CURSE OF THE QUEERWOLF
(PIRROMOUNT): You may not believe this (the Doc’s still not sure he does), but this is actually one of the better horror spoofs to come along in recent months. Of course, to fully appreciate it, you have to have a taste for adolescent locker room humor – but then, you knew that from the title. Shot in 1987 by writer / director Mark Pirro (who later directed Deathrow Gameshow), Curse tells the tale of Larry Smalbut, who frequents sleazy L.A. night spots with his friend Dick Cheese. (Are you getting the idea of the humor?) Larry’s starting to get tired of these nights out. After all, he’s got a loving girlfriend at home. But the last straw comes when he’s making out with a girl named Paula and discovers that she is a he. This is no ordinary transvestite: he’s a Queerwolf, who passes on his curse to Larry with a bite on the behind before a posse tracks him down and kills him.
Larry’s subsequent plight allows Pirro to poke fun of werewolf flicks from The Wolf Man to An American Werewolf in London, as well as various cinematic cliches and other movies like Poltergeist and Deliverance. (The parody of the Beverly Hillbillies theme that accompanies the latter is the funniest musical spoof since Weird Al Yancovic’s take off on the same song in UHF). There’s a lot of homosexual humor on hand that some may find offensive, but Pirro also pokes fun at machismo and sexual stereotyping. Hey, you don’t rent a movie like this looking for good taste.
The performances by the unknown cast (with a cameo by Forrest J. Ackerman) are engaging, which you certainly can’t say for most recent horror comedies, and with a good pace to offset its no budget look, Queerwolf is a howl.
