An American Werewolf In London

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: John Landis

Starring: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, Lila Kaye

From: PolyGram

I hadn't seen this in a very long time. I was happy to revisit it on Saturday night. Peep the details below: 

Remember how I said on Friday in my last review that I would be gone for a few days due to an Internet issue?

I lied.

Actually, that's being too harsh. Early on Saturday, my cable provider (also my Internet provider) was called and they suggested that it was the router which was the issue. Well, they were right. It was very old anyhow so it was time to replace it. Clearly, the nearby lightning strike screwed it up; I am thankful that nothing else electronic was affected. Anyhow, the new router is great and performs far better than the old one. But onto the review...

This is another one of those films that I had seen before, but the last viewing was many years ago. I remembered it as being very good, and after last night I still feel that way. I imagine most have seen this too so I don't need to spent too much time recapping the plot of what happens to backpackers David and Jack in England. I will say that this movie manages to blend sadness, comedy, and horror together very well. As the movie takes its time and the infamous transformation-still utterly horrifying 36 years later-doesn't happen until an hour in, you have time to know all the major characters and by the final act, you feel very awful for David, especially when he realizes that he is in the twilight of his short life and he has become resigned to his fate... that's pathos. There are darkly humorous moments, which contrasts with the horror beats and all the gory moments. Seeing your undead friend a few times, and he is gradually decomposing... it's probably all three.

There are rumors that there will be a remake, and as it's modern Hollywood, I have zero faith it'll be any good. And that's even with Max Landis attached, who is a pretty awful human being but not a bad screenwriter and you'd hope he would want to do a great version of his dad's movie. I know the transformation would happen within the first half hour, the humor wouldn't be as funny (and heavens knows, the dark discussion about how David should kill himself wouldn't be there), the joke of having several Moon songs on the soundtrack-including three classic renditions of Blue Moon-would be gone... the incredible Rick Baker effects would be replaced by CG that would look atrocious in comparison and hell, there'd probably be a remake of Blue Moon by some talentless schlubs like Imagine Dragons, Lana Del Rey, D.R.A.M., Lil Yachty... hell, they'd probably all collaborate together for a true contender for the worst popular music song of the 21st century.

But anyway... even today people argue over if this or The Howling is “the best” werewolf movie; I say this is a little better but both definitely should be watched. I understand those that prefer Howling due to them not like AWIL's humor or how it is oddly paced. To think that they came out within 6 months of one another. Besides those two and the Lon Chaney The Wolf Man, there's plenty of arguing over which ones are the next best; there's certainly a consensus in that there are plenty of terrible werewolf flicks out there and who knows how many more years it'll be until we get another classic. If Universal's disastrous Dark Universe actually continues, I have already designated their Wolf Man to not be a classic. Sigh... at least this movie will always be around for people to watch.