By any chance, did you happen to see a Sylvester Stallone movie called Over the Top? That’s the 80’s flick about a truck driver who had a troubled relationship with his son so he goes on to win an arm wrestling tournament. (I swear, that movie could only have been made in that decade.) If you have seen it, you may remember that Stallone’s character – Lincoln Hawk – was married to a woman who is quite ill. She spends the movie talking to her son on the phone a couple of times and then dies off screen. The actress who played Ms. Hawk is Susan Blakely, a woman whose IMDB profile is filled with similarly forgettable supporting roles. Even with such a dubious distinction under her belt, she did manage to snag a leading role here and there. One example is Leslie Schaber, the protagonist of the film we are looking at tonight on The Witching Hour, My Mom’s a Werewolf.
She is joined in this movie by Tina Marie Caspary as her daughter, Jennifer. Looking over her list of credits, it seems that Caspary is confused on whether her stage name is Tina or Katrina as she bounces back and forth between these two names. Not that it matters too much – this was the last feature film she ever worked on. You might also remember her as Kelly Bundy in the pilot for Married with Children – before the producers gave that role to Christina Applegate.
With two actresses like these on the film’s cast, you can tell what kind of experience we are in for with My Mom’s a Werewolf. I don’t want to sound too negative though. This movie was written by Mark Pirro who I truly do respect for his low budget film efforts. He directed and wrote quite a few schlock horror films including Nudist Colony of the Dead which I reviewed a couple of years ago. I have corresponded with him a while back and I genuinely believe that he is in this industry out of a love for film.
Normally I can handle bad acting or sub-par plots in a film but in the case of My Mom’s a Werewolf, it just doesn’t quite come together. This is a 30-year old movie so expect spoilers. Leslie Schaber is unhappy with her life. During a routine shopping trip she stops by a pet store to pick up flea collars for the family dog. Leslie seems to be taken with the pet store owner, Harry Thropen, an “enigmatic” man with strange eyes and sharp teeth (played by John Saxon).
After leaving the pet store, Leslie’s purse is snatched by a thug who runs off with it down the street only to be confronted by Thropen who reacts by doing… this.
Leslie spends a bit of time with Harry, first over lunch at a restaurant and then back at his place. He seduces her (I guess that is the word for it; the whole scene is so damn clumsy) and I swear, I am not making this up – he gets a bit wild while sucking on her big toe and turns her into a werewolf.
The thing is, Harry does not seem particularly wolf-like. He acts more like a vampire; he even is repulsed by garlic in an italian meal. I have never heard of werewolves reacting badly to garlic. Other than a particularly hairy torso, there is no reason not to think he is anything but a vampire at this point in the movie.
You know what happens next. Leslie begins manifesting signs of a werewolf like fangs.
Not to mention a taste for raw meat and a penchant for howling during sex which I am pretty sure was lifted from Teen Wolf.
Now if you are anything like me, you would hope a newly turned werewolf would run around and eat people. No such luck here. Leslie spends most of her time trying to conceal her new form by clipping the wolf hair from her legs to visiting the dentist and eventually a salon.
Thropen appears to Leslie and explains that he wants her for his bride. In an admittedly nice reveal, he takes on his werewolf form and the two battle in her bedroom while most of the neighborhood things there is some very rough sex involved.
With the help of Jennifer and her friend, Thropen is killed in time to save Leslie’s humanity. Unfortunately, they could not save Blakely or Caspary’s prospects of landing a leading role in a major film ever again.
I think my favorite character in the whole movie is Jennifer’s friend, Stacey (played by Diana Barrows). She fills the typical role of the wacky best friend we have seen so often in 80’s movies but she is also a bit of an extreme horror fan. Kudos to her for name-dropping the aforementioned Nudist Colony of the Dead two years before that movie was actually released. In fact, Stacey even points out that garlic only works on vampires which at least acknowledges the earlier silliness of Thropen being repulsed by it.
My Mom’s a Werewolf is not a particularly good film but you might enjoy it as a parody of horror flicks. It’s on Amazon Prime as of this writing so you might want to check this one out if you are looking for a movie that does not take itself seriously.
