FULL MOON HIGH (1981) *

Writer/director Larry Cohen’s movies usually have a string of tongue-in-cheek humor, social commentary, or macabre wit running through them.  When he flat-out goes for laughs though, the results can disastrous, as anyone who has seen Wicked Stepmother can attest.  The same can be said for Full Moon High.  The jokes are juvenile, the gags are tired, and a pretty decent cast is thoroughly wasted. 

Adam Arkin stars as a high school student who accompanies his dad (Ed McMahon) to Romania on a top-secret mission.  While dad is busy having a three-way, Adam is forced to wander the streets of Romania unattended.  Naturally, he gets bitten by a werewolf and returns home with a craving to bite people on the ass. 

Yes, you read that right.  The werewolf in this movie goes around biting people on the butt.  Ho-ho.  You’d think that would mean they would also turn into a werewolf too, but the film is so dumb it doesn’t even stop to entertain that possibility. 

Like many of the horror-comedies of the early ‘80s, Full Moon High takes a lot of its inspiration from Airplane as the gags occur at a rapid-fire clip.  Unfortunately, there isn’t nary a laugh to be had here as the results are closer to Saturday the 14^th than Student Bodies.  Heck, this makes Saturday the 14^th look like Saturday the 14^th Strikes Back! 

Some of the gags, you just shake your head in disbelief.  Take for example the scene where Arkin foils an airline hijacking by turning into a werewolf.  I know this sort of thing was on the audience’s mind in those days, but it’s just so random (and stupid) that it comes off feeling forced.  The whole idea that Arkin remains eternally young is a bit odd too.  In fact, the entire second act in which he returns home twenty years later feels like it came out of a totally different movie.  It’s almost as if Cohen took two half-finished scripts and combined them. 

Not only that, but it’s sort of a shame that something that features Joanne (Switchblade Sisters) Nail, Roz Kelly, Jm. J. Bullock, Demond Wilson, Bob Saget, and Pat Morita is a total washout.  Even an extended cameo by Arkin’s old man, the usually reliable Alan Arkin falls flat.  I hesitate to call Full Moon High a “dog” because that would be sinking to the movie’s level.