25 Best Werewolf Movies Ever Made
24. I Was A Teenage Werewolf
Not all of the humour in this Mystery Science Theatre 3000 favourite may be intentional, but I Was A Teenage Werewolf is nevertheless both a camp pleasure and a movie that was genuinely ahead of its time in linking the concepts "teen" and "wolf" decades before Michael J. Fox showed that a wolf can dunk.
During the 1950s movies that focused on teen experiences, targeted at teen audiences were still something of a novelty. Schlock writer-producer Herman Cohen realised that the American teenager's experience being one of physical and emotional changes and melodramatic turmoil was perfect fodder for a monster movie.
In telling the story of a troubled high schooler prone to lashing out violently (and subsequently turned to a werewolf after some hypnotherapy from a psychiatrist of dubious medical ethics), Cohen was breaking new ground, even if the results were a little silly.
If nothing else the "I Was A Teenage..." title format proved a hugely enduring legacy of the movie. Cohen and studio American International Pictures quickly trotted out I Was A Teenage Frankenstein a few months later. Low budget comedy horrors from I Was A Teenage Zombie (1987) to I Was A Teenage Mummy (1992) and I Was A Teenage Serial Killer (1993) riffed on the title for decades afterwards.