
There’s no denying that Full Moon High is an unfocused mess most of the time. It’s also not much of a werewolf movie. The one interesting idea that it has about werewolves is, however, interesting enough to warrant discussion. When the comedy is landing…Full Moon High is perfectly watchable. Unfortunately, it seems to forget that it’s a comedy for a good stretch too. The cast is game for the B-movie Cohen is making…so there is some fun to be had.
2/5
Full Moon High Links
Streaming on Prime Video
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
