An American Werewolf In London (1981)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

Dir: John Landis

13/31 #31daysofhorror

How does one follow up Schlock (1973), The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), and The Blues Brothers (1980)? By making one of the most successful horror-comedies of all time, of course. The beauty of An American Werewolf In London is that you take a premise that is handled as a parody and add the most realistic wolf transformation ever committed to film. The effects outweigh the humor and scream for your attention. The jump scares are as effective now as they were then. I’m sure that when audiences went to see another John Landis film, especially after The Blues Brothers, they were expecting slapstick and farce. There’s no way they expected Nazi monsters, slit throats, decaying corpses, and an agonizing transformation.

Even taking for granted 40 years of special effects that have occurred between when Werewolf was released to now, there hasn’t been a better man to wolf transformation. It was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Make-Up as it was a new category in 1981. Rick Baker, you deserved it.

For anyone that hasn’t seen Werewolf in London, you need to. It is by far, the best werewolf film ever made. I have deep respect for The Wolf Man (1941), The Howling (1981), and Wolf (1994) but everything pales in comparison to Landis’ film. We follow two American backpackers, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are wandering through the Yorkshire countryside. They find a pub to stop at called The Slaughtered Lamb. When they ask the locals about a pentagram on the wall, they are promptly kicked out. They’re told to stay clear of the moors and beware of the full moon. But they find themselves on the moors with something howling in the distance. The two are attacked. Jack is killed while David only suffers a bite. We then follow David as he’s nursed back to health in London and begins to struggle with the idea that he may turn into a werewolf.

Trying to summarize the film, you realize it’s not a difficult storyline to guess. But it’s the characters, interactions, comedy, and soundtrack that shape the film. Every song in the film has the word ‘Moon,’ somewhere within the lyrics. While you go into the movie thinking it’s going to be a comedic romp through old werewolf tropes, Landis has peppered the real horror of the film throughout to almost prepare you for the chaos that will develop.

Favorite factoid from IMDB trivia: After filming was done with David Naughton in werewolf makeup, the crew danced around him and sang, “I'm a werewolf, you're a werewolf, wouldn't you like to be a werewolf too.” David Naughton was the spokesperson for Dr. Pepper until they saw him nude in this film.