I Was a Teenage Werewolf

It's alright for what it is. It's like someone took the idea of Frankenstein and mixed it with The Wolfman. It's just alright though. The main character is like a whiny James Dean/Hayden Christensen and really isn't that likeable at all. Everyone in this save for Whit is wooden, generic, and forgettable. The production value is very low budget and cheap. It's never moody or atmospheric except in spurts and the directin is pretty basic stuff. There is barely any soundtrack in this also. This feels like a teenage drama in the first half and a Horror flick in the second which sort of works. It makes perfect sense and all but if you've seen the flicks it's copying than your not missing anything really. Skip This.

Yeah it's stupid, yes it's cheesy and yep it's a B Movie but that type of Campy filmmaking I do enjoy from time to time

"If you're gonna play the bongos all night, who am I going to dance with?" The most enduring legacy of I Was a Teenage Werewolf is likely the role that it played in launching the career of Michael Landon, who would largely fall out of favor on the silver screen but became a standard fixture on the TV circuit with major recurring roles on long-running shows, particularly Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie. While a success in its day for its supposed 'brutality' in combining a monster mythos with a high school kid (an overlap that apparently touched a midcentury nerve), this film from B-movie legend Herman Cohen (as both writer and producer) may have helped to popularize the teen horror genre that would really hit its stride decades later, but is really an exercise in camp for modern audiences with its rough supporting performances and attempts at suspenseful dialogue. Good for a laugh, mostly at what passed for horror in 1957, but also featuring some genuinely creative lighting and framing from editor-turned-director Gene Fowler Jr. It's tough to think of a film with this kind of title as anything other than a bit of a joke; this pattern of sensationalist movie title comes up again and again as a satire of the era in later films, poking fun at writing teams looking to hook audiences without a lot of substance to back up their initial premise. (2/5)

To it's credit it takes itself seriously. What's unforgiveable is the mind numbing slow pace!

Fun for what it is, aka Michael Landon's first movie, a movie with a title thought of first, then the screenplay, etc. Landon is a misunderstood and violent teen who begrudgingly gets help. Problem is, his doctor is a mad kook who has a serum who makes Landon into.. yes, a teen werewolf! Predictable 50s monster melee ensues.

It's an entertaining movie... For the first 20 minutes. Otherwise, it unfortunately descends into cheesy dullness. The acting is very wooden, the dialogue is even worse and the characters are quite bizarre. Although I must say that for a low-budget film, the werewolf effects are pretty cool. It's a real goofy 1950s teen-horror pic, that doesn't really bother with making any sense, and that's one of the problems in this flick, it makes it lose all credibility. It's actually too bad, because it could've been very entertaining. Anyways, if you really are curious, check this film if you don't have anything else to do...

The greatest film of our time? Piss off

I would have given this a much lower score if it wasn't for the allegories, and considering it was only shot in one week, it's pretty impressive, at least for the editing department.

To be fair to not just the film but the whole B movie genre of filmmaking, I Was a Teenage Werewolf will most certainly not show up anywhere near the top of a list of the worst. That's not to say that it's an altogether wonderful film, but I've seen much worse than this. There are a couple of things that it has going for itself. First of all, you have a young, fresh-faced Michael Landon doing his own sort of James Dean ala Rebel Without a Cause, which is interesting enough on its own. You also have a plot about a mad scientist who wants to better humanity by torturing the poor kid in question with his experimental serums. Everything else is pretty much lacking, but those are the main draws for me. The film came out at a time when teenage everything was in full swing at the movies, so it's mainly just fodder for that particular cannon. The film was also featured on a very good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, so it has that going for it, as well.

A dry & dated Teen Horror Flick of the mid 1950's that was somewhat of a Drive-Inn hit of its day but has definitely dated. The story of hot blooded teen always getting in trouble this is unwillingly the Ginny Pig for mad scientist who give his this unusual serum that turns him into a vicious wolf. I have no doubt this would have been a major inspiration for the Teen Wolf in the mid 1980's with Michael J Fox.