I Was a Teenage Werewolf: Gene Fowler Jr.

Ah...you know that you're watching a quality B-movie when right in the middle there's a song-and-dance number that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. You'll just be watching the movie and then, for some reason, a group of teenagers get together and gyrate to a swingin' rock 'n roll song! This might seem unusual, especially considering that this takes place in the middle of a film entitled I Was a Teenage Werewolf. It might just be my opinion, but wouldn't you think that an upbeat rock tune would kinda ruin the suspense and terror? But see, that's why these movies are so enjoyable. Oh, sure, director Gene Fowler Jr. had a story that he wanted to tell: a raucous teen undergoes hypnotherapy to control his emotions and in the process gets turned into a werewolf when his doctor decides to make him a guinea pig in an experiment to make humans revert to a lower evolutionary state. And, sure, the fact that the teen becomes a werewolf instead of a chimpanzee makes no sense. But, again, that doesn't really matter. The film needed a werewolf and dagnabit they were gonna have one, science be damned! And at the end of the day, I'll bet that Fowler discovered that his film was still too short for distribution. So he thought, "Screw it, let's throw in a musical number." And he did. And it was glorious. I Was a Teenage Werewolf is so ridiculous and improbable that it somehow becomes genuinely enjoyable! And I'm not simply trying to say that it was so-bad-that-it's-good. It was actually a pretty decent flick. The pacing was alright, the acting was decent, and the cinematography was average. Oh, the transformation effects were terrible and the science behind the werewolf makes less sense than Hollow Earth theories...but who cares? This is a werewolf film with a MUSICAL NUMBER. What else do you need to know?

6/10