An American Werewolf in London

An American Werewolf in London

“An American Werewolf in London” looks like it was not completed by the director John Landis. It feels as if all his energy were put into creating amazing scenes and he did not care about such things as transitions, character development or ending. Some parts of the movie are fascinating while others stretch for too long without anyone knowing what is happening. At times special effects almost make characters disappear from the screen. It is strange.

This is not a good film at all; it falls far short of Landis’s work in the wild “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and rowdy “The Blues Brothers”. Landis never seems to know whether he wants to make an outright horror or comedy hence funny moments come along as a gruesome undead counterpoint. Mixing horror with humor is an old tradition (my favorite example being “Bride of Frankenstein”) but in this movie laughs and blood get along very awkwardly.

One star off-screen here is Rick Baker, a young makeup whiz who created wounds, gore and werewolves for this picture among many other things; his work is tremendous, indeed: However unless you’re single-mindedly interested in tricks with make-up then American Werewolf will disappoint you because even though they are good enough already these still become a letdown for any true fan of scary movies because their peak moment has already been shown on screen – man transforming into wolf during The Howling where those same effects were done by Rob Bottin protege Baker .

David Naughton and Griffin Dunne star as two American college students backpacking across the English moors in this low-budget horror yarn. They are attacked by a werewolf, and Dunne is killed while Naughton survives. Brought to a London hospital, Naughton thinks his ordeal is over unilt, on the next full moon, Dunne rises from the grave and warns him that he is becoming a werewolf himself.

Directed by John Landis, who handles the werewolf metamorphosis with flair but generally muffs the horror-comedy elements, and looks toward England’s Ealing comedies of the ’40s for his set-bound atmospherics. The film’s British cast includes Jenny Agutter (“Walkabout”), Brian Glover (“Kes”) and David Schofield (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”).

The best moments in “American Werewolf” probably belong to Griffin Dunne, who may be a rotting corpse but keeps right on talking like a college student anyway; “This isn’t a whole lot of fun,” he says at Naughton’s bedside. The scene where Naughton turns into a werewolf is well done mechanically his hands elongate into claws and his face twists into a snout and fangs but it doesn’t do much more than establish Landis’ skill at special effects; we don’t get involved because we don’t know enough about these people to care for them. We don’t believe the places (especially that phony pub), we aren’t scared when we should be (as during an attack on the boys on an open road) and we’re particularly not thrilled by the ending.

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