When American International Pictures issued three "teen terror" flicks, the goal was profit, not prophecy.   Yet these films served to dish up a filmic example of what would become known as "teen angst."  If you don't believe that, ask John-John, who claims that...

By JOHN-JOHN

Where I go to school, the oldest kids are in the Sixth Grade. They aren’t even teenagers, except the stupid ones that got passed over, but they all sure act like they’re 18 years old or something. The girls all wear lots of makeup and stuff and the guys act like they own the school, though they don’t even own a car or nothing.

Those big kids are always dissing us little kids, calling us babies and stuff. Or they’re pushing us down and sitting on us just to look hot to their gooney girlfriends. I mean, they’re really just jerks. But I noticed that the teachers, like my teacher, Ms. Fridley, are always talking about how hard it is for the big kids to grow up and all. I’ll say it’s tough for them! They haven’t even started yet!

Anyway, I kept hearing stuff about teenage "ongst" and how the older kids have it so rough (not as rough as the kids those sixth-graders sit on, I’ll bet). It sounded like a load to me so I asked Dad. He said it was really teen angst and that it meant it was tough to stop being a kid and start being a grownup.  What Dad meant was to stop having fun and start having to act mean.

"No, that’s not what I meant at all, John-John," Dad said. "And how come your scooter is still in the driveway after I told you to bring it in?"

So Dad was no help. I was really wondering about that angst stuff, though. I got so desperate for an answer, I finally asked my Uncle Renfield. And that’s why I’m gonna be stuck in my bedroom all next weekend.

Uncle Renfield told me that teen angst means that kids get all confused and stuff when they get older, and they want to yell and hit people and things. They also get into trouble and even break the law over this angst thing. I told Uncle Renfield I thought it was because they were being bad. Nope, he said, it was angst, and even some horror movies had angst in them.

Well, now he was talking, cause horror movies make more sense than grownups any day, especially Uncle Renfield. I figured if I could see some of these horror teenage angst movies, all that stuff the older kids pull would make sense. Uncle Renfield said that was a good idea and told me three movies I should watch: I Was A Teenage Werewolf, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, and Blood Of Dracula. That last movie sounded wrong, but Uncle Renfield said it really shoulda been called I Was A Teenage Vampire, so that was all right.

I got my chance to watch all three of them in a row when Mom and Dad decided to conk out early Friday night, so they could drive about a thousand miles to this place that sells old junk so Mom could by more stuff for my Dad to make fun of. (He only makes fun of it when Mom’s not around, though.) So Mom and Dad told me to hit the hay, too (that’s what Dad calls it), or else. I didn’t make a fuss—the sooner Mom and Dad were conked out, the sooner I could start watching those movies and figure out why the older kids pick on younger kids and stuff.

It wasn’t even 1030 and Mom and Dad were all quiet in their bedroom. I tiptoed downstairs, looked in that cabinet that Mom always forgets to lock after she dusts it, and pulled out those three videos. I turned on the TV and put the sound down low and popped the first movie in the VCR. It turned out all these movies mainly didn’t have any color, which meant they were as old as Uncle Renfield, probably.

The first movie was I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. It was about a guy who looked a lot older than the kids at the high school, and he didn’t appear until the movie was half over, and his face was all squished up. Uncle Renfield told me before that you’re sposed to call the monster the "Frankenstein Monster," not "Frankenstein." A lot of movies do it, though.

The first part of the movie just had grownups. There was this doctor guy and his name was Frankenstein, but no one else thought that was anything special. How come folks in movies don’t know what a guy named "Frankenstein" is? It’s dumb. Anyway, he said he could make dead guys alive again and all these other scientist guys gave him the horselaugh. So he got ticked off and went to his house that has a lab and made his own monster.

The monster is this teen kid who got in a car wreck that you don’t see but only hear (rip-off!). That car wreck sure didn’t help that kid any. His face was really mashed up and he had this big old eyeball popping out, and he talked funny, too. I mean, he was ugly! My friend, Floyd Reed, would have called him butt-ugly.

He was stupid, too. That Dr. Frankenstein guy would tell him to do something, and he’d do it, like a dummy. The doc wanted this pretty woman killed cause she snooped around too much (just like my cousin, Margot, who I call Mar-goat and usually get hit for it). So he tells the monster to croak her and the monster does. Again, you don’t see it, but just hear it (rip-off again!). The doc does throw the dead lady to this alligator that eats her up, so that’s cool, but you don’t get to see that, either. It’s almost like my Mom made this movie.

Then the monster decides not to do what the doc tells him for once and goes wandering around and sees this blonde lady brushing her hair and he breaks in and kills her. The doc gets mad but he still lets the monster get a new face by ripping this kid’s head off while the kid is necking with his girlfriend in a car. Course, you don’t get to see that, either…the head ripping, I mean. But you do get to see the kid’s head in a cage, so that’s something. With his new head on, the monster is looking like a college student instead of a teenager, but he acts like a whiny little kid. He gets all mad when he’s gonna get taken apart to ship back home, so he kills the doc and throws him to the alligator and gets zapped when he backs into this machine. I told you he was stupid. The movie turns to color for some reason and that’s it.

But I didn’t see any angst anywhere. The teen monster got killed, got alive, got a new face and whined about everything. I didn’t think that was angst—I thought that was being a whiny baby. The sixth graders at my school would have whupped him good, boy.

The second movie, Blood Of Dracula, wasn’t any good, either, cause it was about girls. That darn Uncle Renfield shoulda told me! Who cares what girls think? All they do is laugh and point at you. It’s the guys that sit on you.

This movie’s all about this dopey teen girl who can’t get along with her parents cause she has a step mom, so they toss her in this live-in school. I couldn’t blame them. This girl is like all the other snotty older girls I know. The girls in this school just want to push each other around and sneak guys into their rooms. Some school! Well, this girl doesn’t even want to do that, so she gets sent to this teacher who’s sposed to get her head on straight, or something.

But this teacher is real creepy. She pulls out this necklace with a jewel thing and says it’s from the Carpet-something Mountains. She shines it on the girl and the girl closes her eyes. The teacher tells her to go back in her mind, or something—it wasn’t real clear. Then she wakes the girl up. Big deal. But it was a big deal, cause later the girl turns into a vampire—I think—and goes and kills the other guys and girls. Only, she just kinda knocks them down and they stay knocked down. I guess some blood drinking got done but not where you could see it. The other guys and girls get all scared and the girl gets kinds worried cause she thinks she may be doing it all, and so she goes back to the creepy teacher.

The part where she goes vampire is really lame—she looks like the girls at school do when they’re messing around with makeup. I seen kids going to a party who looked scarier than this girl as a vampire. But she’s got fangs, sort of, so I guess it’s enough to get the job done.

Anyway, the creepy teacher tells her how killing kids will help world peace and all. But this girl isn’t as stupid as that monster kid from the first movie. She goes vampire and kills the teacher, then falls on a spike or something and gets killed herself. That’s the end of the movie.

Well, that movie was another rip-off. Crummy monster, no blood and gore, and none of that angst stuff. This was just a snotty girl who got mixed up with a weird teacher. I was thinking maybe Uncle Renfield was messing with me again. But I went ahead and stuck the last movie into the VCR.

Boy, this movie really made up for the others! It was about a guy who looked kinda old for a teen guy (I guess teens looked old way back then). But at least this guy was a regular guy. He went to school, got picked on, told them where to get off and got punished for it. This guy was cool. He even told a cop where to go, and didn’t get tossed in jail (the cop was a wuss). He got in fights, but the other guys started them. Course, it was made out to be his fault, and the poor guy got sent to a doctor. This doctor was supposed to calm him down. Big mistake!

That doctor put him to sleep and had him dream about being around a long time ago, so long that guys had fur and stuff. The teen guy got all sweaty and talked about killing folks. This didn’t bother the doctor one bit. He was happy about it—he said if a guy could get all wild animal like, then folks would behave or something. So the doc was as dumb as that creepy teacher in that snotty girl vampire movie. The poor guy keeps going back cause he has to, and keep sweating and talking about doing bad stuff. Then he goes to a party where some jerk bugs him so he beats up the guy—just taking care of himself, you know. One of his friends walks home through the woods (all those guys have cars and one of them can’t drive that guy home? Some friends!). Just like I thought, the teen guys turns into a werewolf and tears his friend up. The tearing-up part wasn’t shown—again! I was getting used to it by now, but it still sucked.

The teen guy keeps getting into messes and then a school bell makes him get hairy and kill this girl hanging upside down (looking through her eyes at the werewolf coming at her was kinda scary). Then he gets chased, and the cops can’t catch him. He goes back to the doctor and—you know what happened. He went hairy again, killed the doc, and the cops blasted him. Not too bad an ending, even though he kept spitting out white stuff, like he was brushing his fangs or something.

That’s the movie where I suddenly knowed what that teenage angst stuff was. This guy was trying to get along, but the grownups kept dissing him and making him do stuff and his friends weren’t much better. I could really feel bad for the guy—they got mad when he acted like a kid and got mad when he wanted to do things like a grownup. Then the grownups sent him to this crazy doctor and the poor guy ends up dead—and it wasn’t his fault. Just like a lot of stuff gets blamed on me and it isn’t my fault. Turning into a werewolf could be handy, kinda.

After that last movie ended, I made it to bed and slept in late. Mom and Dad had that old Mrs. Baumgarten watching me all that day which meant I didn’t have nobody watching me cause she’s older than Moses and conks out all the time. I couldn’t wait for the weekend to end, though. I knew what I was going to tell those sixth graders at school on Monday.

And I did tell them. I told one older kid that he’d better watch it or he’d turn into a Teenage Werewolf and the cops would shoot him full of holes. Then I told his girlfriend that she has makeup worse than that teenage vampire girl. Then I told his buddy that his face reminded me of Teenage Frankenstein. Well, those guys still sat on me and also sat on Floyd Reed and Philip Simpson too, but I felt better about it, somehow. Anyway, I did until that older girl started crying and told my teacher that I called her a vampire, and Ms. Fridley sent a note home with me and now I get to stay parked in my room all next weekend. I got mad and told Mom and Dad that I was all full of angst and Dad told me I’d be full of something else if I didn’t hush up. So me and my angst hushed up.

After thinking about it, though, I know where I went wrong. You’re not allowed to have that angst stuff until you’re a teenager. When you’re a kid like me, you just have to suck it up. Well, okay. But just wait. Maybe I won’t turn into a werewolf or something when I’m a teenager, but I’ll have so much angst they’ll be sorry. And if they send me to any doctor named Frankenstein, I’m outta there!

Nice try, John-John, but I'm not buying into "adolescent angst" and I'll bet your parents won't, either.  At your age, the technical term is "brat."  Now, get your scooter out of the driveway or you'll stay home all next weekend, too.

Copyright © John-John (and his angst)

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