An American Werewolf In London (1981)

 

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

By Ralph Santini – ***½

John Landis’ tribute to the 1941 classic The Wolf Man is simply amazing and downright funny. He is really a genius in making a good horror story contain a brilliant sense of humor since his specialty is slapstick comedy. I mean he is the guy behind two of the 1980s finest movie comedies ever “The Blues Brothers” (1980) and “Trading Places” (1983) (not to mention his legendary and raunchy gem 1978’s “Animal House”). “American Werewolf” is pretty much his first mainstream adventure in horror since making the lesser known horror film Shlock which in fact is his first movie in his directorial career. Since this movie has also decided to direct the amazing 1983 music video “Thriller” with Michael Jackson which is a tribute the horror film in general. 

The exciting storyline concerns two American college students, David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne, terrific) travel on the upper side of England where they are constantly warned not to approach the moors because of Lycanthropic (Werewolves in general if you want plain English) superstition but when they do approach the moors they are suddenly attacked by a Werewolf which terribly wounds David and maliciously kills Jack. David is transferred to the hospital where he eventually falls in love with a nurse (the gorgeous, 28-year-old, Jenny Agutter) and in spite of being later discarded from the hospital is constantly warned by a decaying, little by little, corpse of his buddy Jack. Jack warns him that he will become a Werewolf and must commit suicide before it’s too late. 

This movie has many great issues that I’d like to discuss about and that is especially Rick Baker’s amazing job of scary horror makeups not only for the transformation of David from man to wolf but also for the hilarious use of the corpses in this film, particularly the ones given for Griffin Dunne himself. Let me add another good observation about his performance. He is absolutely fantastic in the whole movie, in fact he more or less steals the show from David Naughton who by the way is also very good as the main protagonist. The biggest tragedy behind Naughton however is that he has been horribly typecast since this movie was made. That’s a shame because he does an excellent job as a Werewolf victim who doesn’t want to live anymore and he becomes more and more of a martyr since he feels guilty for letting his closest friend Jack die in the hands of the werewolf that attacked both him and David. One other brilliant thing about this movie is the chemistry between both David Naughton and Griffin Dunne. It’s absolutely wonderful because these two actors do an amazing job of sticking their characters together with great respect. 

Here is another topic for this analysis and that is the fantastic creepy nightmares that David suffers after being attacked by the previous Werewolf itself. All he can be seeing is constant butchery and terror caused by many hideous monsters and that’s really good because the film shows the main character being a victim of Lycanthropy; not really being a villain just a tragic hero caused by horror Lycanthropic circumstances. Another thing that makes me feel cool about this movie is that these scenes are not only scary but also very funny. That’s why this movie is so brilliant and so well-made and why, at least in my opinion, holds up very well. 

 The filmmakers of “An American Werewolf In London” do a brilliant job of making this movie both fantastically frightening and unexpectedly funny. Writer/director John Landis is one true genius behind mixing tragic horror tales with sharp slapstick comedy that he knew how to blend them with “American Werewolf”. This a movie that deserves an increase of bigger cult status and demands many viewings from horror fans that want to have fun a witty and scary film and that’s what makes it absolutely nothing short of exciting. It’s also absolutely comparable to “The Wolf Man” with Lon Chaney, the movie that Landis gives great tribute to. 

The movie apparently inspired a sequel 16 years later, “An American Werewolf In Paris” which I have not seen, but I heard about a rather dubious reputation about it. The point is that this movie deserves to be an eternal cult classic.