As someone who has always considered the werewolf to be his favorite movie monster, it has long been disheartening to see just how few truly good werewolf movies exist. Opinions may vary, of course, but I’d put the number somewhere between 10 and 20. While it’s not without its own charm, 1973’s The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, new to home video from Scream Factory after years of being unavailable, probably won’t be making that list.
A unique hybrid of monster movie, children’s fantasy, and 1970s domestic drama, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf finds young Richie Bridgestone watching the marriage of his parents dissolve. While on a trip to the family cabin with his dad (Kerwin Mathews), the pair is attacked by a wolf that bites his father. Before he can say, “I’m pretty sure my dad is a werewolf,” Richie’s dad becomes a werewolf and starts killing people. Despite trying to tell everyone—his psychiatrist (George Gaynes), his mother (Elaine Devry), pretty much anyone who might listen—no one is willing to believe in werewolves… until, of course, it’s too late.
There is an innocence to the PG-rated Boy Who Cried Werewolf that is refreshing, told as it is through the prism of a young boy. The transformation effects are old-fashioned, the violence mostly occurring off-screen. This is a werewolf movie that might actually be okay to show to kids, which is nice, considering that pretty much the only other title in that category made post-1960 is 1985’s Teen Wolf (and even that gets into some sex stuff that younger viewers probably wouldn’t understand).
But that same innocence can make the movie feel a little goofy, beginning with the makeup design of the werewolf. In an attempt to maybe make the monster look less scary, the effects artists ended up making the werewolf resemble a cuddly puppy. Compounding the non-threatening nature of the monster is the fact that he runs around for the majority of the movie in a suit and a turtleneck. Such was the 1970s.
Tonally the movie is strange, too, at times veering into broad comedy and at others becoming almost too dark for the lightweight monster movie it seems to want to be. Director Nathan Juran, responsible for The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles to Earth, and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, knows his way around a genre picture and directs with a light touch and a sense of energy, but somehow the elements in Werewolf don’t always cohere.
The second half of the movie, which features a significant subplot involving a hippie cult, almost feels like it belongs in a different film. Some of the best material in the movie deals with the parents’ divorce, as it gives the film an interesting subtext about not being able to trust adults and/or the unwillingness of adults to listen to their children when they’re caught up in their own problems. The Boy Who Cried Werewolf doesn’t get much more meaningful than that, but at least there’s more substance than just a werewolf chasing a kid around the woods.
Scream Factory’s Blu-ray of The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is, as far as I can tell, the first time the film has been legally available on home video since it was first released on a double bill with Sssssss (also available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory) in the early ’70s. It has been well-preserved; while print damage is occasionally visible, the 1080p transfer offers a bright image, decent skin tones, and generally robust colors throughout. The only bonus features are a photo gallery and the original theatrical trailer, advertising its run as part of a double feature.
While unlikely to ever be considered one of the best werewolf movies ever made, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf offers just enough of a variation on the typical formula to distinguish itself as something different. As a monster movie for kids, it’s not bad. As a product of the ’70s, it’s fun. As a werewolf movie, it’s a little silly and not entirely successful.
At the same time, I’m so glad that Scream Factory has allowed it to see the light of day; it’s a film I’ve been wanting to watch since first seeing stills in a book about monster movies I used to regularly check out from the library as a kid. As much as I love their special editions of beloved horror classics, I also love it when Scream Factory rescues a title like this from obscurity. The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is hardly great art, but it still deserves to be saved.
Movie Score: 2.5/5, Disc Score: 3/5
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
