I Was A Teenage Wereskunk



Curtis Albright just wants to live the life of a typical 1950’s teen. Go out with his friends, drink malts, ask the girl he has a crush on to go steady with him, maybe perv on a woman or two by peeking through their windows. You know, typical teen junk. But that last hobby of his ends up getting him in trouble. Not because someone called the cops on him for being a peeping tom or anything. But because while he was trying to get an eyeful he stumbled upon a skunk with a sense of humor who decided to squirt him right in the face. One tomato bath later and he thinks everything is good.



But, alas, all is not good. Because he wasn’t just sprayed by any old skunk. Oh, no. Curtis was sprayed by an enchanted skunk, meaning that now he’s known as a Segonku, “the one… who squirts!” Or, to put it more simply: He’s a Wereskunk. So now every time Curtis becomes aroused in any capacity, he either poofs out a real stinker of a cloud, or he turns into a bloodthirsty skunk monster. And sadly for him by the time he’s realized what’s happened to him there’s a trail of bodies in his wake. On top of that his father, the local sheriff, is already starting to place the pieces of this very odd murder spree together and isn’t too far from figuring out what’s going on in their sleepy little town.



For my final “I Was A Teenage ___” film for the month I present to you I Was A Teenage Wereskunk, an American horror/comedy from 2016. And let me tell you right now, with a title like that I did NOT have high expectations for this film. Nope. Not one itty-bitty bit. But you know what? Color me surprised, but I actually kind of liked it. Instead of just aiming for being a cheesy horror movie with a stupid premise, the film is actually a spoofy…homage? – Yes, let’s go with homage – to the B-horror movies from the 1950s. And let me tell you, they really leaned into their schtick. But they leaned into it in a way that showed that they weren’t just trying to make a quick and cheap cash grab. No, you can tell that the people who made this actually had an appreciation for the genre they were aiming for. So their silly spoof was made with love… And quite a bit of blood.


Since when were skunks known for being this bloodthirsty? Or was that just supposed to be part of the joke?

Though I feel that I should point out that though it was lovingly made, the movie is still a very low-budget affair. There aren’t any creative sets to speak of, as most of it looks like it was either shot in public spaces or in and around certain people’s homes. All the actors look to be around the same age, whether they’re supposed to be playing ‘teens’ or adults. People are wearing cheap 1950s wigs and they aren’t even trying to hide it. One of the actresses does double duty by playing both the sheriff’s wife, and the sheriff’s second deputy, Gary (they just put a fake mustache on her). The ‘enchanted’ skunk is just a stiff puppet that someone is wriggling around. And the wereskunk costume? Just a cheap-looking body-suit that looks like it was taken directly off the rack from a third-rate Spirit Halloween knock-off store (as do all the other costumes). It comes with a little snout that you’re supposed to put over your nose that’s meant to look like the nose and upper jaw of a skunk, complete with tiny teeth. And because it has those teeth, and because nothing else was done to modify it, you can still see the actor’s human teeth in every scene he’s in. At one point he kills someone by throwing a baseball at them and they just explode. So most of the film looks patently ridiculous and cheesy as hell.







But the movie also isn’t so cheap that it didn’t do anything to try to recreate the 50s vibe. The soundtrack contains four original songs including such hits as, “I Was A Teenage Wereskunk”, “Root Beer Float”, “The Smell of Love” and “Cotton Candy Boy”, all in the style of 50’s pop bops. Two of them even get musical numbers (yes, there are musical numbers). The first of which involves Curtis dressing up as Elvis and is choreographed in a malt shop. Because of course every cheesy teen movie from the 50s has to have a musical number in the malt shop.


Much to the owner’s dismay.



The two ‘teen’ guys are both wearing letterman jackets with a “P” on them (though the jackets do not match). Their respective ladies are both wearing 50s-style cheerleader outfits (they DO match, but they both simply read “Sports”). When they talk they all use words like ‘golly’ and ‘gee wiz’, and when they’re all sitting together it’s in front of a wall with several ‘vintage’ style ads on it.



They threw in a confusing ‘beatnik’ subplot for Curtis to contend with, and had the Beatnik in question (who introduced Curtis to Charles Manson at one point? What?) keep his hat on at all times, even in his skivvies.


It was nice of them to try to throw in one hot guy for the ladies in the audience to ogle at.

It looks like they at least tried to have the one vehicle they used look like it came out sometime around the time period the film is set in. A quick Google search tells me that it came out in the 60s. Oopsie doodles! But hey, at least an effort was made. Its license plate however, does read, “IWATWS”, a clear nod to the film’s title.



And to the film’s credit, it’s not like it didn’t KNOW it was cheap as hell. I mean, come on, they had the wereskunk throw a mannequin across the yard and pretended that it was Gary (probably because Melanie Minichino was the smallest cast member). They knew that they had no budget. They even acknowledge as much towards the end. After the police have literally spent half of the movie running around town trying to catch up to Curtis they stop to catch their breath and Gary asks, “Tell me again…*wheeze*…why we don’t have police cars… Sheriff?” To which he responds: “Wasn’t in our budget, Gary.” You kinda gotta respect a film that knew enough to answer some of the silly questions that they figured the audience would undoubtedly be asking themselves.



The cinch-er though is whether or not you enjoy the film’s various bits of humor, which run the gamut of really cheesy jokes, to just something as simple as subtle signs in the background. Though if you like the kind of horror movies this movie is spoofing you’ll probably enjoy some of the smaller, sillier things that the movie never acknowledges. Like how Mary Beth never takes her roller skates off. Or maybe you’ll like the scene where the sheriff has to confront some guy in his house outside town. Except they couldn’t afford to do a location shot like that. So they had him living in something that looks like a tiny child’s playhouse. Or maybe you’ll like the part where one of the Wereskunk’s potential victims tries to fend him off with the severed leg of one of his other victims. Or maybe you’ll just like that the film’s idea of subtle innuendo for sex is a gooey stack of dripping pancakes. Perhaps you’ll be amused by the running joke where Officer Maggie keeps making modern references to things like cell phones and DNA and nobody knows what the hell she’s talking about. Or perhaps you’ll simply be amused by the fact that the Sheriff’s wife and Gary can’t be in the same scene because they’re both played by the same actress. Or maybe you’ll just hate all of it. Who knows. It’s really gonna depend on how high your goofy tolerance levels are.






It’ll probably also depend on how high your tolerance levels are for Gary.

And of course the characters and the acting match all the cheesy nonsense going on in the film itself. So you probably shouldn’t be expecting anything here in the way of ‘great’ performances. It’s all pretty much appropriately over the top, as one would probably expect with a film like this. But it’s also not so bad that I think anyone was godawful, either. In fact I think everyone fills their roles admirably. The only downside is that Gary can be downright annoying most of the time. But then again Gary is 100% meant to be annoying most of the time. Sort of like a really obnoxious Barnie Fife. So I can’t really fault them on that. They nailed that insufferableness down to a ‘T’.



So, to my great surprise, I Was A Teenage Wereskunk ended up being much better than I expected. Is it great? No. Some of the jokes fall flat and I’m still not sure why a skunk monster would have a taste for blood or why a baseball would cause somebody to explode. But (!) even with the paltry budget you can still tell that this is obviously a movie that was made with love and appreciation for the source material. So people who can appreciate that particular niche of film, or even silly horror movies in general, will probably find something to like about it. If you don’t though… Well then, you’ll likely just think it’s pretty stupid.

One thing of note though, is that even though this movie is an homage to 50s horror movies, it is still decidedly an adult film. There’s a lot of blood on display, and though there’s no nudity and everyone keeps all their naughty bits covered, there are still several sexual situations throughout. So while the movie may be referencing kid-friendly source material, this is not a movie for kids. This is just for the adults who like those older films. So if you’re thinking about plopping your five-year-old in front of the tube to watch this, forget about it.

I Was A Teenage Wereskunk is available on a variety of streaming services.

I Was A Teenage Wereskunk is also available on DVD.

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