Vernon changes from 98-pound weakling to super-alpha male, sure, but the change can also be seen here as a metaphor for puberty and burgeoning adolescent sexuality. The act of transformation in and of itself takes on a different flavor due to the film's setting. Watching Vernon stomp a victim to pulp with a pair of cleats draws a pretty clear line between the cutesy and grisly facets of the film. The violence, in contrast to the more overtly camp aspects, is more horrifying in its graphic depiction.
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At one point, I actually felt my neck stiffen from keeping it at an angle, and I had several flashbacks to the 60s' "Batman" TV series. Stouffer is also a big fan of employing severe Dutch angles whenever Vernon is about to strike. The chemicals Vernon uses in his potion bubble and smoke in that bygone way all transmogrifying potions in black and white movies do. It has the "Leave It to Beaver" values dominant in visual media of the 1950s/early 60s and the sanguinary violence of the late 60s onward that became a huge staple of exploitation cinema. Here, the film seems stuck between the two. Films like Blacula and Blackenstein blended the blaxploitation and horror genres with varying results. A similar trend hit the film industry during the 1970s. (to carloads of teens who were probably too busy necking to pay attention). His "trilogy" of I Was a Teenage… movies (yes, I know Blood Of Dracula breaks the title motif) mixed juvenile delinquent themes with horror themes and played to packed drive-ins across the U.S. In 1957, producer Herman Cohen hit on the notion of horror movies where teenagers were the monsters. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long to make something along this line. In case it's not evident in my shoddy synopsizing, Horror High is a take on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror tale The Strange Case of Dr. Needless to say, our young scientist takes his own medicine and transforms in hairy and bloodthirsty ways, bent on revenge (shouldn't that make it mentally and physically?). Mumps (note: not a gerbil and not suitable for racing), in an effort to change humans physically (the actual applications of such a drug are never explored) like illicit drugs do mentally. Meanwhile, Vernon conducts experiments on his guinea pig, Mr. Miss Grindstaff ( Joy Hash) abhors Vernon, because he pays more attention to science than her English class. Gum-chomping Type "A", Coach McCall ( John Niland), despises Vernon for never being on time for Phys Ed and being a weakling. Griggs ( Jeff Alexander), gets psychotic when Vernon shoos Griggs' cat out of the school laboratory. The problem is everyone at the school, other than Robin, hates Vernon for some wafer-thin reason or another. He harbors a crush on school beauty, Robin ( Rosie Holotik), and she obviously feels the same about him but is dating jock Roger ( Mike McHenry). Vernon Potts ( Pat Cardi) is the brainy whipping boy of his high school. Without it, and in its uncut state, the film, while nothing to do cartwheels over, is an enjoyable variation on an old theme.
It is some of the dullest shit you will ever see, and I mention it specially here, because in my youth, I distinctly remember the film (and my enjoyment of it) grinding to a halt with this section. To make the film palatable for network television, much of the violence had to be cut, and the filmmakers shot about eight minutes or so of a dead-end subplot involving the main character's dad and some floozy he's visiting. So, what the hell do gerbil races on "Dialing for Dollars" have to do with Horror High? Well, it was on this program that I first encountered the film, only I saw it under the title (and if you ask me, a better title than its theatrical one) Twisted Brain. The terrified animals would usually sit stock-still, hyperventilating, but sometimes one or two would actually make a break for the other side of the case, the first making it past the finish line being the winner. The lucky contestant would pick a gerbil, and with not much fanfare at all (I know, hard to believe), the three rodents would be released into their respective sections. Yes, poor Nolan had to stand in front of a glass-fronted box split horizontally into three sections (or "racetracks," if you will), each containing one gerbil. Now, I know some other areas had the same type of program, but ours had a twist: gerbil racing. You watch the movie, and at some point, the host (I want to say it was Nolan Johannes at this point in time, but if it wasn't, both he and his family have my apologies) would call a random phone number picked from viewer submissions and give the lucky person a chance to win money.
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When I was a kid, our local ABC affiliate was WNEP (still is), and every afternoon, they would show a movie on the program "Dialing for Dollars." The premise of the show is fairly self-explanatory.
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