Think back to the Summer of 1989.  What comes to mind?  Batman?  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?  Ghostbusters II?  How about Star Trek V or even UHF?

For me, hands down, it’s the topic of this week’s enema – My Mom’s a Werewolf.

Just kidding.  I only vaguely remember this moving being out there.  I mostly remember seeing it at video stores.  The box always brought to mind things like Teen Wolf or The Graduate.  Really, if you think about it, the 80s were obsessed with werewolves.  You had things like The Howling, Wolfen, and the aforementioned Teen Wolf movies.  However, this one kinda slipped under the radar.  Like I said, I definitely remember seeing this at video stores.  I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if this movie played a big part in why I like legs.  Wait.  Maybe that’s the box to The Graduate that I’m thinking about.  Let’s just move on.

Again, pulling from the 50-movie Pure Terror Set the synopsis reads: “A housewife finds herself transforming into a werewolf after a bite from a pet shop owner she meets.  It seems the shop owner was a werewolf and has now passed along the curse to the housewife.  The woman attempts to hide her transformations from her family until her daughter and daughter’s friend learn that secret and set out to find a cure for the housewife’s curse.”

I have to say that this is a really strange premise.  I’ve never heard of a werewolf curse that can simply be passed off to another person.  It’s also kind of random that it’s just the pet shop owner that was the werewolf.  Anyway, the dad in this movie is a well known dad of horror films (though I think this is technically a comedy) – John Saxon of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame.  So…  I guess we have that on our side.  Screw it!  Let’s get on with the review!

So right off the bat, this is a Crown International Pictures film.  I have a feeling we will be doing a lot of these over time.  I may also need to mention this is a “Hairy Production”.  You know, because werewolves are hairy.  Either way, any movie that lists the late great Marcia Wallace (of Bob Newhart and Simpsons fame) and Ruth Buzzi (who is also probably “late” but I really don’t know), has my attention.  Holy shit, the movie is produced by Steven J. Wolfe.  Are you kidding me with the werewolf puns?

In one of the first audible lines of the movie, the soon-to-be werewolf mom calls her husband her “big cucumber”.  She’s soon disappointed that she has a big dinner plan, but her cucumber and her daughter, Jennifer, is off to meet her geeky, horror-fanatic friend at a horror/sci-fi con.  That allows us to now shift to a lot of references to Famous Monsters Magazine and The Invisible Man and a bunch of other mash up references to other classic movies.  This may not be quite as bad of an experience I was concerned it would be.  Anyway, Ruth Buzzi plays a gypsy at this con who gives a warning to Jennifer, who doesn’t believe for a moment this shit’s for rillz, about a confrontation with an animal.  She peppers in some pentagrams and “varnings” like she’s the old broad in The Wolfman and the scene ends with a goofball in a mask walking into the camera.  Seriously.

So, Susan Blakely, our wolfmom, is a bored housewife.  I might add, she’s kinda hot compared to “big cucumber” who’s a real doughy Richard Nixon type – if you catch my drift.  Right now, though, there’s more scenes of Jennifer and her monster movie loving best friend.  And I wish the movie was about her because she just sits around and reads Famous Monsters all the time – and that’s pretty awesome.

Less than 15 minutes in, we’re really trucking along.  Susan Blakely goes into a pet shop where she runs into a fanged John Saxon who eats a mouse.  No shitting you, he eats a live mouse after she leaves the shop.  Anyway, out front, a thug (who is naturally a minority), steals her purse.  John Saxon stops him and returns it to her in mysterious fashion.  He then creepily follows her to a restaurant and creepily offers to buy her lunch.  By the way, he doesn’t like silverware and isn’t a fan of her being a vegetarian.  Thankfully, we get back to Jennifer and her monster movie buddy because we need more of that, dammit.  They find wolfmom eating lunch with the Sax, and of course, they think she’s cheating on Big Cucumber (forever known henceforth as B.C.).  Hilarity ensues, but is immediately interrupted by the Sax kissing wolfmom’s hand and then licking it and tells her “I just want to crawl up in you and die.”  Yuck.

Sax hightails it out of t here after putting some lip wrestling moves on her after seeing something off about wolfmom’s food.  Jennifer and monster movie pal follows to the second time “Lil’ Red Ridinghood” by Midnight Ride plays.  After getting stuck with the bill, wolfmom hunts him down at his pet shop, where he gets her drunk in his backroom of horrors.  Now, she must really be bored because he’s clearly trying to plow her wolf-style, and she just keeps letting this shit happen.  Fellas, if you get married, or already are, don’t let your lady get bored around the house or you’ll soon find her toes getting sucked by John Saxon.  I might add, this is when she decides to leave.  Not before when he was putting the moves on her, not after she feebly says she’s a married woman.  Not after she got blitzed enough to nearly get Saxed.  Anyway, the werewolf curse gets passed to her because he bites when he sucks toes.

Now might be a good time to try to ask the question – Who is this movie made for?  It’s not adults because it is all really bizarre and silly.  It’s not for kids with all the toe-sucking and wolfy wolfy sexy shenanigans.  Maybe it’s for Susan Blakely fans?  That’s a thing, right?

Okay, so wolfmom gets herself sexed up and waits for B.C. to do his thing, but he’s pretty clueless to the advances.  Loud sex ensues and I die a little inside.  But as they sleep, Saxon mentally speaks to wolfmom like he’s Dracula or something.  I’m a bit confused.  Do werewolves do that?  Sure, whatever.  Anyway, he invades her dreams and she has a nightmare which includes some pretty bitchin’ makeup effects on a melty-headed creature, but it’s totally a ripoff of An American Werewolf in London.  But, still, do werewolves kinda hypnotize people and speak telepathically to them?  Okay, whatever.

The next morning, B.C. goes off golfing, because of course he does, and wolfmom now has pointy teeth, and a peeping Saxon outside.  Lots of comedy music flutters around as wolfmom still thinks she’s dreaming and/or going insane.  She tries to hide the fangs from Jennifer, and everything is wonderfully funny (<sarcastic) that includes her hilariously leaving the house while still wearing her sexy lingerie .  Can Jennifer’s bestie come back?  I would much rather hear about other monster movies.  Anyway, wolfmom goes to a dentist who is also oddly horny.  He doesn’t want to file down her fangs, but does anyway with a normal hardware file while straddling her like he’s filling her other cavity.  He thrusts, and she breaks all his tools.  He even seemingly orgasms.  Anyway, it’s all a play on Little Shop of Horrors, just not as well done.

Next up is a trip to the butcher’s where she drools all over the place and buys an assload of pork chops and eats them raw in the car.  By now, her ears are getting pointy and she’s got a hairy arm problem.  At wolfmom’s home, Jennifer and monster buddy is throwing a Halloween party, in the afternoon, on a Sunday (this is known because she had to find a dentist that works on a Sunday).  Wolfmom comes onto a teenage boy and that’s just plain out fucking weird.  This is also the first time that she sees the transformations and freaks out and tries to shave the hair off her body.  Meanwhile, hornball teen boy follows her.looking for his “dessert”, but, instead, gets a mouth full of leg hair shavings.  Jennifer starts seeing something is wrong when she peeks through the keyhole to see wolfmom shaving the crap out of everything.  Naturally, the hair comes right back, but Jennifer keeps at it.

Jennifer goes straight to her monster-lovin’ friend to tell her that she knows her mom is a werewolf.  Her friend, though, tells Jennifer that this is all make believe and isn’t real and she’s nuts.  Saxon shows up and tells weremom that he chose her to be his “were-wife” and they can have “were-babies”.  B.C. shows up and Saxon tells her he’ll be back the following night to claim her.  B.C. tries to get some hot marital sex on when he finally comes home from his all day (and night) golf outing, and it’s just as gross as I thought it might be.

Some more shit happens, but I think it’s really important to say that the girl who plays Jennifer in this movie is in Mac and Me and that is fucking awesome.

Okay, I’m going to kinda fast forward a bit.  This movie is like one big werewolf pun.  It’s like in those darker periods of Saturday Night Live when all sketches ran too long and had too few jokes?  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s, at times, painful, but you also kinda can’t hate it.  It’s like watching a car wreck in super slow motion.  It’s painful as all get out to watch, but it’s also fascinating.  For that very reason, I can’t hate this movie.  I want to.  I thought I would.  I can’t.  I’m a little embarrassed to admit that.

There are werewolves, a horror/sci-fi convention, a Halloween party, the girl from Mac and Me, a lot of perverted shit, John Saxon sucking on toes, a sex crazed neighbor, pratfalls, and really really really bad makeup effects, but dammit, there’s a charm to it that only the 1980s can bring to movies.  Don’t get me wrong, but it’s goofy as shit, but it’s almost impossible to hate it.  There’s no way I recommend anyone watch it, though.

Oh, hey, Jennifer kills the Sax and everything works out in the end.  Sorta.