Full Moon High/Fun Facts

• The werewolf make-up special effects were done by Steve Neill who had been a protégé of Rick Baker who did the make-up on the same 1981 year's An American Werewolf in London (1981).

• Director Larry Cohen has said of this movie: ". . . it's more than a comedy. It has some interesting ideas about how life in America has changed sexually and politically since the early sixties. All of Arkin's friends have changed but he hasn't. And whereas he changes into a werewolf all of the time, his friends change into middle aged people while he is gone, with different values and different ideas. They change as much as he does, actually".

• First major cinema movie starring father and son actors Alan Arkin and Adam Arkin in significant roles.

• First comedy of writer-producer-director Larry Cohen.

• The picture was released during an early-mid 1980s cycle of werewolf movies. These included Wolfen (1981), The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), Howling II: ... Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985), Full Moon High (1981), Teen Wolf Too (1987), The Company of Wolves (1984), The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987), and An American Werewolf in London (1981).

• The name of the educational institution was "Full Moon High" which was also the name of the movie's title. This was portrayed by the real-life John Burroughs Senior High School in Burbank, California, USA.

• The American gridiron sequences were shot a the football oval in Bergen County Park where many of the people from the town were extras and background artists portraying spectators and the local varsity football team featured as footy players.

• The picture is a parody of the werewolf sub-genre of the horror genre but particularly spoofs the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). The movie was one of four major werewolf comedies of the early to mid-1980s, the others being Teen Wolf (1985), Teen Wolf Too (1987) and An American Werewolf in London (1981).

• First leading role in a a major cinema movie of actor Adam Arkin.

• Larry Cohen performed a number of roles on this picture. Cohen was the writer, the producer and the director.