American Werewolf in London
Amazon.co.uk Review
With an ingenious script, engaging characters, nerve-shredding suspense, genuinely frightening set-pieces and laugh-out-loud funny bits An American Werewolf in London is a prime candidate for the finest horror-comedy ever made. Americans David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) are backpacking in northern England when Jack is killed by a wild beast and David is bitten. Back in London David finds himself falling in love with a nurse, Alex (played with winning charm by Jenny Agutter), and turning into a werewolf. Adding to his problems, an increasingly decomposed Jack keeps coming back from the dead, and he is not a happy corpse. The Oscar winning make-up and transformation scenes still look good and rather than send itself up Werewolf plays its horror seriously, the laughs coming naturally from the surreal situation. Naughton is engagingly confused and disbelieving, desperately coping with the ever more nightmarish world, while Landis delivers one absolutely stunning dream sequence, an unbearably tense hunt on the London Underground and a breathtaking finale. Gory, erotic, shocking and romantic, this unforgettable horror classic has it all. Tom Holland’s Fright Night (1985) remixed the formula with vampires, as did Landis himself in Innocent Blood (1992). A disappointing sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, followed in 1997. –Gary S Dalkin
One of my all time fave films is finally available on Blu Ray.
I will cut the film review part, I am sure if you are reading this, you know the film and you just want to know the quality.
Picture
Very grainy, think the recent Ghostbusters Blu Ray in terms of the grain. Intrusive at first but once your eyes adjust it feels quite clear. It is lot brighter than the grainy and dark VHS/DVD transfers. You can see a lot more. But you get a lot more grain.
Audio
A new English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/16-bit) has been produced for ‘An American Werewolf in London.’ The film has always possessed a rather effective mix for a 1981 horror picture, and it has been upgraded nicely here.
Surround deployment is impressive considering the film’s age. The rears are active for the big scare moments, particularly the creepy wolf sound effects, and general atmosphere. Charles Bernstein’s underrated score is also nicely balanced, which gives a decent heft to the soundfield. Dialogue is pretty crisp and intelligible, with only some of the hushed tones and British accents a bit muffled. Low bass isn’t particularly impactful (the mix sounds a bit brittle, particularly high-end) but it’s strong enough to give some kick to the wolf attack scenes. Again, considering the age of the material, I was happy with this mix.
Extras
This is where the film marks high for me. Paul Davis’s “Beware The Moon” is a fanboy geekgasm of a documentary, and a feature length one at that. He gathers the thoughts of everyone worth hearing from involved with the film and visits the locations. I didnt want this to end. The rest of the special features bassically mirror the 2001 DVD (Outtakes without sound, casting the hand etc) but “Beware The Moon” makes this Blu Ray worth the purchase.
Rating: 4 / 5
David Kessler and his best friend Jack Goodman are on summer vacation from college and decide to backpack in Europe, making a start in the cold and damp moors of Northern England; in the middle of what seems like nowhere they stumble upon a tiny village and a pub known as The Slaughtered Lamb where some very peculiar and somewhat aggitated locals are less than enthusiastic about their company. Before they leave, they’re warned to “beware the moon” and “keep to the road”, both notes of advice they unfortunately ignore.
Soon, a fierce howling begins to pitch the night, and David and his friend Jack are attacked savagely by some kind of wild beast roaming the moors; David awakens in a hospital in London to discover his friend has died from the attack, and he has been there some time. David is suddenly plagued with frightning and vivid dreams; his friend Jack visits him in a decomposing and bloody state telling him that they were attacked by a werewolf, and that David must “break the curse” he was infected with by the attack.
At first, he dismisses this as hallucations, even when his dreams are becoming even more violent as some carnal entity inside struggles to make itself known.
The film itself is considered today to be THE epitome of the werewolf movie genre. An American Werewolf in London paved the way for makeup and special effects in modern horror as we know it; John Landis’ gutsy use of bright lighting and lack of cutaway combined with Rick Baker’s real-time physical effects and state-of-the-art prosthetic makeup made this film revolutionary for the horror genre so much that the Academy Awards began to celebrate special effects and makeup. Even seeing the magic of digital effects and special effects in modern movies, I still can’t help but be impressed when watching the full transformation scene.
While the film is gory and somewhat frightening (although somewhat tame by today’s standards), Landis used a somewhat “Hitchcockian” approach to direction of the movie, giving it some “laugh out loud” moments in black comedic style to ease the audience in before the real suspense or terror is due to come along – tactics that are still widely used today by horror directors (Sam Raimi being a good example). While not strictly a comedy in a sense, the movie has a good entertainment value. A MUST for all werewolf fans.
Rating: 5 / 5
This film is one of those that everybody likes. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s got special effects that were way ahead of its time, and it’s British. The two stars may be American, but everybody else in the film is English, it is all filmed in England, and it feels English. John Landis included some very un-American ploys in the making of this movie – for instance, the music includes three different versions of Blue Moon, plus Bad Moon Rising and Moondance. It’s all set in current time (well, 1980), unlike the Hammer Horror and Lon Chaney werewolf films that people were used to. The hero ends up running around London zoo, naked, after waking up in the wolf’s cage the morning after a night of rampage and violence. And that’s another point – the hero is the bad guy. He’s the werewolf in the story, but you’re on his side. Nobody is on Freddy Krueger’s side, or Michael Myer’s side, in the American horror films that have been released over the last 20 years.
This is one of those films where you notice something different each time you watch. Be it Rik Mayall playing chess with Brian Glover in “The Slaughtered Lamb”, the further decomposition of Jack each time he comes back to visit David, the inclusion of the Muppet Show in one of David’s most horrendous dreams (plus Frank Oz, the voice of Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear, as the man from the American Embassy), the really bad acting on the porno movie that’s playing in Piccadily circus, the fact that Landis plays one of the London crowd who gets run over when the werewolf escapes from the cinema at the end, the offer of congratulations to Charles and Diana on the announcement of their engagement that rolls past as the end credits roll.
This 21st anniversary release contains a second disc showing how the movie was made, how the special effects were created, trailers, and loads more besides. And the commentary by the two lead actors as the movie is playing reveals just how much in awe of Jenny Agutter they were.
Rating: 5 / 5
Quick question: what do the following Blu-rays have in common? Zulu, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, The Prisoner and The Italian Job. Answer: they all pre-date An American Werewolf in London by more than a decade and yet have a pristine visual quality.
Grain is a characteristic of film and a small amount of it is desirable: it’s what differentiates celluloid from video. However, it’s present here in such abundant quantities that it becomes a massive distraction. “Busy” doesn’t begin to describe this picture transfer. It’s a shame, as there are hardly any other print artefacts and this could have been so much better.
On the plus side, exclusive to this Blu-ray is a 90-minute, exhaustive documentary that goes some way to justifying this purchase. In addition, all the bonus features from the previous DVD release have been ported over. I’m deducting a couple of stars for the presentation and not the content; after all, it’s a cult classic that still delights.
Rating: 3 / 5
For me at least this is the best horror film ever and the definitive werewolf movie. Nobody before or since has put together a more convincing werewolf change sequence; even the so-called sequel to this film couldn’t match it with all the modern computer methods at their disposal.
This film started the perfect balance of horror and comedy way before it became trendy with films such as Scream. With the most realistic and scary werewolf they managed to mix the absurdly comical decomposition of Jack, David’s undead best friend. The conversation with Skeleton Jack in the porno theatre towards the end of the film is hilarious and then followed quickly by the terrifying werewolf sequence in the same said theatre.
It doesn’t get any better than this; I wish Landis would revisit some of this ground himself with a prequel or sequel so that I can finally forget the dismay and disappointment of that Werewolf in Parish rubbish.
Rating: 5 / 5