‘Never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city…’
Let’s get this out of the way early doors. Teen Wolf is rubbish. You know it. I know it. Michael J. Fox knows it. It’s cheesy, it’s derivative and it’s kitsch beyond belief. Now we’ve covered the negatives, let us also consider that on the other hand, Teen Wolf is cheesy, derivative and kitsch beyond belief. Because really, deep down, surely that is what we want when go and see a movie called Teen Wolf…
Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) is a seemingly normal, all-american teenager. Apart from the fact that sometimes he turns into someone wearing a werewolf costume (checks notes: oh he is actually supposed to be a real werewolf… that was not clear). This is never really explained apart from some nonsense about genetics, but then we aren’t here for scientific accuracy. No. We’re here to see Michael J. Fox have some werewolf based hi jinks before getting the girl and winning the big basketball game at the end of the movie. All of which is present and correct.
Teen Wolf was filmed before Fox found huge success in Back to the Future, but it was released after that movie in order to capitalise on his fame. And to be fair, he is pretty good in this. It is almost certain that without Fox’s charisma, Teen Wolf would have vanished without a trace, a scenario in which absolutely nobody could have any complaints.
I will take this opportunity to congratulate Jay Tarses who does a genuinely great job in portraying our lupine hero’s basketball coach. A man who approaches basketball coaching as I approach cleaning my house – with a cheerful ambivalence and a breezy disinterest. Tarses aside though, the only other aspect of note here is that the love interest is literally named Boof. The 80s man… crazy times.
Look. You either like this era of films or you don’t, and if you like it, you can do a lot worse than spending 90 minutes or so in the company of Michael J. Fox dressed as a wolf. This is the stage of lockdown we are in now. The Teen Wolf era. God help us all.