AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, AN

(August 1981, U.S.)

During the 1980's, the thing that made the FRIDAY THE 13TH and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequel franchise films so bad (and believe me, they were really fucking bad!) was that these so called "horror" movies tried to hard to be funny instead. It didn't work and it never does work...except for this one film, in my opinion.

Director John Landis already knew how to be funny, with movies like ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) and THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980), and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is funny in all the right places. But it doesn't go so overboard as to deter from what needs to be scary about a werewolf story. There are many scary moments that make even a hard-ass son-of-a-bitch like me cringe with fear. The entire sequence when we see David Naughton's character (David) change for the first time into a werewolf is done with excellent craftsmanship, thanks to legendary make-up artist Rick Baker. In his werewolf form, David commits some very frightening and ghastly murders in just his first night out and causes a horrible series of deaths in London's Piccadily Circus on his second.

The story of a wolfman has been done-to-death throughout cinema history, from Lon Chaney Jr. to Jack Nicholson. Landis' film version makes us laugh in the process, without sacrificing the fear and the folklore of the werewolf that we've come to know and enjoy over the years.

Favorite line or dialogue:

David Kessler: "I'm a werewolf."
Alex Price: "A werewolf? Are you alright now?"
David: "I don't know. I'll let you know the next full moon."