Werewolf: Forgotten 80’s Fox TV Series Gets First Home Video Release in 30 Years
“When the world isn’t the same as our minds believe then we are in a nightmare. And nothing is worse than a nightmare…except one you can’t wake up from.”
In a world where every forgotten show gets a box set or a revival because the Internet discovered it one day, Werewolf, a single-season cult favorite of the 1980s, is coming back to life. When it first aired, the show was launched as one of Fox Network’s flagships series when the network first went on air.
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In October, hardcore fans of the long canceled show are getting their collective wishes granted to see a revival of their beloved show.
According to Elephant Films’s Facebook page (and per Vents Magazine), the French company will release a French and English-language 6-disc DVD box set of Werewolf with special features. The box-set will also come with a 52-page photo book.
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Retailing at a recommended price of 39.99 in Euros, the set is going to be available for pre-order this month on Elephant’s site and will also be for sale through Amazon.fr.
This isn’t the first attempt to bring the cult classic into a box-set; Shout! Factory’s Scream label tried to unleash a box set on us in 2009. But licensing issues over music on the soundtrack got in the way and the release was nixed mere weeks before the date it was penciled in for.
Werewolf starred John J. York (Night of the Creeps, General Hospital) as college student Eric Cord. In the show, Cord gets bitten by a werewolf. Bitten, he contracts lycanthropy.
Now changed, Cord crosses the country on a mission to track down who bit him and put an end to the curse. His journey isn’t a simple one as he is wanted for murder and pursued by a bounty hunter.
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The series was created by Frank Lupo, a writer on The A-Team, who dreamed up the concept in the shower according to one story. Creature suits and makeup effects were designed by Tim Turner, assistant to Rick Baker on Harry and the Hendersons and the Beauty and the Beast TV series – another cult favorite.
Its first episode was a two-hour pilot that aired on July 11th, 1987, a Saturday night. Episodes thereafter were a half-hour and lasted a total of 29. The single-season run ended in May 1988.
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After that, reruns aired on Sky One over in the UK and on the USA Network. Fans recorded bootleg VHS copies of varying quality with their VCRs. Those were later transferred to DVD and disseminated as crude, ersatz editions that became collector’s items.
Full episodes derived from the bootlegs surfaced online periodically throughout the years – before even YouTube was a thing. They were uploaded in the 2000s to fansite WerewolfTV.com until hit with a copyright claim. The website was a hub for fans by fans; keeping alight the flame of their memories of the show. The site appears to be shut down now.
Vents describes Elephant Films as “a boutique label that takes special care with their releases,” like Criterion, Arrow Films, and Shout! Factory. They also released box sets of Knight Rider 2000 and Airwolf.
Before you eagerly whip out your wallet, be warned a US release of Elephant’s Werewolf DVDs isn’t guaranteed. That’s due to music rights issues that killed the release by Shout! Factory’s Scream label; but the Amazon.fr listing should get around that.
For those that are interested, Elephant’s Werewolf collector’s edition is out on October 26th.
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