I Was A Teennage Werewolf

In 1957, Michael Landon made his motion picture debut in the low budget A.I.P. cult classic I Was A Teenage Werewolf. This movie would play on a double feature with Invasion Of The Saucer-Men and would be followed by the psuedo-sequel, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. Over 50 years later, all three films are getting the action figure treatment from B.F.F.F. International.

Of the three toy projects, I like the “Teenage Werewolf” figure the best so I’ve decided to review that one first. The others will follow.

The “Teenage Werewolf” figure is a standard 12″ doll and comes in a large full color box reproducing the original movie poster on the front of the box. This box is larger than the standard Sideshow Collectibles doll box so it doesn’t slot in with those as well as I’d hoped. It is the same size as the Dr. Phibes doll from Majestic Studios though. The lid opens up to reveal the toy sealed in plastic. This is pretty common with this time of toy, but for the first time that I’ve seen, the interior of the front lid actually features reproductions of two lobby cards from the movie. I’m getting more and more interested in lobby cards lately so I think this is a really great addition!

The figure is a nice reproduction of the character. The sculpt of the face is nice. The whites of the eyes actually have a small amount of red, giving it a nice feral look. There’s also a nice touch of gloss over the eyes and mouth, so it looks more wet and lively in those areas. Unfortunately, the paint is not quite as nice in the hair. You can still see small spots of flesh showing through and it looks like they attempted to give the hair some depth of color by adding bits of grey. But the grey doesn’t look very convincing.

The claws also look nice but are not perfect. There is painted hair on them, but if you turn the hands all the way in, you can see the original flesh color. But this is very unlikely to be a factor when you are posing it. And the color of the forearms does match the hands. So if the sleeves ride up, it’ll still look appropriate.

Speaking of the sleeves, the rest of the outfit is well done. It features a plain pair of shoes, black socks, blue pants, white shirt and school jacket. The jacket can be opened and removed if you so choose, even though I neglected to take a picture of them that way.

And if you’re wondering where you’ve seen a werewolf in a school jacket before, yes, this is the movie that inspired the 80s comedy “Teen Wolf” starring Michael J. Fox.

This toy includes a stand with the movie title imprinted on the bottom. I’m always glad when something like this is included but I wish this one was a little shorter. Maybe because I just got some doll stands off Ebay that fit 8-12″ figures and this one seems a little bit more difficult to manage because the lowest it can go is right at the waist. But it’s better than not getting a stand at all.

So, ultimately this is a pretty good figure with its pros and cons. I can’t say it’s up to par with the quality we’ve come to expect from other doll makers like Sideshow, especially in terms of the paint job, but it’s a nice effort. And you know I like seeing some of these more obscure characters being made into figures so I’m all about supporting that and am happy with my purchase of this one.