Teen Wolf Too

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: August 8th, 2017.
Director: Christopher Leitch
Cast: Jason Bateman, Kim Darby, Stuart Fratkin, Estee Chandler, Paul Sand
Year: 1987
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The Movie:

Jason Bateman's feature film debut was in this wonky follow up to the 1985 box office hit, Teen Wolf. Here Bateman plays Todd Howard, a freshman enrolled in Hamilton University on an athletic scholarship - boxing, to be precise. Todd isn't really all that interested in sports, however, his main concern is getting good grades and making it through his classes in hopes of becoming a veterinarian. What Todd doesn't realize is that the school's boxing couch, Bobby Finstock (Paul Sand), knows all too well the reality of the Howard family curse. He figures that Todd will be able to do for the boxing team what his cousin Scott did for his high school basketball team.

And of course, soon enough Todd finds out that, yep, he's a werewolf, and as it is in the first movie so too is it in this second film - the otherwise completely average student soon becomes the hottest man on campus. Of course, with his new found fame come a few other problems for Todd, including difficulties with his best friend Stiles (Stuart Fratkin) and that cute girl he likes, Nicki (Estee Chandler). Thankfully Professor Brooks (Kim Darby) is around to help out and teach Todd some important life lessons along the way.

Teen Wolf Too is basically a remake of the first film. While that worked with the first two Evil Dead movies, the second Evil Dead movie had enough insanity intertwined in its ninety minutes that we could overlook that easily enough. Teen Wolf Too lacks insanity, and as such, the movie is a bit of a chore and a bit of a bore. None of that is due to Jason Batmen, who is well cast and a good replacement for the Michael J. Fox that didn't want to come back for a second film, mind you. He's perfectly fine here as Todd - we like him, he seems nice. If you had to sit next to him at work he probably wouldn't chew with his mouth open and make a lot of annoying noises. He seems like a good guy. He's just not that interesting because he's basically the same guy that Michael J. Fox already played. He and pretty Estee Chandler have no chemistry, however, which makes their budding romance a tough pill to swallow.

Director Christopher Leitch mostly worked in TV after this, though he did write Universal Soldier and for that we thank him. The script for Teen Wolf Too was written by Jeph Loeb. Some of you might recognize him for his many Batman credits, including The Long Halloween, which is a genuinely great Batman story. Teen Wolf Too is not a genuinely great Teen Wolf story, however, but since he wrote Commando two years prior he gets a pass for this, rather than a pox put upon him.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Teen Wolf Too hits Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1.85.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer that looks quite good on a 50GB disc. Without the old DVD release available to compare it to, detail does seem to be quite a bit stronger than what SD could provide. There's pleasing texture to the image while colors look nice and natural. Black levels also look accurate here, as does contrast in general. The film retains a natural amount of film grain but doesn't really show much in the way of actual print damage. The disc is also well authored, showing no noticeable compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction.

The only audio mix on the disc is an English language DTS-HD 2.0 mix with optional subtitles offered in English only. While obviously the range is a bit limited there aren't any issues here, the track sounds just fine. A surround sound remix might have been fun, particularly in the more active scenes like the party sequence, but this track gets the job done with no trouble at all. The score sounds nice and punchy and the levels are well balanced so you won't have any trouble following the dialogue and there are no noticeable issues with any hiss or distortion.

Extras on this release start off with a sixteen minute featurette entitled Working With The Wolf wherein director Christopher Leitch sits in front of the camera to talk up the details of following up the very successful first film. He also talks about the casting choices and some of the quirks inherent in the film's storyline. In Otherworldly we spend seven minutes with actress Kim Darby who gives us some insight into where her career was at this point in time and what it was like working on this picture. A Man Of Great 'Stiles' sees actor Stuart Fratkin get on camera for seventeen minutes to recount what it was like on set, how he got along with some of his co-stars and of course how he feels about playing Stiles in the movie. Nerdy Girl Saves The Day is an interview with actress Estee Chandler that runs roughly seven minutes and sees her talk about her character, her thoughts on the movie and getting along with the cast and crew during the shoot. The last featurette is A Wolf In '80s Clothing and it interviews costume designer Heidi Kaczenski for ten minutes in a segment where she explains what she brought to the production and the intricacies of some of the wardrobe choices featured in the film.

Aside from that we get a still gallery, a theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection. Shout! Factory also packages this release with some nice reversible cover art and a keen cardboard slipcover.

The Final Word:

You could say that time has not been all that kind to Teen Wolf Too, but it wasn't ever any good to begin with, so that would be a lie. That said, for those out there who enjoy this sequel to the far superior original film, Shout! Factory's got you covered. The presentation is more than decent and there's a pretty good array of bonus features here as well.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!