Teen Wolf (1985) was not the first film to greet the horror icons with humour and flippancy, as it was with drive-in theatre B-movies that first brought those horror tropes into a recognisable teen movie formulation. AIP films, such as I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)/Frankenstein (1957) and Blood of Dracula (1957), were released to tap into the drive-in zeitgeist and brought the phenomenon of a monster hunting angsty teenagers to the exploitation scene.
The teenager, as a subculture, has been intrinsically tied to the development of modern capitalism, particularly being read as an emergent feature of America's post-war economic boom. These teen-horror films appealed to the newly economically liberated teenager subculture, sympathising particularly with the angst of their self-declaration. In I Was A Teenage Werewolf, it is the sentiments of teen peers which motivates the protagonist to seek psychiatric help, rather than any adult attempt in coercing him to 'adjust' (and it is the very adult institution of psychotherapy which inevitably betrays him). The film proved a success for this portrayal of teens who teens themselves could relate to, but the film was in a way quite cynical: it may have sympathised with the teenager, but it also saw the subculture as an unfortunate byproduct of the development of modernity.
In the conflict between the futurist scientist and the nostalgic suburbia that his experiment-gone-awry (the titular Werewolf) wreaks havoc on, the film professes a strong cautionary tale against progress: "It's not for man to interfere with the ways of God." The adolescence that the new teenager is exposed to is depicted as the unfortunate offspring of the modern society/depravity that emerged alongside America's new primacy as a global power.
This struggle with modernity and the conditions of hedonistic capitalism would persist for as long as viable alternatives made themselves clear: naturally, it was the era of Reaganism, neoliberalism and late capitalism that would transform I Was A Teenage Werewolf into Teen Wolf, a film where there is no longer an alternative, no deviant or subversive element left to be feared. As yesterday's fears dissipated, so too did yesterday's monsters.
Where I Was A Teenage Werewolf ends with its teen wolf shot dead, and a lament over man's hubris in interfering with the territory of God, Teen Wolf straight up transforms into a basketball film for its final fifteen minutes. This was the journey that the supernatural film had taken: from the indisputable, pre-modern fear of the supernatural in The Wolfman, to a more nebulous fear of a modern degenerative, delinquent tendency in I Was A Teenage Werewolf, culminating in Teen Wolf's post-modern absence of fear. The subversive element, the monster, is no longer to be feared, since it can so easily be subsumed into the normative order. Michael J. Fox's wolf form causes no existential crisis for his fellow students or for his community, rather they prefer the wolf to his human form. The wolf is cool, adorned on t-shirts and becomes the school's new mascot. Does this not perfectly mediate the way in which late-capitalism has proven to assimilate all counter-cultural forces into its hegemonic block?
And Teen Wolf was not the only Horror-Comedy to demonstrate this inefficacy of outdated myth. The unrepentantly silly and absurdist 1993 RomZomCom My Boyfriend's Back, fits nicely into this frame. This RomZomCom, a term attributed to and popularised by Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004) simply meaning Romantic-Zombie-Comedy, is unlike much of its peers; there is no modicum of fear to be found in its depictions of zombieism. It rarely, if ever, feels like a film actually about zombies. There's no slow, intense walk of the newly awakened dead, nor the frenzy rush of infected runners, but rather a diffident, inoffensive teenager (who just so happens to have a craving for flesh, but who are we to judge?). As such, I find the film makes for much more interesting comparison when placed alongside a more optimistic film like Teen Wolf than to any other comedic zombie affair.
For one, it seems quaint and cheesy in the face of modern successes, like Warm Bodies (2013), which it seems to have much in common with, and Zombieland (2009), which deliver their humour without compromising their status as a clear zombie film. More than this though, My Boyfriend's Back, like Teen Wolf before it, utilises the classic genre trope as a universal sign of misunderstanding. Werewolves and zombies (and later, vampires and ogres) are the deviant sexuality, or the radical communist, who we used to fear before capitalism made it clear that it would not be toppled. We now instead freely embrace them as part of the cultural salad bowl.
The film is unique in just how deftly it delivers its absurd everyday as part of its eschewal of the classic horror trope. Johnny Dingle's return from the dead is only ever met with slight surprise, as if he had gotten out of school an hour early rather than emerged from the grave and each line of dialogue is lent a pitch perfect deadpan that stuns you into bewilderment; watch the film and tell me that it doesn't leave you speechless, mouth agape, as you wonder just how on earth this got made. It doesn't do this by being shocking, but by being so unshocking that you can't help but be bemused.
Whenever it seems like Johnny Dingle might face consequences for his cannibalistic tendencies, he is swiftly forgiven after a polite apology or a romantic declaration. As his longstanding crush falls increasingly and illogically further in love with a gradually decaying corpse, she fetishises his very undead quality to a point where you have to question whether their relationship as two living people could actually work out, since the living appear to be so much more dysfunctional than the dead.
Its dream sequences operate for the sake of a gag or two and little else, proving to us that there are no hidden, psychic demons haunting the film. Yet, the film itself nevertheless has an almost constant dreamlike quality- where the most peculiar of things may happen, yet they persist as if they are normal, everyday occurrences. For some inexplicable reason, the majority of the films exposition is done through comic book panel sequences. It is never made clear why! I have no idea why! But this film defies such mundane questions as 'why'?
Much like Teen Wolf, the horror trope is burrowed deep under quirk and a comedic, consumerist optimism; an optimism wherein which the features of the horror movie are neatly resolved by its conclusion. In the post-modern revisitation of horror icons and tropes, there is nothing to fear. The second chance at real life that Johnny Dingle receives in the film's happy Hollywood ending is a negation of any of the preceding zombie deviancy: not just in the film proper, but across the genre as a whole. Sorry for the misunderstanding, we used to be afraid of zombies, but we know better now.
My Boyfriend's Back may be an incredibly dated film, but it is also a film that seems strangely ahead of its time and in need of immediate reappraisal. Watching it is a genuine experience: it's vapid, yet deeply funny; it is speciously a black comedy, but without any blackness; it is plain and inoffensive, yet, at the same time, incredibly surreal. It's also perfect as a Halloween movie for people who are too easily spooked.
Panned at release and more or less forgotten by the majority of audiences, I can safely say that this is the only film I will be recommending to people for the foreseeable future.
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