MEMORY LANE: REMEMBERING "WEREWOLF"

In the pale, pale
light.
pale, pale light of
the moonglow.

I've got a hunger that's in
motion. a hunger that i
cant control.

I'm alone now, in my room
again. on the prowl now
through your dreams
again.

Howling.


It is an enormous pity that WEREWOLF is still stuck in DVD limbo after all these years. This crafty, clever, highly unusual 80s horror program briefly took the young-adult world by storm when it debuted in 1987, but was not renewed for a second season, and soon faded from memory. Thanks to musical licensing issues that prevented a DVD release, it's generally been impossible to find this program anywhere except on secondhand VHS tapes. If it weren't for YouTube, one might say the show itself had almost become a myth...much like the werewolf itself.

WEREWOLF is the story of Eric Cord (John J. York), a personable, handsome kid from L.A. whose "future is so bright, he has to wear shades." Eric's got a smoking hot girlfriend, lives with his best pal, and has a wealthy de facto stepdad. He even drives a convertible! Unfortunately for him, he also has a problem: his roomie Ted has a secret. Seems he's slipping out at night, turning into a werewolf, and ripping horny twentysomethings to bits. Before long, Ted has bitten Eric, Eric has killed Ted, and the werewolf curse has been transferred between them. Arrested for his friend's murder, Eric, realizing he must destroy the originator of his werewolf bloodline if he ever wants to be free of the curse, skips bail and leaves town. This creates an interesting situation whereby Eric is chasing one Janos Skorzeny (Chuck Connors), while a bounty hunter named "Alamo" Joe Rogan (Lance LeGault) is chasing Eric.

If this sounds familiar in tone, that's because it is. THE INCREDIBLE HULK used a similar premise of having a fugitive hero cursed by powers he doesn't want, who travels from town to town while searching for a cure for his condition -- always hunted, always alone, forever unable to put down roots. But there the similarity ends. For starters, WEREWOLF had the unusual conceit of being only a half an hour (23 minutes after commercials), which meant the stories had little time to develop their plots and had to move very quickly indeed. Additionally, WEREWOLF, though not without a sense of humor, was a horror program pure and simple, and generally quite dark in tone: one would have to reference something like FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES or THE HITCHIKER to find an analog in 1980s television. Lastly, and very importantly, the hero, in werewolf form, did sometimes actually kill people, albeit exclusively evil ones who really, really had it coming.

WEREWOLF turned partially on its effects, which were pretty good considering its modest budget, in large part because guys like Greg Cannom, Rick Baker and a very young John Vulich were behind the show's MUFX. It also featured stories which were sometimes far above average and quite a few episodes with very clever, interesting dialogue. One factor that gave it considerable strength was an endless supply of first-rate character actors: there is hardly an episode where you don't recognize one, two or even three of the guest stars from innumerable other shows of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. This was doubly important because the show's lead, the handsome John J. York, was at this point in his career probably the worst actor ever to land a starring role in a television show. Literally the worst. While I'm pleased to report he did get quite a bit better as he got older (millions know him for his lifelong portrayal of Mac Scorpio on GENERAL HOSPITAL), at this age he was absolutely abysmal: he delivers dialogue like he's reading it upside-down in a foreign language. Hell, even his physical acting is terrible. He can't even take a punch convincingly.

Some of WEREWOLF's other problems circle back to its premise. The idea of the ever-wandering hero means that every story takes place in a different town with different characters, leaving the audience with York, who is likable and handsome but cannot act, and LeGault, who can certainly act but has the thankless task of always being a day late and a silver dollar short of his quarry (LeGault had a similarly suffering role on "The A-Team" as Roderick Decker). Chuck Connors, who looks like a werewolf even without makeup and has a voice like a circular saw, is perfect as the wicked Skorzeny, but he opted out of the series not even halfway through over a money dispute. Brian Thompson, later to become ubiquitous in both TV and film (among a million other roles, he played the Night Slasher in "Cobra"), then became the principal bad guy, playing Nicholas Remy, a 2,000 year-old werewolf with mad conductor hair; however, his sauve, tuxedo-clad character was better suited to play a vampire and the hole left by Connors' departure was fairly large.

Having said this, WEREWOLF was a fun series and some of it holds up surprisingly well. Some noteworthy episodes:

Werewolf: The show's pilot was two hours, and despite some very silly and clunky moments is hugely entertaining and fun. It opens with a slam-bang kill sequence set to the tune of "Silent Running" and ends with two werewolves fighting in a burning barn. It also features Michelle Johnson in a one piece bathing suit and her body is so hot she makes it look like a bikini. (I met Michelle at a showing of the minor horror-comedy classic WAXWORK at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood a few years ago, and she still holds up. Great sense of humor, too.)

Nightwatch: This series usually failed to achieve actual scares, but this episode, in which Eric tracks Skorzeny to a creepy boatyard, is genuinely creepy. There is a great confrontation scene between Chuck Connors and Denny (TARZAN) Miller, a similarly menacing actor with a lot of presence.

Let Us Prey: One of many episodes directed by James Darren has Eric seek sanctuary at a monastery which happens to have its own resident werewolf. This is a tightly written, extremely clever and very well-directed episode which showed what this show could do in a short time, given the right tools.

A World of Difference I & II: Two the best episodes in the series fill out the backstory of Alamo Joe, who gets mauled by Eric and is now wondering if he too will become a werewolf. Lance LeGault shines in these stories as the gritty, pavement-voiced bounty hunter consumed by obsession.

Blood on the Tracks: Everett McGill (Twin Peaks, Dune, Heartbreak Ridge) guest stars as an ex-boxer on the run from the mob, who show up looking for blood but discover McGill's newfound friend is, well, an angry werewolf.

Nightmare at the Braine Hotel: This surreal episode sees Eric take refuge in a sleazy hotel occupied by a serial killer, and a manager who may or may not be a werewolf herself. (The show had several "is it real?" episodes, including "Friendly Haven")

Blood Ties: A very Film Noir episode (Film Noir with werewolves!) sees Eric working as a groundskeeper for the world's most treacherous family. A sly, sexy, somewhat tragic episode about trust, greed and betrayal, right out of a Philip Marlowe novel.

Nightmare in Blue: A highly effective, disturbing story about a rogue cop (or is he?) who has his own way of dealing with transients that involves an abandoned house and shallow graves. Unfortunately for this killer cop, it takes more than psychosis and a .38 to kill a werewolf.

Skinwalker: Eric seeks a cure for his condition from a Native American medicine man (seen years before on "Quincy") but also discovers he's the prime suspect for werewolf murders occurring on the reservation.

Material Girl: A werewolf is slaughtering young vagrants squatting in an abandoned shopping mall, but the guilty party is not who he expects -- and it's hunting him, too.

Gray Wolf - Eric meets an ancient werewolf (William Morgan Shepherd from "The Keep") with a vendetta against Remy, but the old wolf wants him to prove his "pack loyalty" by killing an innocent before they team up against the master werewolf. Larry ("Dr. Giggles") Drake also makes an appearance.

As you can see, the storylines have surprising flexibility and quite a few I didn't mention here take unusual turns of premise: some are scary, some more touching, a few are deliberately silly and a couple only feature the werewolf aspect as a kind of aside to the plot. Of course, there are a few total losers ("Running With The Pack" is both awful and boring), and some episodes would have genuinely benefited from being a full hour, but by and large I was very impressed by what the writers could accomplish in just 22 - 23 minutes, a format that in the television era is pretty much reserved for mindless sit-coms.

So where does the show stand now, decades after it was struck by the silver bullet of cancellation?

Where it mostly stands is forgotten, but if the show were merely resting comfortably in the dustbin of history, I would not mention it here. For those who actually remember it, it serves as a reminder of what can actually be accomplished in a half-hour television format, even one which clings fairly rigidly to a simple formula. And it happens that this reminder is much needed in an era where storytelling has become increasingly sloppy and incompetent, in large part because modern television and film writers often lack basic fundamentals. Nepotism (both familial and friendship-based), ignorance, arrogance, and ideology have replaced talent and craft, with predictable results. But there is hope, and it lies in the past. WEREWOLF is certainly not the blueprint by which "good" TV can be produced again, but it is a kind of minor study in how to do things on a shoestring budget. It is a also a reminder, as are shows from the Golden Age of Radio like THE LINEUP or ESCAPE, of what can be done with very little in the way of time or resources provided the writer knows what he's doing and has passion for his craft.

There is one more point I wish to make before I disappear before the moon rises and the wolf gets me. It is that whatever its other shortcomings, WEREWOLF was often damned good at establishing atmosphere. Many a sin can be hidden by a writer and a production team who understand the power of atmosphere, be it brooding, sinister, mysterious, haunting, or just plain menacing. WEREWOLF, at its worst, was fucking terrible. On the other hand, when it was mediocre, as it frequently was, it usually remained watchable and even enjoyable because it was quite good at establishing "the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation, or work of art." Some of the episodes have the exact qualities you'd find in a fever-dream, or more accurately put, a fever-nightmare: others are full of feelings of impending doom. Still others reach into basic human fears by harnessing the wolf's cry, the light of the moon, darkness and shadow, and, of course, the fear of being hunted. When the show employed this use of mood correctly, you knew you were in a horror movie, even if it was only 23 minutes long and running on prime time television, where gore was not much in evidence. I harp on this because as a writer myself, I have discovered one of the most powerful tools in the literary arsenal is the use of atmosphere to produce specific effects in the reader's mind. At the same time, however, it is often underused (and occasionally overused, to the point of pastiche). Striking the correct balance can produce extremely satisfying effects, and an episode like "Nightmare in Blue" or "Braine Hotel" can provide good, low-budget examples of how to do this.

And that brings us to the end of this branch of Memory Lane: Such was WEREWOLF, a brief moment in horror history which may never get its proper due thanks to some silly licensing issues which have kept it in limbo for decades. I am baffled as to why the songs causing all the drama can't simply be swapped out for different songs, the way they did on WKRP IN CINCINNATTI when they had similar problems, but that's Hollywood for ya. Once you get the lawyers involved, even werewolves aren't safe.