By Geno McGahee
Making a horror comedy is not easy. Movies like THE BURBS, FRIGHT NIGHT and THE LOST BOYS were able to ride that line and make a horror film with some comedy elements successfully. In the 1989 “MY MOM’S A WEREWOLF,” there was an attempt to follow suit, but failed rather miserably. It had potential and started off well, but quickly became a nearly unwatchable mess.
Jennifer (Tina Caspary) is the all American girl. Her best friend is the quirky, horror-obsessed friend, Stacey (Diana Barrows). It was very similar to the FRIGHT NIGHT combination of Brewster and Evil, and that may have been the idea. Barrows was also in FRIDAY THE 13TH VII: THE NEW BLOOD, one year before this flick. She was much better in this film, but she didn’t have much to work with. Her quirky overacting was amusing at times.
Jennifer’s mother, Leslie (Susan Blakely), is not getting many thrills with her husband, Howard (John Schuck), and he isn’t trying very hard. He comes home and she’s ready for some action and he just falls asleep. Now, Blakely was pretty hot in this. Howard would rather watch the games with the boys then to nail his hot wife. I’m not typically an advocate of cheating, but when Leslie finds a new love, I was all for it, especially when it was John Saxon.
Harry Thropen (Saxon) owns a pet store and meets Leslie. He immediately woos were and the two become connected. Thropen is a werewolf and has superpowers with the women. Saxon is a professional and really tried to make this role work. That is actually the case with the entire cast. The cast was very good for this, but the script and execution was the problem.
After a bite from Thropen, Leslie becomes a werewolf. This is when the film decides to become a straight comedy, but it’s not funny at all. The scenarios where she frantically shaves her legs or goes to a beauty salon fail miserably. The only incentive to finish the film is to finally see what the werewolf looks like and when we do, it’s atrocious. There is werewolf battle between the Thrope and Leslie werewolves and it’s as bad as it gets. They are literally wearing Halloween masks. There apparently was no special effects team on this one and that’s surprising. It’s got a budget. It’s got a notable cast. Why wouldn’t they invest in some good effects? Maybe they thought it was funnier this way, but it was very distracting and added to the problems of this film.
MY MOM’S A WEREWOLF is about as bad as it gets, but the cast was solid, the acting was good, and there was an attempt by the cast to make a good movie. It just didn’t work. It had a great 80’s look to it and had they focused on making a horror movie with comedic elements rather than just a straight out comedy in the end, it would have probably been good. It worked with FRIGHT NIGHT and THE LOST BOYS, but they opted to go the other direction and paid for it. It’s not a good horror movie and not a good comedy. It’s nearly unwatchable.
Rating: 3/10
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