What An American Werewolf in London Means to Us
If I’m honest, I still like the werewolf design in The Howling (1981) more, but there’s no denying – this is the best werewolf movie of all time. Part of that is down to Rick Baker‘s effects – I think he won the first makeup effects Oscar on the strength of David’s first transformation scene alone – but it’s also just a damn well-made movie. It’s exciting, sexy, funny, and also occasionally scary – those Nazi demons gave me nightmares just from the pics of them in Fangoria. And the soundtrack is fantastic – full of moon-themed songs like Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Moon” (and The Marcel’s doo-wop version of the same), “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedance, and Van Morrison’s “Moondance.” It’s too bad Landis was unable to secure the rights to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” as that would have been perfect.
I love it for the effects, the characters (Griffin Dunne is awesome, and Jenny Agutter is always adorable), and the music, but it’s that thread of bleak humor that keeps me coming back. There are not many movies I can think of where an emotional (and blackly funny) discussion of life and death occurs in a porno movie theater. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the film, however, and the discussion of HOW he should kill himself is hilariously mean-spirited. Dammit. Now I want to watch it again.
–Bob Cram
I’ll never forget the first time I watched An American Werewolf in London. I was in my mid-teens and in school of all places. I had a music teacher who at the time I thought was a pretty laid-back guy. Looking back now it’s pretty clear he was completely negligent towards his duties as a teacher. During a double period of music, he decided to let us watch a movie. I think this was justified by it having an interesting soundtrack. Regardless, myself and 25 other students sat down to watch An American Werewolf in London.
I was blown away. Even though I was only 15 years old, I had seen my fair share of horror and adult themes in movies. This was still a memorable experience. The visual effects were the most realistic I had ever seen, the tension and suspense kept me on edge. Turns out it even had a great soundtrack! I have rewatched it a few times since, and I still thoroughly enjoy everything about it. But nothing will ever surpass my first viewing, that sleepy Friday afternoon.
–Lee McCutcheon
We Owe An American Werewolf in London to Gypsies
While working in Yugoslavia as a production assistant on the film Kelly’s Heroes, John Landis and a Yugoslav member of the crew were driving around on location when they came across a group of gypsies. The gypsies were performing their burial ritual of burying a man feet first and at a crossroads and at the sight of this bizarre ceremony Landis, as you could imagine, was rightfully perplexed. The production assistant had to explain to him that it was done to keep the body from quote “rising from the grave.”
Seeing this weird ass gypsy tradition kicked Landis’s imagination into overdrive and led to him eventually writing An American Werewolf in London. After being rejected by Hollywood for over a decade because quote “the script was too scary to be a comedy and too funny to be a horror”, he would finally get the financing to make it after the success of Animal House and The Blues Brothers. With his cast in place and script already written, all that was left to do was to steal Rick Baker away from The Howling.
Groundbreaking Makeup Effects
Baker was attached to the project from the beginning but when it was looking like it was never going to happen, Baker decided that if he was ever going to fulfill his dream of designing a werewolf he needed to jump ship to Joe Dante’s The Howling. Landis wasn’t having it and essentially stole him away from the movie. Even though that’s a colossal dick move, it was the best decision he ever made.
His makeup effects in this film aren’t only amazing but groundbreaking. Not just in terms of setting the bar for every werewolf film to follow (none have come close to equaling this, let alone beating it) but in being the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Makeup Effects. This film’s visual effects were so goddamn good, that the Academy had to make up an award to honor it.
I will never stop talking about what an impact the transformation sequence had on me as a kid. I was around nine years old at that point, and while that’s really young for some, I had already had a steady diet of slashers. I’d seen all of the Friday the 13ths, all of the Nightmare on Elm Streets and many of their knockoffs. I always knew it was a guy in a mask and the blood wasn’t real but this film was different. This looked so real that I remember inching closer to the TV to see what was happening. This looked like it hurt, and you could feel David’s pain. As effective as that was, I think the slow deterioration of his friend Jack made a bigger impact on me.
What Could Have Been…
In a parallel universe, this film was almost a vehicle for Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Because the script is primarily comedic, the studio wanted well-known comedians to star in it and if they offered Landis just a little bit more money, it might’ve happened. And while I could totally see Belushi as a wise-ass ghost trying to talk Aykroyd into suicide, Griffin Dunne owns the role. Everything his character does, from the constant decomposing to his incessant bitching about the other corpses he’s forced to converse with to his desperate attempts at getting the main character to kill himself is side-splittingly hilarious. There’s no other ghost in cinema history that acts like him or looks like him. He might be the funniest character in all of horror cinema. He’s one of the many perfect elements that combine to make the greatest horror comedy ever made.
Thank God for those crazy superstitious gypsies.
Have you seen An American Werewolf in London? What did you think of the film? Do you have a fun fact or piece of trivia about the making of the film? Please share it in the comments below!
