An American Werewolf in London lands in a weird no man’s land. As a comedy, it’s fitfully amusing, but never particularly funny. As a horror flick, it’s ambitious and interesting, but not that scary. Still, it’s good-looking, well-paced, and those werewolf effects remain stunning to this day. All this adds up to a film that’s easy to appreciate, but difficult to recommend. I understand the fans who built this into an enduring cult classic. At the same time, I relate to the people who responded to it with a shrug.
The story (by John Landis, who also directs) kicks off in the English moors. Two young American dudes backpack across the foggy topography. David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) couldn’t be more touristy and awkward, as they stroll through some truly uninviting countryside. (Whatever else this movie might be, it’s not a travel advert for England.) Unsurprisingly, when the boys wander into a local pub, its haggard denizens greet them like pariahs. While our heroes just want beers and beds, the innkeeper angrily tells them they’ll find neither at this place. As they anxiously creep out the front door, the locals deliver two ominous warnings: Stay on the roads and avoid the glow of a full moon.
As with a million other horror movies, the entire plot depends on the protagonists being not too bright, and this one’s no exception: David and Jack immediately disregard the tavern’s warnings, wander off the road, and are soon caught in the silver moonlight. And…wouldn’t ya know it–a snarling hellbeast pounces from the shadows and proceeds to maul the boys. Jack is killed in the attack, while David gets chewed up real good.
Cut to a few weeks later. David wakes up in a London hospital bed. His handsome soap opera doctor (John Woodvine) informs him that a crazed individual was responsible for the assault. This was no man, David angrily protests. The attacker was a large, powerful monster. Everyone regards David as another wacky Yank, except for Alex (Jenny Agutter), the pretty nurse who tends to him. She quickly forms a Florence Nightingale bond with David, and becomes his staunchest ally.
Things get crazy when Jack pays David a visit from purgatory. It seems the boys were maimed by a werewolf, and David has been transformed. At the next full moon, he will change into a slobbering monster, and begin killing indiscriminately. The only solution? David must kill himself, thus ending the line of werewolves forever.
At this point, Landis writes himself into a corner. With Jack’s revelation, the movie can only end in two ways: David kills himself, and the movie’s over. That, my friends, could’ve been the worst ending to any movie ever. Option B would be for David and Alex to find some loophole in the prophecy, thus allowing David to cheat death. That would provide the movie with a happier conclusion, but it would also render the preceding story pointless.
Somehow, Landis opts for none of the above, and yet his finale is still completely unsatisfying. American Werewolf doesn’t so much end as it just stops. Landis flings his story against a brick wall and cuts to black. This was probably his hope that stunned moviegoers would file out of the theater and not dwell on how strange and abrupt this ending really is.
Well, overthinking movies is what I do, so let’s get into it: American Werewolf is about 2/3 of a pretty good movie. Naughton makes for a good Everyman, flummoxed by the supernatural nightmare unfolding around him. I also enjoyed Dunne as the decomposing best friend. (This visual gag feels lifted right from a Mel Brooks movie.) And then there’s Rick Baker’s jaw-dropping monsters effects. Naturally, this is pre-CGI, so he has to deploy practical effects for Naughton’s inevitable transformation. Baker’s work would win him an Academy Award, and it does much to elevate the entire movie. (Michael Jackson would later hire Landis and Baker to render his zombie dance-pocalypse for the “Thriller” video.)
Still, not even Baker’s nightmarish makeup is enough for me to sign off on An American Werewolf in London. Landis’ trademark comedy is mostly absent here, and only a few mildly amusing gags sneak into the story. Most of the plot is pedestrian and predictable, which takes the jolt out of all the jump scares. If most of this movie is only decently watchable, the remainder is a major letdown.
97 min. R. MAX.
