Lone Wolf(1988)d/John Callas

Here's a lump of SOV coal for your stocking that's so mindnumbingly awful,it's almost surreal.It manages to consistently reek of dogshit in ways most filmfans didn't even think possible.The kind of movie you rented out back then,and ten minutes through you pause it to contemplate running back to the video store to rent something else before they close for the evening to salvage the night for yourself.Actually,it's the kind of movie your dad brought home when you sent him to "rent a horror movie" after he got done running errands with the car,after he saw the mid-transformation shot on the box,thinking he'd picked you a real winner.Oh,he did alright.This flaccid 80's were-cheapie makes "555" look like The Shawshank Redemption.It makes "The Ripper" look like Dog Day Afternoon.It makes "Blood Cult" look like...okay,I'll stop.

When Eddie isn't "rocking you all night long" with Tyxe,he's bickering with his aunt over breakfast.
The year is 1988.The hairstyle is the mullet.The local Colorado high school(?)/junior college(?) is plagued with what the authorities are calling "wild dog attacks".When the kids who look like they're pushing thirty years old aren't being decapitated during the full moon cycle,they hit the local club scene and rock all night long to the sounds of Tyxe,a band whose mere existence defies reason.There's hair metal guys,there's new wave guys,and they play cliche' metal(as defined by tunes whose titles are ripe with originality, like "We're gonna rock you all night long" and "Raised on Rock and Roll").They suck.Eddie is an angst-ridden mullethead who wears a leather jacket and sings for the band,when he's not ditching school occasionally or arguing with his aunt and uncle,who he lives with(and doesn't look much younger than either).At school,he and his bandmates scrap with the preppie/sporto population,who also rock the mullet like nobody's business.The one class everyone seems to take,deals with new technology involving something called computers.The prettiest girl in class,is a vapid blonde hairpig whose hair looks like a cross between Lita Ford and a nuclear explosion.She lost her boyfriend to the mysterious murderer one night when she refused to let him drive under the influence of sipping at some empty beer bottles,causing him to angrily walk home instead.

Someone up there likes him.And someone wrote this script with their feet.
In the class,one of the ancestors of today's computer dork fancies our hairpig heroine,and together,with the help of this... computer...they try to get to the bottom of these horrible deaths.By the way,it's a werewolf.But not just any werewolf,it's one who transforms in a carbon copy manner to The Howling or An American Werewolf in London(eight years earlier),facial structure stretching,hair growing out of the skin,fangs jutting out of the gums,canine ears popping out of head...only the finished product...well,it sucks.The whole mess culminates at the school's Winter Costume Ball,held on a full moon,of course.You know,I bet the werewolf is gonna end up on stage,and someone's gonna remark that IT is the best costume at the gala.Only it isn't even.The nerd melts down some silver into bullets,then gives 'em to uber-loner Eddie,who wan't even the werewolf afterall like we all thought,him being so distant...and mulletastic,and he plugs the beast with them,after it tears through the crowd on a bloody rampage.It was the computer teacher.At the local hospital,someone being treated for werewolf claw-slashes,transforms into a werewolf and attacks the nurse,leaving the path open for another lousy shot-on-video sequel we didn't ask for.Thankfully,they left it at that,took their money and ran like the fucking wind.

An oversized heart,a rubberized lycanthrope,a working fast forward button....
I pondered at great lengths whether or not I should give this piece of shit zero B.W.'s,but eventually came to the realization that I found myself moderately entertained by the film's gaping ineptitudes,making it somewhat of a guilty pleasure.There are no footnotes here,no one went on to act in anything else,as if any of them could act in the first place...the whole cast looks like they put mullet wigs on a warehouse full of Keanu Reeves clones,and then handed them the most banal dialogue imaginable to over-deliver in wooden fashion.The effects are pretty bad,too,despite the on-screen pride the transformations are treated with.You can sit down to this,and remember everything you hated about the eighties,and love dissecting it all over beers and pizza.As such,I'll give it the marginal score of:

Just $14.99 at Spencer's gifts,or wherever fine latex masks are sold.