An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Fresh from helming his landmark comedy The Blues Brothers, prolific Hollywood writer/director John Landis gave the horror world a little treasure in 1981 with his tongue-in-cheek monster film spoof An American Werewolf in London. With its then-lumbering $10,000,000 budget put to excellent use, the film grossed around $45,000,000 theatrically worldwide and became an instant cult classic due to its eyepopping special effects and devastating sense of humor. It had heavy competition in the werewolf subgenre the year of its release, with The Howling and Wolfen also hitting theatres and helping to rejuvenate the monster film in a cinematic era dominated by slasher films. It was followed by an alright sequel 16 years after its release, An American Werewolf in Paris, which played down the comedy a bit and focused more on gross-out effects.
The film begins with two young American travelers, David Kessler David Naughton and his best friend Jack Goodman Griffin Dunne, hitchhiking their way across the English Moors. They stop in for some hot tea at The Slaughtered Lamb, a pub frequented by a salty crew of Englishman and with a pentagram scrawled across the front wall within. The local patrons warn our young explorers to steer clear of the full moon and stick to the road for reasons they don’t fully explain, so of course our carefree duo pay the warnings little mind and traipse away from the road and into the Moors — where they’re greeted by a howling, bloodthirsty werewolf. After slicing Jack into ribbons and preparing to do the same to David, the beast is shot and killed by the Slaughtered Lamb patrons, and an injured David awakes the next morning in a hospital in London. After being questioned by the police and flirting shamelessly with sexy head nurse Alex Price Jenny Agutter, David is visited in his hospital bed by the spoiling corpse of his departed friend Jack, who glibly warns him that he will become a werewolf on the next full moon having been clawed by one. Upon leaving the hospital and shacking up at Alex’s cozy flat, David finds that Jack’s warnings are indeed the truth when he begins sprouting hair and fangs and terrorizing the subways and alleys of London during the dreaded full moon. This leaves lovestruck Alex and her employer Dr. Hirsch John Woodvine with the dangerous task of stopping him in the film’s frenzied climax that occurs in a seedy porno theatre of all places.
The galvanizing special effects by talented Rick Baker were so impressive in their day and remain very much so today that the Academy Awards created the new category of Best Makeup and awarded the Oscar to him for his astonishing work; he has since remained a major force in Hollywood makeup and won five more Oscars throughout the years for his talent. The scene of David’s first transformation into a howling beast of the night is still incredibly powerful thanks to David Naughton’s convincing acting and Baker’s ingenious artistry. Interestingly, Baker was originally set to provide the makeup effects for Joe Dante’s The Howling released the same year, but upon receiving the offer from John Landis to work on An American Werewolf in London let Rob Bottin take over his work on The Howling, freeing him up to work on this.
The film is brilliantly acted by the leads and supporting characters alike. David Naughton is a strong, attractive hero and Jenny Agutter a ravishing heroine; Griffin Dunne snagged his first major role in this as talking corpse Jack Goodman, and he demonstrates both comedic and dramatic skill that led him to be cast in his most famous role as yuppie Paul in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Veteran British performer John Woodvine is solid as Dr. Hirsch, who does some snooping around The Slaughtered Lamb and discovers the truth of David’s predicament. The film boasts a phenomenal score by the late Academy Award winner Elmer Bernstein who also worked on Landis’s 1983 comedy Trading Places and a glorious soundtrack featuring only songs with the word “moon” in their titles: The classic Blue Moon performed by Bobby Vinton, Sam Cooke and The Marcels; the jazzy Moondance by Van Morrison; and the immortal Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival. There’s also crisp, often breathtaking cinematography by Robert Paynter, who went on to work with Landis again on Trading Places, Into the Night, and Spies Like Us. Late singing superstar Jackson was so impressed by the film that he offered John Landis the chance to direct his revolutionary Thriller video a couple of years later, and the two would collaborate further on Jackson’s Black or White video in 1991.
30 years after its original release, An American Werewolf in London is a truly age-defying horror film in terms of its visual style and effects. Blessed with an infectuous but subtle sense of dark humor and filled to the brim with in-jokes for film buffs, it breathed new life into an old-fashioned genre and reintroduced the popularity of the monster film in the US and abroad. I rate An American Werewolf in London a 9.5 of 10 and cite it as required viewing for all horror fans and followers of director Landis.
About the Author
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my review of An American Werewolf in London, which can also be found at http://americanwerewolf81.blogspot.com. Please feel free to visit my blog profile page at http://www.blogger.com/profile/17200139233458760872 for my other reviews of classic horror, suspense and fantasy films!
Posted in free films