Tyler Someone-or-other is Mr. Teen Wolf 2011.

Welcome to Re-make Mondays, a weekly feature that takes a look at a remake/reboot currently being touted to hungry cinema/TV audiences. I’ll feature the remake, and also what footage or content I can from the original, and then leave the helpless victim for you all to tear apart or cuddle up to in the comments. So, let’s get started:

In the late 1980s, there was practically nothing tween-dream, Michael J. Fox, could do wrong. Not only was he the star of primetime super-sitcom, Family Ties (for which he received three Emmy’s respectively), he also become a global star following his role in blockbuster smash, Back To The Future, and it’s subsequent sequels. Despite being in his mid-twenties, his youthful features and slight stature made him the go-to all American screen-teen, and as such, this became a mould he found difficult to break out of.

Less Teen Wolf than Teen Wookie, if you ask me

One of the first films he made just after Back To The Future – Part One, whilst commuting back and forth between the Family Ties set, was 1985’s Teen Wolf, a high school-set comedy where his eponymous freshman, Scott Howard, contracts a case of the hereditary hairy howlin’s and has to deal with the usual gamut of high school obstacles (belles, ball-games, bullyin’ and buds) as well as involuntarily wolfing out at the most comically inopportune times – dude, harsh!

While it was a modest hit, Teen Wolf never approached the runaway success of Fox’s other ventures, and as such was relegated to the vaults of VHS mediocrity. Here’s the original trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbIerQkXm_k

Fast forward 26 years, and MTV, capitalising on a series of home runs in their scripted show offering (RJ Berger, anyone?) decided to log on to the still simmering global tween-obsession with things that go bump in the night, and revive Teen Wolf for the Jersey Shore generation. They recruited a cast of toothsome teenage could-be’s (Tyler… who?), drenched the 10 episode first season in (f)angsty high school melodrama, and the pick of modern age-appropriate muzak, and voila, we have the latest twinge in the long running high-school-is-hard-when-you’re-different-supernatural-edition school of TV dramedy. Here’s the trailer for the 2011 version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQapH9qEhck

My Verdict: Meh. The cast is largely populated with unknowns, whose respective physical attractions ably distract from a chronic inability to act (though honorable mention should be given to screen newbie, Dylan O’ Brien, who plays Teen Wolf Scott’s bestie Stiles, is hilarious, adorkable and can actually act). The script rigidly follows the now turgid line of the many similar Supernatural High outings out there, where becoming a hairy fangy mess/pale soulless demon/staggering rotting corpse is somehow an allegory for making it through the school day. Still, if it worked for Twilight… Only watch if you’re into seeing teenage fur fly, both of the adolescent angst, and freak show fangs variety.