Main cast: Richard Belzer (Buzz Hunkle), David Leary (Billy Mariner), Geraldine Leer (Vicki Roman), and Shelley Berman (Leo Tandoski)
Director: Tom Whelan
Buzz Hunkle is not pleased his producer Leo Tandoski insists that he works with newcomer Vicki Roman on the screenplay for a new horror flick, Werewolf of Hollywood. The very idea! He is the Silver Pen Award winner, the screenwriter of Zombie Honeymoon!
Unfortunately for him, he has fallen out of Tandoski’s favor, since he tends to disregard the producer’s own outlines for their films. He is adamant that Werewolf of Hollywood will be the story he wants it to be, not whatever Hunkle decides, so he is making sure that Vicki will make sure that the movie will be exactly what he envisions.
The movie is about a dashing producer, Leo of course, that unmasks the studio CEO Billy as a “hereditary werewolf” and defeats that monster in a triumphant blaze of glory. Hunkle thinks that this whole thing is nonsense—a screenwriter will be a better hero for this movie!—and he fights with Vicki over their creative differences.
The fun, however, is interrupted when Billy Mariner, the studio CEO, shows up, and Leo ends up dead that night. Oh dear, it turns out that Leo won’t be the hero after all. Wait a minute, so there really is a Werewolf of Hollywood?
This one is a whole lot of fun. The script is humming with genuinely funny satirical jabs at the workings of a Hollywood studio, and the episode is shot and lit in a way that makes it look far more glamorous and expensive than it probably is, heh. The pacing is solid, and everything works great.
The weakest link here is Geraldine Leer, whose character gets some really good lines but these lines are delivered with all the timing and verve of a log clumsily falling downhill.
The rest of the cast members are great, however. The late Richard Belzer’s character is so much fun to hate, and the werewolf is hilarious as this mean SOB that doesn’t even need to turn into a wolf to be a mean asshole. Shelley Berman doesn’t have much screen time here as his character dies quickly into the episode, but whenever he is on the episode, he’s also amusing as the typical boss that thinks he is so much smarter and more creative than he actually is.
The twist at the end is predictable, as Leo practically explains away the whole thing when he explaining his story outline early in the episode, but the whole thing is so much fun to watch that the lack of a genuinely surprising twist is barely an issue here.
Not a howler, more of a howling success, this episode is easily one of the highlights of the three seasons of Monsters so far!
