Villain(s)  Werewolf, mad scientist

Actor(s):  Michael Landon, Whit Bissell, Yvonne Lime, Malcolm Atterbury

Brief Description  I Was a Teenage Werewolf is an iconic 1957 B-movie horror film directed by Gene Fowler Jr. that famously blends classic monster tropes with 1950s juvenile delinquency cinema. Starring a young Michael Landon in his breakout role, the movie serves as a cultural milestone for pioneering the "teenage monster" genre. It grossed over $2 million on a minuscule $150,000 budget for American International Pictures (AIP).

Plot:
Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a hot-tempered high school student in Southern California prone to sudden, violent outbursts. After a vicious fistfight at school, a well-meaning police detective suggests he seek professional help. Tony visits Dr. Alfred Brandon (Whit Bissell), a sinister psychiatrist. Instead of helping the boy, Brandon views Tony as the perfect guinea pig for his "hypno-regression" experiments. The doctor believes mankind can only be saved by regressively stripping away modern civilization to our primitive roots.

Brandon injects Tony with a secret serum and subjects him to deep hypnosis. The experiment successfully unlocks Tony's primitive ancestral DNA, causing him to transform into a bloodthirsty, fur-covered werewolf. Tony begins blacking out and hunting local citizens. In the film's most famous sequence, a school bell triggers Tony's transformation while he watches a female classmate practicing gymnastics, leading to a frantic woodland hunt. Unable to control the monster he has unleashed, Dr. Brandon attempts to document the transformation on film. Tony changes into the werewolf, turns on his captors, and kills Dr. Brandon. The police track the beast to the laboratory, where Tony is shot dead, reverting to his human form post-mortem.

The movie treats the horrifying physiological and emotional transformations of puberty—specifically teenage rage, alienation, and changing bodies—as a literal monstrous metamorphosis. Shot in just six days, the movie features cheap, minimalist sets and relies heavily on "day-for-night" outdoor photography. The iconic makeup, designed by Philip Scheer, featured extended fangs, a prosthetic snout, and heavy crepe hair glued to Landon's face. : It holds the distinction of being the first horror movie to explicitly feature a rock and roll music performance, integrating youth pop culture into a creature feature.