'Teen Wolf' Is A Dumb Movie That Quietly Asks Some Heavy Questions
The questions are on accident, but they're still there
It’s common to look back at your younger years and think, “life sure was simpler.”
In the 80s, my biggest decision was deciding between Pop Tarts and Corn Pops. I was also still eating my own boogers—getting high on my own supply—so life wasn't exactly stressful.
Simpler doesn’t usually mean better. Case in point: our childhood entertainment.
In the 80s we did not give a shit about verisimilitude.
Stories didn’t need to make sense. They just needed to be awesome. Which is how you get a show about a sentient Trans Am and its best friend, David Hasselhoff. Or comedies in which a suburban family civilizes a creature that would eat them in reality (A.L.F., Harry and the Hendersons). Or movies about famous bouncers, or time-traveling doofuses, or nerds who turn a Barbie into Kelly LeBrock.
These stories didn’t just ask you to suspend your disbelief—they asked you to believe in the impossible.
Cocaine is a hell of a drug. Just look what it did to Star Wars.
Which brings us to Teen Wolf, a movie so ridiculous I’m inventing a new metric by which to measure this sort of thing: SPM (shenanigans per minute). Given the 92-minute runtime and the utter insanity that occurs on screen, Teen Wolf has to be a top-5 SPM film.
A partial list of ridiculous things the movie asks you to buy:
Someone turns into a werewolf during a basketball game… and the game just continues.
One of the secondary characters is called Chubbs because he’s a bit rotund. Everyone calls him Chubbs: his friends, the other basketball players, the coach. Probably even his mom. Is Chubbs on his birth certificate?
The main character shows up late to the championship basketball game and they immediately stage a new tip-off because obviously whatever happened before doesn’t count. The score remains though for dramatic reasons.
The game ends with a foul. Everyone leaves the court except the guy who was called for the foul. He’s allowed to stand under the basket and glare at the main character as he shoots free throws.
The hot girl likes guys with aggressive body hair, yellow claws, and legit canines.
The best friend seriously wants to hold-up a liquor store with a water gun. There’s no thought of repercussions because he’s a white goofball. Harmless.
The thing 80s teenagers most liked to do at parties was writhe around in whipped cream in their underwear while their peers stand around in a circle.
The main character’s dad is also a werewolf. In fact, they come from a long line of werewolves. Somehow this isn’t common knowledge or even a rumor. “Stay away from those Howards—I heard they howl at the moon and lick their own nethers.”
The vice principal knows about the dad’s midnight tendencies and is deathly afraid of him, but he still antagonizes the son because he’s a vice principal.
Perhaps my favorite moment: Dad Howard gives Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) the Spider-Man talk—with great power comes great responsibility—but 10 minutes later, Scott Wolf steals the basketball from his own teammate. It’s the greatest cinematic betrayal since Lando Calrissian traded Han Solo’s freedom for a block of government cheese.
I guess the message is absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or perhaps: If you allow a werewolf to play team sports, you can’t get mad when he lone wolves it.