THE CHEESIEST WEREWOLF MOVIE YOU'LL NEVER SEE

aka The Strange Tragedy of Thomas Woodbine

Told by

Good evening, and welcome to the fetid tomb of Count Scary. Which is to say, welcome to MY tomb. Tonight I have a chilling story for you, so put the wee ones to bed and listen to my sordid tale of woe. I was going to tell you a story that tingles the spine, but then I was asked by Piranha Pictures to tell you the story of a man who became a wolf. This is a story that Piranha Pictures first told in 1995 for VTTV, the student-run television station of Virginia Tech. This was Piranha Pictures' very first attempt at a gore film, and it chills to the very paramecium. Apparently, the boys at Piranha decided to see what they could do and get away with, so they made sure to make the film extra scary. Did they succeed? You be the judge when it's three in the morning and you are still wide awake, huddled under the covers, waiting for the wolves to feast upon your cerebrum. And so begins our tale...

We open on a photo...er, shot of the full moon. Since this is a werewolf movie, this suggests foreboding terror. A lone car drives along a dark back road. In the car is Thomas Woodbine, a student on his way back to school at Virginia Tech. By the way, did I fail to mention that this film was based on a true story? At least, that was what Piranha Pictures said at the time. True? Perhaps, perhaps not, but wolf patrols were increased on campus for the following few months. Anyway, back to our story of terrifying terror.

Low on gas, Thomas pulls in to a small gas station. There is only one employee, and he is armed with a shotgun. The attendant tells Thomas not to take the back roads. As to why this man would own a gas station located on these very same dangerous back roads goes unsaid. Needless to say Thomas takes his warning lightly and takes the back way.

Driving along the deserted road, Thomas pops in a tape of Frankie Valli, and he drives along. Unfortunately, his car sputters to a stop. He gets out of the car and tries to fix it by kicking the bumper. Even more unfortunately, something is watching him from the woods.

Right around this time, our hero decides to get back in his car. Suddenly, he is charged by something large and furry. As the beast rips into his flesh, Thomas is only able to see it's evil, hate-filled eyes. The creature leaves Thomas alive, albeit close to death.

Thomas wakes up in a hospital several weeks later. At least it is referred to as a hospital. In actuality, it looks like a couch in front of a sheet. At any rate, Thomas is allowed to leave by the germ-phobic doctor, and he heads for home.

Being very polite, Thomas says thank you to the doctor, who prefers not to touch other people because of the germs.

So where was I my little lovlies? Ah yes, Thomas was heading home. He arrives at his apartment, and finds it to be in shambles. The interesting thing is, the filmmakers did not have to mess the place up much to make the apartment be in this state. So anyway, the reason for the mess comes to see his roomie for the last three years. This man is known as Iggy.

Iggy is loud and plays his rock music louder. He doesn't even realize how much Thomas dislikes him, not that he would care. It is assumed that Iggy goes to school, but I have my doubts. Thomas wishes he could get rid of Iggy, but he is too nice to cut Iggy loose.

After annoying Thomas for several minutes, Iggy starts to blast his music, then asks him if he has registered for classes yet. Thomas has not. Iggy tells him that he had better, because this day is the last he can do it. Glad to have a reason to go, Thomas leaves after saying something that could be interpreted as awful curse words, but the music is playing too loud to be able to tell.

Thomas takes a nice stroll to campus. And there he sees something that makes his heart sing with love...Janet Strawberry practicing her cheers. Thomas watches her, smitten. He has liked her since he first met her in college, but has never had the nerve to speak to her. Thomas watches her a bit too hard however, because then he runs into a pole. Janet looks over at him. Thomas tries to brush it off. Then Janet motions for him to come over. Happily, Thomas starts to go to her when he is grabbed by his arch-nemesis Slug.

Slug and his henchmen, the two Bobs, demand their tribute of eleven dollars. Thomas manages to slip him a five, and luckily Slug is not able to tell the difference between a five dollar bill and an eleven dollar bill, and he accepts the incorrect currency. Laughing smugly (or it could be said, Slugly) he and his goons walk off, laughing. The pathos of Thomas is palpable, couched in the sorrow of rampant feelings of inferiority. Hold on, let me get a breath, and we'll continue...

Thomas goes to Janet. They speak for a few moments about trivial matters such as the wonderment of the true existence of happiness on earth, and how ice cream is good. However, their meeting, the very first where Thomas has gotten to speak with his muse, is rudely interrupted by her boyfriend, quarterback Lance Starr.

Lance is very rude to Thomas, to the point of extremely. He pushes Thomas away and tells him to leave his girlfriend away. "She's my girlfriend. I own her!" he says. Thomas doesn't think this is the way to treat a lady, but he leaves without further incident.

As he walks away, Thomas sees something odd. A woman dressed in a black robe watches him from across the street. A car drives by and she disappears in the blur. Thomas simply chalks it up to his imagination, fired up by images of the lovely Janet, and proceeds to forget all about it.

That night, an interesting occurrence occurs. Thomas' sleep is interrupted by loud music. Angry, Thomas gets up to yell at Iggy to turn the music down. However, Thomas is shocked to realize that the music is actually coming from Iggy's walkman. How can he hear the music clearly? Hold on a second, your Count Scary has got goosebumps on my arm.

That's better.

The next day, Thomas heads to class in a scene that lasts for exactly one minute and thirty-one seconds, consisting of shots of him walking. This must have been done before Piranha Pictures was able to hire an editor. Thomas arrives late to class, and he is called foreward by the mean-spirited and vaguely Nazi-like Dr. Wiederstein.

Wiedersein tells Thomas that he is on thin ice, and never to be late again. Thomas promises to never be late again, although you would think Wiederstein would be happy to have any student at all, since when Thomas walked in, he was lecturing an empty classroom.

Thomas leaves the classroom and runs into Crunchy, another student. She begins to feel him up and offers to take him out back for some lovely nastiness. He declines, which only fuels her burning lust. She begs for it, yeah, the way a good girl does, but he leaves in disgust.

Outside, Thomas runs into Janet again. Unfortunately, that also means he runs into Lance as well. Lance again tells Thomas to leave his property alone, but this time Thomas tells him to treat her right or he will do something about it. Lance wittily responds by punching Thomas in the face and leaves him there.

Hurt and angry, Thomas gets on his feet again. Slug and the Bobs come over to laugh. Thomas doesn't want to take it from Slug, so he tells him to "blow off." Usually, someone would say something worse than that, but profanity was not a good thing to send over the airwaves at the time, or so your uncle Scary thinks. So Slug decides to add another bruise to Thomas' face. He swings, but Thomas catches his fist and squeezes. Slug is amazed at Thomas' strength, and finally Thomas lets Slug go to nurse his wounded hand. Thomas simply says "See you Slug" and leaves. Slug vows revenge and forces the Bobs to kiss his sore hand.

Thomas walks along, amazed at how he beat Slug. He runs into the woman in black again. She tells him that she is a witch, and she has information for him. She gives him a piece of paper with a location and a time, and tells him to meet her there tomorrow. Thomas has no real intention of meeting her, and leaves. She knows he will come.

That night, Thomas wakes up, almost in a trance. He goes outside and runs, acting more like an animal than a man, running on all fours. At this point, Count Scary thinks something odd is going on.

Thomas wakes up the next day outside of a graveyard. He realizes that first. Secondly, he realizes that he is nude. Completely and fully. This was Piranha Pictures' first and only nude scenes, as Thomas runs around campus with his butt flapping all over the place. Speaking of which, a big football game had just ended, so there was plenty of traffic to see this nude guy run by their cars. Illegal? Perhaps. Hilarious? Certainly.

Now this is fifty minutes into County Scary's story, so we know something must happen soon. Right?

Thomas once again runs into Janet and Lance. Lance decides to beat on Thomas again, but Thomas easily throws him to the ground. He tells Lance to watch out for him for now on.

Just then, Slug and the Bobs show up and run at Thomas. Thomas knows he could beat them, but does not want to do it in front of Janet, who is opposed to violence. So Thomas runs, letting Slug and the boys catch up to him, then evades them time and again. At one point, Slug and the Bobs have Thomas trapped on an awning, and they charge him. Thomas uses his amazing dexterity and strength to leap right over them, and one of the Bobs does not stop in time and falls over the awning to the hard ground below.

Ow, that looked painful!

Slug decides to really get Thomas, and they chase him in their car, joined by the Bob who fell off the awning. He was only grazed you see. Thomas outruns them, and they crash into a bike rider in a completely gratuitous stunt.

Thomas wonders why he has these abilities all of a sudden, so he decides to see the witch. She takes him to the graveyard that he woke up at earlier, and informs him that it is a werewolf graveyard, and that he must join the dead there or he will go on a rampage that very night. Thomas scoffs; he does not believe in such things. She tells him that he will be sorry. Will he? Perhaps.

 

If your tiny heart can take it, go to page 2!