I Was a Teenage Werewolf is generally considered the first of a genre of horror films targeting teenage audiences. The birth of this genre can be attributed to television, drive-in theaters, and the rise of suburbia. Because adults in the 1950s were content to stay home and watch television, teenagers became the marketing targets of the motion picture industry. The film was the brainchild of 29-year-old producer, Herman Cohen. American International Pictures (AIP) released the film to much notoriety. In this very conservative and frightened era, parents and even the federal government felt the delinquency depicted in the film would promote the same type of behavior offscreen—there were government investigations which attempted to prove this. All this negative publicity brought teenagers to see the film in droves—it became AIP's biggest money maker of 1957 and spawned a series of films putting a different spin on the original title.

Further Reading:

Arkoff, Samuel. Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants: From the Man Who Brought You I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Muscle Beach Party. New Jersey, Carol Publishing Group, 1992.

McGee, Mark Thomas. Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures. North Carolina, McFarland, 1984.