An American Werewolf in London
One of the great little Easter eggs that John Landis throws into his 1981 horror-comedy classic is how every song we hear in the movie has the word “moon” in the title. And “Blue Moon” is used several times. It’s a great contrast to the score by Elmer Bernstein, which captures the terror of the situation David finds himself in.
This is the type of movie that you just love the second you watch it, and I did as I saw it for the first time in 2018. Landis follows a well-worn formula for werewolf movies, one that emphasizes the tragedy of David’s life after his encounter with a werewolf, wherein he begins to turn into a werewolf, while also maintaining a steady stream of humor and humanity. Few werewolf films after it can hope to succeed the way the classic Lon Chaney Jr. Universal film does, but Landis surpasses it with his sharp screenplay, his sure-footed direction, and the legendary, Oscar-honored makeup effects by the great Rick Baker.
We begin with David (David Naughton) and his best friend, Jack (Griffin Dunne) being let out of the back of a sheep truck in rural England. They make their way to a local watering hole, The Slaughtered Lamb, whose denizens are taken aback by the appearance of these two American tourists, backpacking their way through Europe. After getting the creeps at The Slaughtered Lamb, they leave, and it starts raining, and they begin to hear a howl. They are trapped in the moors, and they get attacked, and Jack is killed. David wakes up three weeks later in the hospital, but something doesn’t feel right; he is having these weird dreams. A potential romance with his nurse, Alex (Jenny Agutter), helps ease him, but visions of Jack, and a pending full moon, leave him uneasy as he is discharged.
What inspiration on Landis’s part in keeping Jack as a vital part of David’s story, even in death. His continually-deteriorating visage is a wonderful tribute to Baker’s amazing artistry, almost as much as the remarkable wolf transformation sequence in Alex’s apartment, but Dunne’s matter-of-fact, always-in-character performance, which remains the same as when he was among the living, is what sells us on the character. He is David’s guide through what he’s going through, and it is a pleasure each time we see him, sounding the alarm stronger and stronger about what David needs to do. Giving David that grounded friendship adds another layer to his journey than just the romantic one with Alex; it’s also a devilishly macabre series of scenes as Jack tries to warn him about his condition.
Landis has made his film as lean and mean as any old school Universal horror movie was, and that’s a big part of its charm. He takes the formula, and bends it in new ways while also respecting the legacy it is updating. How does an insane porn film called “See You Next Wednesday” fit in? You’ll have to watch the film yourself to find out. It’s well worth your time to do so, and don’t be surprised if you’ll want to do so again immediately afterwards.
