FULL MOON HIGH (1981)
Larry Cohen was usually ahead of his time. That said, the legendary independent writer/producer/director was not above the occasional misstep. The most egregious of his career was WICKED STEPMOTHER, a woeful comedy intended as a star vehicle for an ailing Bette Davis (she would quit after just a few days of shooting). What is somewhat startling to me is that many genre fans also consider Cohen’s FULL MOON HIGH to be a dog (sorry, I couldn’t help myself).
Oddly, for a movie titled FULL MOON HIGH, the spoof elements only occasionally poke fun at werewolf movies.
Seemingly inspired by the runaway success of AIRPLANE! just a year earlier (Cohen’s ability to turn out pictures quickly was a true marvel), the film spins out in any number of gags that spoof ‘50s high school delinquent flicks, the Cold War, underdog sports movies, the then trendy (and controversial) psychological treatment of attack therapy, and finally, yes, werewolf movies.
While the jokes fly fast-and-furious, a good number fall flat, but when they hit, they hit hard and make up for any number of groans FULL MOON HIGH elicited in the five minutes preceding the big laugh.
But the same free-wheeling energy and comedic inspiration that had Cohen cast Ed McMahon as a paranoid CIA operative who cavorts with Eastern European prostitutes (“Alright, lovelies, let’s see what communist infiltration is all about”), also led to chasing some poorly aged gay panic jokes. Given the year it was released, it was almost an expected trope that a comedy would include gay panic jokes or the stereotype of the lisping gay man (REVENGE OF THE NERDS, BEVERLY HILLS COP, POLICE ACADEMY, and many other huge comedy hits were all guilty of this).
Where FULL MOON HIGH stands out with this caricature is how Cohen keeps doubling down on the lisping, closeted football coach turned high school principal (Kenneth Mars) who openly flirts with his teenage students.
Watching the movie today, it is tempting to give Cohen the benefit of the doubt and believe he was trying to send up the stereotype by having Mars go further and further over-the-top.
After all, Cohen was a progressive whose movies skewered institutions like organized religion, corporations, and the police. Perhaps, as a longtime fan of Cohen’s, I simply want to believe he was trying to make some sort of critique of a lazy trope by exposing it as a comedic crutch? I would like to think that is the case, but I know better.
Leaving aside the excessive gay predator/panic subplot, much of the rest of FULL MOOON HIGH is light and goofy…aside from a subplot involving a meek teacher (Elizabeth Hartman) who is deathly afraid of the students in her class. Given the fact that the students threaten her life and carry weapons, her fear is understandable. But in brushing off her concerns, the principal points out that she is just not used to teenagers since she transferred in from an elementary school. When she assures him that her elementary school was a rough environment, it is revealed that not only was she raped there, but that it was also an all girls’ school.
Okay.
I like a joke that crosses the line as much as anyone does. But that joke has to be funny and not simply transgressive for the sake of shock value. By trying to take a swipe at the unsafe conditions in public schools, Cohen’s instincts for a target were right on. By turning the timid teacher into the butt of the joke is uncomfortable. Not to mention that making a joke about elementary school girls raping their teacher is some real edgelord bullshit.
Still, at the time the film was made, raunchy comedy was all rage. That gag is no worse than anything found in PORKY’S (released the same year), which—between scenes of leering at teenage girls—included a sequence where a female gym teacher grabbed a teenager’s penis and tried to yank it through a gloryhole. No one in their right mind would argue that today you could get away with making jokes about elementary school girls sexually assaulting their teacher, but in the wild-and-wooly world of early ‘80s indie comedies, you could throw that in as a punch line and still get a PG rating (as FULL MOON HIGH did).
Context is key when watching a film like FULL MOON HIGH.
Honestly, context is key when watching a film from any era in the past. What was acceptable then is not always acceptable now. The best artists understand this and evolve with the times. Those artists that don’t accept and adapt are left on the side of the road, wondering when everything changed and whining about “being cancelled.”
Comedy ages worse than most art forms, so it is up the artist to accept their old material is now out of touch and find a new way to reach an audience.
But it is also up to the audience to understand that what is today considered offensive was an acceptable dirty joke 40 years ago. If Cohen had gone forward in his career lazily relying on the lisping gay stereotype or shock value for humor, I might view FULL MOON HIGH in a harsher light. Given that Cohen kept evolving as a filmmaker and social satirist, I have little trouble looking beyond the troublesome issues that total maybe five minutes of screen time in an otherwise charming, goofy lark of a movie.
