When an inept director takes himself too seriously, the result can never be good. Such is the product of Tony Zarindast's "Werewolf". I find it hard to believe that Zarindast (who makes a cameo appearance as a hard-drinkin' security guard) could possibly have been pleased with this film...and he probably didn't appreciate the perfectly accurate razzing it received as Experiment 904 on "Mystery Science Theater 3000".
A movie whose only star power consists of Charlie Sheen's uncle, the film starts out with a group of angry archaeologists excavating a tiramisu and beating the snot out of each other for no reason while someone punches a side of beef offscreen. They soon uncover the skeleton of a werewolf (complete with ears) that was evidently killed for its Nikes and continually sings the Ave Maria. A cut from one of the bones sends weepy-eyed Timmy to the hospital in bad-bad-bad-bad-bad-bad condition. Sleazy archaeologist-of-many-hairstyles Yuri takes this opportunity to inject the poor man with Essence-O'-Werewolf, sending the raving puppet-beast out into the dead of blue filter night, where paunchy Joe Estevez guns him down to the tune of African bongos. Meanwhile, some guy named Paul arrives in town and is immediately greeted by gun-toting dictator for life Sam (who has a wonderful singing voice) and a woman who refuses to sit at a typewriter unless she's not wearing pants. While Paul finds himself unavoidably attracted to the airheaded and marble-mouthed Natalie (a Russo-Italian-Mexican archaeologist who barely even knows what a hat is), Yuri angrily takes a walk over to Kirk Douglas' house and drugs the aforementioned security guard, shooting up his bloodstream with more Eau De Yanaglonchi. The poor guard ends up lycanthropizing during his drive home from work (a route that takes him past the same gas station three times), eventually meeting his end when a bunch of renegade oil drums leap in front of his car.
Paul suspects that something is amiss and angrily berates Yuri's hair, ultimately ending up being beaten with the slipstream from a werewolf skull swung at his head. Before long, the full moon (which doggedly refuses to wane) takes its toll on Paul, who takes about six hours to fully metamorphose and finally shoots out of his room, lands across town, and drags a teenage girl to a mud hole so he can blow on her belly. Realizing that he's doing "things" by night, Paul tries to ease his fears with a night of tight-shirted pool at the local harpsichord bar, but naturally he spazzes out again when that stubborn full moon hangs around for yet another night. Realizing that Yuri and his fellow archaeologists "is" only trying to exploit her grease-headed sweetheart, Natalie sets out to find Paul before he can swipe blindly at any more random citizens (and miss).
If this movie was supposed to be a satire of the whole werewolf movie subcategory, it'd be great. But because it takes itself too seriously, it crashes and burns on multiple occasions. In spite of that, it's a load of fun to watch, but only if you've got Mike and the bots in front of it. Otherwise, this fossilized Yanaglonchi deserves to remain buried.
