This was going to be a nice little essay about the 1985 film starring Michael J. Fox. One more ’80s werewolf adventure. A sweet and silly antidote to the frat-boy excesses of An American Werewolf in London. A little bit of teen angst à la The Company of Wolves, but much lighter.
Somehow I had missed the evolution of the franchise, from the forgettable 1987 sequel Teen Wolf Too to an MTV series likewise titled Teen Wolf. The show was a hit: it ran six seasons, from 2011 to 2017. Now—literally now, as in this past week—Paramount Plus has resurrected it, complete with the series’ cast: Teen Wolf: The Movie.
As long as I was watching the original, I thought I’d take a look at the pilot for the TV show, to see how Jeff Davis’ adaptation compared to the Rod Daniel (written by Jeph Loeb and Michael Weisman) version. By the time I came up for air, I’d watched the first dozen episodes of Season 1. Damn, that thing is addictive.
The ’80s film is basically a sitcom. Also a romcom, a high-school saga, a coming-of-age flick, and a good old-fashioned morality tale.
It’s cute. It’s fluff. It’s a perfect vehicle for Michael J. Fox. It doesn’t compare in cult status to the other film he starred in at the same time, Back to the Future, but it has its legion of fans—and its TV spinoff is still spinning.
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Scotty Howard is an ordinary suburban high-school kid. He’s not terribly athletic, but he plays on his school’s epically bad basketball team. He hangs out with Stiles, who is never up to any good, and the nearly invisible Lewis. He has a longtime friendship with the unfortunately nicknamed Boof, and an equally long-standing crush on the queen of the popular girls, Pam.
These are the classic tropes of the teen movie. Pam is a literal golden girl, with her tight sweaters and her Farrah Fawcett shag. Boof is the girl he doesn’t see except as a friend, with her dark Dorothy Hamill bob and her conservative blouses and sweater vests. She comes from a long line of prim and proper good girls, the Annette Funicellos of the teen universe. Will our hero grow up? Will he learn to see who is destined to be the real love of his life? That’s the question the teen romcom has to answer.
The twist, of course, is that Scotty’s transformation is literal and fantastical. Scotty is a werewolf. He’s triggered by the full moon, but there’s no wolfsbane and no werewolf bite. Scotty comes by it completely honestly. His single dad is a werewolf, too. It runs in the family.
The further twist, and the one that makes this film stand out from every other werewolf film I’ve seen, is that Scotty’s transformation is no secret. When he first changes, his father is there to tell him the truth about his heritage. Then, in the middle of a basketball game, in front of both teams and pretty much the whole school, he changes again.
Instead of screaming and horror, he’s met with jubilation, as his newly discovered werewolf powers turn him into an absolute beast on the basketball court. He leads his team to its first victory in years. He becomes Big Wolf on Campus, the coolest of the cool kids, and he gets the golden girl.
But this a morality tale, and a tale about growing up. Scott has to learn to accept himself as a human being, and not hide behind the mask of the wolf. He discovers who his real friends are. And he learns to be a team player, just in time for the championships.
It’s sweet. It’s silly. Like Michael J. Fox, it’s consciously adorable.
The wolf suit is really something. The standard werewolf mostly has to run, snarl, and attack hapless humans. Fox has to play the ultimate cool guy; his stunt doubles have to dance and play basketball. The stunt basketball player, Jeff Closser, is especially impressive, burning up the court and dunking ball after ball in a full-body suit of flowing hair and a truly beautiful beard.
There’s no pack here, and no other wolf except Scotty’s dad. I would assume they’re not alone in the world, but that’s not relevant to the film. It’s all about Scotty and his friends and his loving, understanding dad.
The TV series is a different animal. There’s no comedy here. Scotty Howard is now Scott McCall. He’s still playing on a team coached by a weird guy named Finstock, but the sport is lacrosse, and Stiles warms the bench with the severely asthmatic Scott. Scott’s single parent is now a mom, and the single dad belongs to Stiles—and is the town sheriff.
We’re out of teen romcom and into supernatural fantasy verging on horror. The world is a much darker place. We’re in Buffy and Supernatural territory, with a pack of werewolves led by a cruel and deeply traumatized Alpha, an ancient family of sadistic werewolf hunters complete with mysterious talisman, and gruesome murders. The werewolves are back to running, snarling, and attacking, though once in a while one of them gets to emote a little bit. Scott has to hide what he is, and struggles to suppress the change in the heat of lacrosse games and practices.
There’s romance, but in urban-fantasy mode. Blonde popular girl who makes a point of only dating the team captain (but she turns out to have hidden depths). An equally beautiful and sexy brunette new-girl-in-town. Romeo and Juliet-level star-crossed lovers.
Asthmatic Scott (turning wolf cures that problem) is teen-idol handsome, played by the square-jawed, dark-eyed, smolderingly sexy Tyler Posey. Another Tyler, Tyler Hoechlin, plays an even darker, even squarer-jawed, even more ripped older werewolf/mentor/antagonist/ally. Both Tylers often show up shirtless. There is much chewing of scenery.
It’s a completely different kind of fun than the film, but it is fun. There’s an Easter egg here and there. The coach’s name and personality are fairly close to the film, and he utters the signature phrase, “The rest is cream cheese.” Scott is turned by a bite, in the tradition of The Wolf Man, but there are hereditary werewolves as well.
The evil Alpha is about the same vintage as Scotty Howard, and he sneers at lacrosse. In his day, he says, we played basketball. That was a man’s game. Stiles still plays a whole lot of angles, not all of them legal, but he’s much brighter and more proactive in helping Scott navigate the difficulties of his new existence. He’s a loyal friend and a solid ally. He’s my favorite character in the series. He has real heart.
So now I’ve got a new show to marathon-watch. Personally I wish the werewolves were real wolves instead of wolf-men, but they’re well established in the tradition, and the makeup isn’t bad. It’s nowhere near the shining glory that is the film’s wolf suit, but it gets the job done.
Judith Tarr is a lifelong horse person. She supports her habit by writing works of fantasy and science fiction as well as historical novels, many of which have been published as ebooks. She’s written a primer for writers who want to write about horses: Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right. She lives near Tucson, Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans, a clowder of cats, and a blue-eyed dog.
