An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London

(1981)

Starring: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine

Directed By: John Landis

Ok, first things first: FORGET THERE WAS EVER A SEQUEL TO THIS MOVIE!!!!!!

Now, with that said, An American Werewolf in London is probably one of the best horror films ever made about werewolves. Forget The Howling and Wolfen for a moment, because those are always compared when discussing this film. The thing about this film is that you actually give a damn about the main character(s) and want to see them work through their problems, even if it comes at a bloody price. What is the film about you ask? Well, An American Werewolf in London (as the title suggests) is about just that: An American Werewolf in London.

At the beginning of the film, two American buddies, David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne), are backpacking across Europe. Late one night they enter into England (apparently the redneck southern equivilant) and stop for a drink at a tavern. They are warned to "Stay off the moors", but do they listen? No, they're american, so of course they're not going to listen. About three minutes of leaving the tavern, they are attacked by a werewolf. Jack is brutally killed and David barely makes it through. When David wakes up, he's in the hospital and being taken care of by Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter).

After making quite the impression on Nurse Alex, David decides to head back to her place after recovering from his hospital stay and stay with her a little while. A series of bad dreams (ie- running naked through the woods chasing a deer with his "Johnson" blowing in the wind) begins to make David think that something could be seriously wrong with him. Come to find out, the bite from the werewolf is causing him a lot of mental anguish. For instance, he now has random visits from his recently departed (dead) friend, Jack, who warns him to just kill himself and get it over with.

People start dying and David awakens one morning naked in the zoo, where one of the best lines in cinematic history is spoken by a little boy: "Mum, a naked American man stole my balloons.". David begins to figure out exactly what's wrong with him, but it's too late. In what I consider the best werewolf transformation put to film, David begins to transform, thus setting up the tragic ending to the film.

As far as acting goes, it's completely believable and top-notch all the way around. Everyone is convincing in their respective roles and sucks you in to their world. You feel David's pain as the film progresses, Alex's confusion about her feelings for David, and Jack's humiliation at being a reanimated corpse sitting in a porno theater trying to convince his best friend to off himself.

The direction from John Landis is great and probably one of his most solid pieces of filmmaking achievements. With tight editing, great story flow, and an excellent script, Landis delivers all around the board on this one. I was actually outraged when I heard about a sequel (or continuation) called An American Werewolf in Paris. I couldn't believe that someone besides John Landis would actually try and tackle this type of film again. This film is a straight up horror, comedy, and drama and to try and emulate it again almost twenty years later is blasphemy to it's good name.

As far as the special fx go, Rick Baker did such a phenominal job that the fx still stand up to today's standards of makeup and gore fx. As I stated above, David's transformation (Baker's fx combined with Landis' direction) is probably the best werewolf transformation put to film. That's a bold statement, but I'm sure fans of the film will totally agree with me. In my opinion, nothing has or will come close to it. At least maybe not for several more years to come anyway, and it will still be hard to top. Jack's corpse and the other reanimated corpses are completely gross and creepy, but done with such a humorous style that you can't help but watch and get some sort of sick and twisted enjoyment from.

Overall, one of the best (if not the best) werewolf films ever. It's great all around the board and has very little, if any, technical flaws or plot-holes. I honestly can't say one bad thing about this film other than when the end credits roll, you don't know whether to cry from depression or cheer in delight from such a magnificent piece of horror history. Definately more of a character piece than a "horror gag" fest (ie- Saw, Hostel), so when something scary happens, it hits you on so many emotional levels, it more than scares you.

My hats off to the cast, John Landis, Rick Baker, and everyone else involved with this film for making probably the best werewolf film ever!

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