DB7

Why I'm mad about...

An American Werewolf in London
It blazed the trail for horror comedy, says James Jackson



Until An American Werewolf in London, the “horror comedy� didn’t really exist. The received wisdom was that a film would either be too scary to be funny, or too funny to be scary. Then came the line “Have you ever tried talking to a corpse, David? It’s boring!�, delivered by a putrefying cadaver, and we were into new territory.
Adult cinema audiences may have been amused and unnerved by John Landis’s mix of pulp horror shocks and broad laughs but a generation of youngsters would watch the video and be terrified out of their skins. Accordingly, it has become one of those movies that inspires huge affection from that original audience, even if not from the serious critics, no fans of the Landis’s oeuvre. Great art it isn’t, but for a film with so much sharp-toothed gore it has charm by the bucket.

At the core is a wolf-bites-man, man-turns-wolf premise that is as old as Lon Chaney’s were-wig. Two American backpackers (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) hike across a Yorkshire moor, have a run-in with the locals at The Slaughtered Lamb (“Beware the moon, lads,� Brian Glover warns them in one of cinema’s great pub scenes) and are savaged by a werewolf. The attack leads Naughton to London, where he experiences horrifying nightmares, romps with the NHS’s finest (Jenny Agutter, left) and receives warning visits from his decaying undead friend.

This last element is one of the original aspects of Landis’s witty script. Instead of these confrontations being moments of screaming terror, the pair’s conversations are jokey and bewildered. Dunne’s reminiscing about the reactions at his funeral, as he gulps breakfast down his savaged neck, is priceless.

When it finally comes, the transformation scene is heart-stopping even 20 years after effects wizard Rick Baker devised it: we see and hear the hapless lycanthrope’s bones stretching, his jaw protruding in a grotesquely priapic manner. Counterpointing the horror, Blue Moon plays sweetly in the background � Landis has great fun with the moon-themed soundtrack (Bad Moon Rising and Moondance also feature).

This is also one of the great London movies, a bizarre tour of the capital in the early 1980s, taking in a farcical nude scene in London Zoo, a chaotic climax in Piccadilly Circus and an eerie stalk through a strangely empty Tottenham Court Road Tube station.

The squeamish may still find American Werewolf a questionable source of entertainment, but remember it’s just a scary wolf movie with a sense of fun. As the closing legal disclaimer puts it: “Any resemblance to any persons living, dead, or undead is coincidental.�

Steve Crook

Horror-Comedy didn't exist before An American Werewolf?

What about...
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Blob (1958)
Carry On Screaming! (1966)
The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)
The House in Nightmare Park (1973)
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Love at First Bite (1979)
Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

to list just a few of the many
(listed in alphabetical order)

But yes, I agree, An American Werewolf is a good film.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DB7

Carry on Screaming's scariest moment is probably the sighr of Peter Butterworth in a dress. eek! (a Carry-On better off without Sid James too!)

I presume he means gory "horror" Steve.

Angry Hector

I am still haunted by teh day I went to see "American Wereolf In London" at the drab old East End cinemas here in Melbourne. I was about 11 years old and I handed the sour old bag behind the counter a $10 note for the ticket, one that had been scrunched up in my pocket.

She refused to serve me and ordered me to leave the theatre, go outside and flatten the note nicely, then come back in to the back of the queue with an apology ready.

I was so eager to see the film that I did as I was told.

It is funny...the amount of things I have forgotten over the years, but little moments like that still rankle in my mind.

steve d holt

Great film,but the moment when Jenny Aguter strips off, for a teenager at that time brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Polynikes

Jenny was always stripping off in those days (Walkabout, Equus, Logan's Run).

American Werewolf in London wasn't scary - I saw it in the cinema and it wasn't a patch on Alien a year or so earlier for pants-s******g.

There's 4 basic ways to scare people:

1. Gory scenes/unpleasant images - decapitation, mutilation, disembowelment etc.

2. Sudden shock (usually delivered with an ear-splitting blast from the "musical director".

3. The threat of a terrible creature/monster delivering an unspeakable (better to keep the details in the realm of the imagination) death.

4. Supernatural power that will destroy is in much more than just in a physical way.

#1 & #2 are way too numerous to mention and more distasteful that scary.

To my mind, only the original Jaws and Alien have been truly scary on point #3 (The Thing & Deep Rising was close). Some might think that Silence of the Lambs was scary - I didn't though Hopkin's performance was un-nerving.
28 Days Later had an early moment too.

For supernatural stories I can't think of too many. The original Hammer Dracula and more recently The Ring were scary.
Rosemary's Baby had lots of atmosphere but lacked a "punch" - same with Poltergeist and Amityville Horror.

Comedy and Horror don't go hand in hand. There were comic moments in Jaws and Alien but the nature of the beast was never the butt of the jokes unlike in American Werewolf.

I thought Landis' follow up movie "Into the Night" with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pffiefer was better. Everytime you started thinking that the Iranian mobsters were akin to the Keystone Cops, they caught someone and killed them in an unpleasant way to sober up your mirth.

Cheers from Rich

Carterh

Yes Jenny Aguter; everything she was in, they were out. She even took her undergarments off in the Railway Children, little minx. She once went topless for a Disney voiceover. I have many fond memories of 'Equas'.

My faverate scary moments are from 'The Haunting', the scene were the woman thinks there is someones touching her, but her roommate is at teh other side of the room, and the shock scene towards the end. All of 'The Haunting' really. Also, 'The Innocents' with Debra Kerr and the scene with the face at the window. Lastly, the famous shock moment from Black Narcissus . All kept me awake as a child. the same way that Jenny Aguterkept me awake when I was a little older, but for a different reason of course.

C

deckard

Forget blood and gore etc.,One of the most scary films in my opinion is David Lynch's "Eraserhead"(1976)such bizarre,surreal images and creepily filmed in B&W.Very scary! eek!

"and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"

Carterh

Lynch is a good one. "Blue Velvet" is very scary. I would also add "The King of Comedy" which I find terrifying.

C

Carterh

On the original subject of "An American Werewolf in London", it's a movie I remember with great fondness from my early teens. I've only ever seen the movie on video, being too young to see it at the cinema. It is one of the very few movies that managed to make you scream and laugh throughout.

I heard a rumour that the original cinema version followed the end credits with the British national anthem and a message congratulating Diana and Charles on the occasion of their wedding? Does anyone know if this is true?

C

Fellwanderer

I don't like horror films and I don't like horror-comedy films - but I'll make an exception in this case for obvious reasons!

It is being shown in Bradford this Friday evening as part of the Fantastic Film Weekend and I'm still deciding whether or not to go down to get the chance of seeing it on the large screen. If I do, it'll probably be the first film on the large screen I've been to see of my own choice for well over twenty years

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

faginsgirl

I loved the film especially the cliche pub scene .

But I could never see the point of Jenny Aguter being in it. It gave the main character a place to live I suppose, but thats all I can see.

xx

We`re changin` lodggggggggings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

penfold

And long, long before that, how about The Cat and The Canary(1927), the incredible There It Is (1928) , both parodying the Haunted House genre before it had really got going on screen...even the classic silent horrors had comedy elements (Der Golem(1920) - the clay nemesis goes shopping with a dinky wicker basket) way before the more obvious comic elements of the Bride of Frankenstein, for instance.

And An American Werewolf is superb, but the original piece quoted is nonsense..the writer is obviously one of those who thinks cinema started with Star Wars.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

harryfielder

http://www.turnipnet.com/aitch/aitch/gallery.htm

PS68060

I too remember the Charles & Diana footnote, I think it is on the
VHS recording I have.

I love this film, it's just off-beat, however you look at it.
I can't understand why some scenes are cut for television though.

"Oh! Pete!"