| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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TEEN WOLF TOO
Rating: 
USA. 1987.
Director – Christopher Leitch, Screenplay – R. Timothy Kring, Story – Joseph Loeb II & Matthew Wisman, Producer – Ken Bateman, Photography – Jules Brenner, Music – Jolene Cherry & Pat Woods, Art Direction – Peg McClellan. Production Company – Atlantic Entertainment.
Cast:
Jason Bateman (Todd Howard), Estee Chandler (Nicki Butler), John Astin (Dean Dunn), Kim Darby (Professor Tanya Brooks), Stuart Fratkin (Stiles), Mark Holton (Chubby), Paul Sand (Coach Finstock), James Hampton (Harold Howard), Robert Neary (Steve Gustavson), Beth Ann Miller (Lisa Goldfluss)
Plot: Scott Howard’s cousin Todd is sent to college on a boxing scholarship by the school’s overly ambitious sports coach, despite his having never boxed before. The bullying college dean sees through this and threatens to expel Todd if he doesn’t justify the scholarship. But then the werewolf in Todd emerges. As the wolf, he finds amazing social success and becomes the college’s champion in the ring. But in becoming increasingly more self-assured with his newfound popularity, he also isolates his closest friends.
Teen Wolf (1985) was an unexpected hit, due to it judiciously managing to come out just as Michael J. Fox hit superstardom on tv’s Family Ties (1982-9) and in Back to the Future (1985). Had it not had Fox in the central role, it is more than likely that nobody would have noticed the film. The film’s success was spun off into an animated tv series Teen Wolf (1986-9) and then this sequel. Naturally Fox is absent this time around, with the only returnee from the original being James Hampton who played Fox’s father.
The sequel emerges as a slavish copy of the original. About the only point of originality it has is where the first film had teen wolf Fox proving himself in the basketball court, this has teen wolf Jason Bateman proving himself in the boxing ring. The rest doggedly repeats the wolf-becomes-social success/sports hero themes, good girl/bad girl dilemma and the end message about relying upon one’s self rather than the wolf (which gets laid on with a trowel). In fact reissued, the end message of relying on the human instead of the wolf seems a decidedly hypocritical point to preach, when the film’s entire selling point remains the comedy concept of the wolf. But really the wolf has been so trivialized that it wouldn’t make any difference to the story whether Bateman turned into a chihuahua, a beetle or a woman. All the film really is is a banal frat rat comedy and the wolf could quite safely have been taken out of the occasion with minimal difference.
Jason Bateman, the producer’s son (and sister of Justine Bateman from Family Ties) is an innocuous nobody without the necessary qualities of self-parody. The werewolf makeup job is so tatty no effort has been made to disguise the join lines between the appliances and Bateman’s face, while the tail that Kim Darby manifests is utterly ridiculous. (Notedly the company/person responsible for the makeup effects has taken their name off the credits).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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