An American Werewolf In London Review - What Shall I Watch On Netflix?

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Directed by John Landis

Produced by George Folsey Jr., Jon Peters and Peter Guber

Starring David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne and John Woodvine

Music by Elmer Bernstein

The film begins with two young American backpackers walking across the Yorkshire Moors. They happen upon a pub called 'The Slaughtered Lamb' and decide to venture inside for something warm to eat and drink. The people inside seem very reserved and don't like outsiders. The boys outstay their welcome and are told to leave – but are given several warnings to stay off the moors and keep to the roads, which make enough sense, but the warnings to 'beware the moon' is a bit more unusual.

After not heeding the warnings the boys wonder off the road – presumably looking for a shortcut. They are then attacked by a wolf like creature, Jack is unfortunately killed but David survives the attack and is taken to a hospital in London.

Jack then begins to appear to David in his dreams and as visions, explaining that they were attacked by a werewolf and a curse has been created. This curse will cause Jack to forever be 'un-dead' and for David to turn into a werewolf at the next full moon unless he kills himself.

When Jack reappears to David, he is first in his just mauled state. Here the make-up is fantastic and shows his skin hanging off his face and neck. It is done seamlessly and looks like the skin really has been torn. As the film progresses Jack becomes more decomposed until at the end of the film he is not more than a skeleton.

Sound wise the film is good, the atmosphere is built well with an eerie wolf howl coming from the distance as the boys walk across the moors. It would have been more effective if the howl was only heard a couple times, unfortunately it is more frequent which I feel is not as realistic and don't think a real wolf on the hunt would howl that much. The music is also quite good, each song having been chosen as they have the word 'moon' in their title which is a good touch. However, sometimes the song isn't very fitting to what's happening on screen and kills the mood. On the other hand, using 'Bad Moon Rising' by Creedence Clearwater Revival as a way of explaining the impending doom in a light-hearted way is something that I did appreciate.

Most people claim that their favourite scene is the one where David turns into the wolf for the first time. This transformation is brilliant and it looks as if David is genuinely in pain and fearful of what is happening to him. Here the choice of music is a bit strange – Blue Moon by Sam Cooke – something a bit more intense would of fitted better. Again the make-up department have done a great job and the transformation is genuinely quite scary.

However, my favourite scene is the one where a man is being chased through a London Underground Tube Station. A very important aspect of this scene is that we don't see the wolf until the very end, more concentrating on the man running away. This is key to the horror of the scene as it uses the anticipation of the man being caught to build up the tension, rather than showing an animated monster running through a station. Through the use of wide camera angles being mixed with long corridors, it truly comes across that there is no escape for the man and he is just delaying the inevitable. The scene ends with the man falling over at the bottom of an escalator. The camera has been placed at the top pointing down at the bottom, which is a long way away. The man slowly rises up the stairs and you can hear the werewolf approaching. I feel that this is the most tense moment of the film and it is truly terrifying – whilst at the same time being fantastic.

Some scenes are quite rubbish however. The opening scene in The Slaughtered Lamb made my sister want to stop the film the first time we watched it. I had heard so much about the film that I needed to keep watching so managed to stop her from turning it off. The characters in the pub are completely unbelievable and the acting is in many cases terrible. There is a shower sex scene that is very badly done, it feels completely awkward for both characters. If the scene had been implied rather than shown then it would have had a greater effect of showing the relationship progression between Alex and David. For example, Alex going into the bathroom for a shower, David smiling and then following her in.

The finale lets you know (if you didn't already) that the film had been directed by the same person who directed The Blues Brothers. Cars constantly crash into each other, people fly through shop windows, and one person even falls out of a bus window. This is effective at showing the extent of the panic that a werewolf would cause in the centre of London, but is completely contrasting to the pacing of the rest of the film, which was a lot more reserved.

Something that a lot of people complain about when talking about this film is the ending. It is very abrupt and the credits seem to pop up out of nowhere. It is often said that there should have been a post event scene that gave some information on the aftermath so as to give a conclusion or closure. I disagree with this as I think it fits in with the way the rest of the film is presented. The whole way through, the only person who listens to David and tries to help him is Jack. Everyone else (who can help him) ignores him and covers up what really happens and so is keeping him in the dark. The way the film ends keeps the audience in the dark and adds to the mystery of the rest of the film – so I like it.

I really did enjoy this film, but as I heard someone else say, it is too funny to be a horror and too scary to be a comedy. The scenes often feel a bit confused as if the director/writer couldn't decide if it was to be a scary scene or a funny one. Something would be happening on screen that is supposed to be terrifying, but you also feel that you should laugh due to some other aspect.

On a scale of Scott Pilgrim to Pans Labyrinth I would give this film an 8. The build up of atmosphere and tension is fantastic and the make-up is great. A few poor scenes do let the film down but in general it does flow well and makes up for those couple rubbish scenes. When it is trying to be funny, it's hilarious, when it's trying to be scary it is almost terrifying – I just wish in certain moments it would of concentrated more on being funny or scary as it can get lost and a bit confused.

That scene in the Underground Tube Station is by far one of my favourite scenes in horror, it will do to me for tube stations what Jaws did for the sea.

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