American Werewolf in London (1981)

American Werewolf in London (1981) – Two Americans are hiking through Europe when they are attacked on the moors of England.  Jack (Griffin Dunne) is killed while David (David Naughton) survives, only to discover that he was attacked by a werewolf.  David falls for the nurse (Jenny Agutter) who tends him in the hospital, but has violent, disturbing dreams. Jack returns in “un-dead” form to warn his friend about what will happen when the moon is full.

Director – John Landis                                    Starring – David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin                                                                                                       Dunne

This movie is rather odd.  Landis doesn’t come to mind immediately as a horror director.  Having made the cult hit “Kentucky Fried Movie“, followed by “Animal House“, followed by “The Blues Brothers“, he was in a good place to direct what he wanted.  It still took almost a decade to get approval for this.  The concern was that the script was too funny to be a horror movie, and too scary to be a comedy.  While it has never struck me as terribly scary, it offers plenty of blood and scary atmosphere.  I’m not sure there’s another early ’80s werewolf film that stands up as well as this one, even given its mixed genre.  Alongside it would be “The Howling” which is much more straight forward horror film, and “Teen Wolf”, a Michael J. Fox comedy.

Landis carries the movie very competently along the razor’s edge of the two genres.  Overall, it has always leaned a bit more toward the comedy side.  The effects were Oscar worthy at the time and largely hold up pretty well given everything that has happened in movie effects over three decades.  The  ending comes somewhat abruptly, almost as if Landis didn’t know where to go with the story at that point.

David Naughton was best known at the time as the “Dr. Pepper Guy”, appearing in a popular series of commercials for the soft drink.  He constantly seems to be trailing behind the rest of the cast in his performance level.  Several of the cast were appearing in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of  “Nicholas Nickleby”, so there’s probably a reason for that.

Why I Liked It : The careful balancing act for writer/director Landis.

Why You Will Like It : Not like any other horror film you’ve ever seen.  Very much the kind of horror film you might expect from John Landis.

There are several scenes of nudity and/or sexual content, a modest amount of immodest language, and quite a bit of low budget movie violence and gore.

Rating : *** 1/2 Worth A Look