MY MOM'S A WEREWOLF (1989)

 

DIRECTED by Michael Fischa

SCREENPLAY by Mark Pirro

STARRING - Susan Blakely as Leslie Shaber

John Saxon as Harry Thropen

Tina Caspary as Jennifer Shaber

John Schuck as Howard Shaber

Diana Barrows as Stacey Pubah

Ruth Buzzi as Madame Gypsy

Marilyn McCoo as Celia Celica

Marcia Wallace as Peggy

Geno Silva as Dr. Rod Rodriguez

Charlie Holliday as Officer Demyer

Chris Hubbell as Officer Cooper

Phil Rubenstein as Malcolm Macafee

PLOT - Leslie is a bored middle aged housewife, married to a husband who takes her for granted and mother to a teenage daughter - Jennifer.

She lives in a nice house in a good neighborhood but she's feeling unfulfilled. Enter Harry Thropen who Leslie meets one day whilst out shopping. He's everything her husband isn't - handsome, charismatic and cultured - Oh, and he's also a werewolf. A werewolf who's looking for a mate...

Very soon, Leslie is bitten by Harry and starts her own transformation into a wolf. Can her family cope with her newfound werewolf abilities, and more importantly can Jennifer save her mum from the werewolf's deadly curse ?...

PERFORMANCES - As you can probably tell by the title - this film does NOT take itself remotely seriously, thankfully though you do still get some decent performances out of the cast here regardless.

Susan Blakely plays Leslie- the titular "Werewolf Mom". To begin with Leslie is shown to be an everyday normal wife and mother, although you can tell that she's not really that happy with her lot. Her boorish husband Howard (John Schuck) would sooner watch football with his drunken friends on a weekend than spend any quality time with her, and her teenage daughter Jennifer (Tina Caspary) is growing distant from her in the way all teenagers do with thier parents in that phase of life.

So Leslie's life is pretty shit until she gets seduced and bitten by the local werewolf - Harry - who's obviously having a bit of a lycanthropic mid-life crisis of his own, as he's decided he needs a "mate" to carry on his line. Thus Leslie starts sprouting unsightly hair and canine teeth every full moon...oh...and she suddenly gets horny all the time - VERY horny (at least this makes her hubby start to notice her again).

Blakely is very good at portraying the frustrated housewife, her performance becomes a little bit more goofy and exaggerated as the film continues and the "comedy" elements ramp up (you'll notice I put quotation marks around the word "comedy", trust me - there's a good reason for that) but all in all she gives a likeable enough performance.

Cult movie legend John Saxon is clearly having a whale of a time playing werewolf Harry. He kind of almost plays it completely straight but there's definitely an element of scenery chewing going on (in the best possible way). Harry is everything Leslie's hubby isn't - handsome, cultured, intelligent and charming (although it must be remembered that he puts the 'fluence on Leslie before he has sex with her, which is pretty much the supernatural equivalent of spiking her drink with Rhohypnol if you ask me).

Strangely, Harry seems more vampire like than werewolf like in terms of his powers and the way he operates - he definitely uses tactics around the ladies that Dracula would highly approve of, as opposed to just wolfing out and biting Leslie like most werewolves would. Whatever - Saxon nails it completely in portraying a character who has a feral, monstrous side hiding just underneath the polished veneer. He's by far the best thing about this film.

As for the rest of the cast they're...ok. John Schuck does a pretty good job of being slobbish as husband Howard. Tina Caspary gives a pretty standard performance as the teenage daughter - Jennifer, nothing spectacular but perfectly adequate and Dianna Barrows almost verges on being irritating as Jennifer's best friend - Stacey - but the fact that her character is a horror movie geek does save her slightly, in my eyes at least.

SEX & VIOLENCE - There's apparently a series of murders that take place in the town (presumably Harry going on the prowl in wolf mode) but we never actually see any of them as they all happen off camera.

When Harry seduces Leslie he performs on her that curiously 80's sexual fetish of giving her a toe-job. Personally I've never seen the attraction of shoving another person's big toe in your gob - but Quentin Tarantino and Sarah Ferguson (ex- wife of Peado ex-Prince Andrew) seem to get off on them, so who am I to argue ?

We also get Leslie's newfound "sexual awakening" which just seems to consist of her wandering around in satin nighties for most of the movie and howling like a wolf when she gets frisky.

Oh...and then we get this...

The bondage perverts who live next door. They serve absolutely zero purpose to the plot but they're all part of this film's weird tapestry nonetheless.

As for violence ? Well, as I said we HEAR about some killings, but never see them. Pity, it might have been a better movie if we did.

As for the final battle between good Werewolf and evil werewolf ? The deciding bout between the forces of light and dark ? The moment when two supernatural predators face off against each in a battle that's red in tooth and claw ??????? They have a pillow fight...yep...two werewolves end up flayling about like a pair of teenage girls at a sleepover. It's as embarrassing as it sounds.

Luckily plucky teenage daughter Jennifer is on hand to pierce a stake through evil werewolf Harry's heart - this ending him, breaking the werewolf's curse and freeing her mum from an extra hairy bush in the process. Wait a minute - A STAKE THROUGH THE HEART ???? Isn't that how you kill vampires NOT werewolves ??? I don't know - and neither it seems do the writers of this movie...

SFX - Plastic fangs, red contact lenses and stick on ears and hair for the most part - special effects work courtesy of the local Joke Shop.

We don't actually see the fully transformed werewolves until the last five minutes - which is a pity because they actually look fairly decent.

Unfortunately they're then totally wasted by being used in the silly pillow fight that then ensues. Talk about undermining your own monsters and any sense of dread they may bring to the screen.

RATING - This movie is a complete failure as a "horror comedy" due to the fact that's it's neither horrific or very funny (you want an example of bad jokes ? Ok....Harry -"I want a Were-wife to breed with me, I want Were-children." Leslie - "Maybe we can live in a Were-house"...God grief - Bernard Manning telling you that you've got an hour left to live would be funnier...).

In short - this film fails on both counts...BUT - despite all that it's actually quite entertaining to watch. God only knows how but somehow it manages to bypass all it's natural shortcomings and get by on sheer charm alone. It's the very definition of a beer and pizza film, best watched on a Friday or Saturday night stewed out of your head, so for that I'm going to give this... 3 lycanthropic milfs out of 5.

ART -