Full Moon High

1981 film by Larry Cohen

October 9, 1981 (1981-10-09)

Running time

93 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

Full Moon High is a 1981 American comedy horror film written and directed by Larry Cohen. The film stars Adam Arkin, Ed McMahon and Roz Kelly.

The plot revolves around an adolescent boy becoming a werewolf while his aging process ceases.

Plot

The film is about a teenager who goes on a trip to Transylvania with his father and gets bitten by a werewolf. Made ageless, he attempts to put his life back together a couple of decades later by enrolling in high school. He initially tries to keep his secret from the school and the three women who show interest in him — a sexually active high school student, his own former girlfriend (now a married mother of one), and one of his teachers. He ignores sexual advances because it is his "time of the month."

He later encourages the female high school student to film his transformation. She, and the students who later watch the film, mistake the footage at first for a stag film, but after people watch the whole film, the werewolf is arrested for the crimes he committed while in wolf form. He, as the wolf, escapes prison in time to participate in his high school's homecoming football game. There he is gunned down by a psychiatrist. He survives because inflation has rendered a single silver bullet insufficient to kill a werewolf.

Cast

Adam Arkin as Tony Walker
Ed McMahon as Col. William P. Walker
Roz Kelly as Jane
Joanne Nail as Ricky
Bill Kirchenbauer as Detective Jack Flynn
Kenneth Mars as Coach / Principal Cleveland
Elizabeth Hartman as Miss Montgomery
Alan Arkin as Dr. Brand
Louis Nye as Reverend
Demond Wilson as Cabbie / Busdriver
Cheryl Lockett Alexander as Pregnant Teenager
Jim J. Bullock as Eddie
Tom Aldredge as The Jailer
Tom Clancy as Priest
Laurene Landon as Blondie
John Blyth Barrymore as Student
Bob Saget as Sportscaster
Pat Morita as Silversmith
Armando G. Fernandez as School Dance Dancer
Julius Harris as Hijacker(uncredited)

Production

The film was filmed partially at John Burroughs Senior High School in the city of Burbank, California, in the summer of 1979. A portion of this movie was also filmed on location in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, on the football field in Bergen County Park at the foot of Valley Brook Avenue and River Road. The stands were filled with everyone from the town, and the varsity football team of that year were featured.^{[citation needed]}

It is Cohen' "only outright comedy"^[1]

Reception

The film has a seemingly disorganised structure^[2] that may be explained by its chaotic production conditions.^[3]

Legacy

Dread Central called the film a cult classic.^[4] The film has been compared to the later Teen Wolf.^[5]^[6]

Screening

The film was screened at the Paris French Cinémathèque in January 2023 as part of the Cohen retrospective.^[7]

References

^ Newman, Kim (2011-04-18). Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen Since the 1960s. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4088-0503-9.
^ Williams, Tony (2016-04-18). Larry Cohen: The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker, rev. ed. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-1819-7.
^ Cinefantastique. F.S. Clarke. 1998.
^ Sprague, Mike (2018-03-04). "Larry Cohen's Full Moon High Howls Onto Blu-ray This April via Scream Factory". Dread Central. Retrieved 2023-09-07.
^ Senn, Bryan (2017-02-06). The Werewolf Filmography: 300+ Movies. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2691-8.
^ Mann, Craig Ian (2020-09-21). Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-4113-1.
^ "Samedi 28 jan 2023, 21h30 - Salle Georges Franju - La Cinémathèque française". www.cinematheque.fr (in French). Retrieved 2023-09-07.