The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973 film)
| The Boy Who Cried oWerewolf | |
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Promotional movie poster for the film
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| Directed by | Nathan H. Juran |
| Produced by | Aaron Rosenberg |
| Written by | Bob Homel |
| Starring |
Kerwin Mathews Elaine Devry Scott Sealey Robert J. Wilke Bob Homel |
| Music by | Ted Stovall |
| Cinematography | Michael P. Joyce |
| Edited by | Barton Hayes |
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Production
company |
Pacific Bay Entertainment
RKF |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is a 1973 horror film directed by Nathan H. Juran. The film stars Kerwin Mathews in the final film he and Juran made after their earlier work, which included The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. In this thriller, a boy visits his father in a secluded cabin; the father is attacked by a werewolf and then becomes one himself. The boy constantly tries to tell others, but nobody will believe him.
Robert Bridgestone (Kerwin Mathews), a divorced father, takes his son Richie to the family mountain cabin. During a moonlight hike, the two are attacked in the darkness by a werewolf. During the struggle, the werewolf falls into a ravine and is impaled on a wooden fence, but not before biting Robert. Upon investigation, they find their attacker to be human. Unable to identify the body, the local sheriff concludes their attacker was a crazy drifter. Richie insists it was a werewolf but his father and the sheriff laugh it off as childish imagination.
Concerned with Richie's story, Sandy (Elaine Devry) insists her ex-husband talk with her son's psychiatrist. The psychiatrist (George Gaynes) says that Richie's werewolf fixation stems from his inability to accept that his father killed a man, and instead has concocted a fantasy wherein his father bravely battles a monster. He suggests Robert take his son back to the cabin, predicting that when Richie returns to the scene and sees that everything is normal, his interest in werewolves will cease.
Returning to the cabin during another full moon, Robert experiences a wave of pain and sends Richie off to the stream. As he watches in a mirror, Robert changes into a duplicate of the creature he'd killed. When Richie sees what is apparently the same werewolf resurrected, he flees to the woods, crossing a mountain road. The werewolf pursues, causing vehicles to crash. One driver is then dismembered by the creature. Richie comes upon two newlyweds camping. While they don't believe the boy's story, they see his distress and agree to take him home. Arriving at the cabin, Richie's father is nowhere to be seen, and Richie begs the man to let him return with him to the camper for the night. The next morning Robert, appearing dazed and confused, shows up at the camper, and tells the couple he's been searching for Richie all night. Richie tells his father about the werewolf, but Robert is clearly losing patience with his son's fantasies.
During the following night's full moon, Robert transforms, and searches through the house for Richie who, in anticipation, has hidden himself. The werewolf then seeks out the newlyweds, pushing their camper down a hill. He mutilates their bodies, carrying away one of the heads. Returning to the cabin's shed just before daybreak, he digs a hole to bury the head. Richie, hearing noises, sneaks down to the shed and witnesses the werewolf's changing back into his father. Moments later, the sheriff arrives to report on the previous killings, convinced of a connection between the attacks. On the drive home, Richie questions his father about his actions, but Robert dismisses everything, clearly irritable and bothered about his memory blackout. Richie jumps hurriedly out of the car upon arriving at his mother's, telling her that he's scared to be alone with his father, because his father is a monster.
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