An American Werewolf in London (1981)

European folk horror sure does give one pause to go stomping all over the British countryside. If you don't bump into pagan king Penda or a cult looking for some sort of convoluted sacrifice, you just might cross a hedgerow only to find yourself in a fantasy world populated with creatures of folklore. Someone probably should have mentioned this to David and his buddy Jack, the would-be heroes of today's film, John Landis's landmark work of horror comedy, An American Werewolf in London. 

After an odd encounter with the locals in a strange pub, the pair are brutally attacked by some kind of animal, killing Jack and putting David in a hospital bed. Thing is, when David wakes up, he's told he was attacked by an escaped lunatic, while he remains adamant that whatever killed his friend was most assuredly not human. And another thing: he keeps having these strange dreams, and waking up in even stranger places, like the wolf exhibit at the local zoo. Something within him is changing, but he's at a loss as to what exactly is happening. Well, at least he is until his buddy returns from the grave to warn him that if he doesn't kill himself before the full moon, he will transform into a werewolf and wreak havoc on the streets of Piccadilly Circus. With me so far?

Well if all this feels distinctly unoriginal and unexciting, keep in mind that it's the approach that has kept this film in the conversation for so long. It's an early horror comedy film, and as such, it fought an uphill battle to figure out how such a film would or even could work. John Landis tried for decades to get this film made, and at every turn he was told that it was too funny to work as a horror film and too scary to work as a comedy. Sure, it's vintage, and so has a lot more patience than modern comedies, but even today, the results are hard to argue with. You won't be rolling on the floor from beginning to end, but you will be consistently charmed in between the moments of true knee-slapping anarchy.

The film's subtlety and lack of in-your-face indicators as to what you're in for moment-to-moment keep it feeling fresh, even in 2022. At first, aside from its little touches of levity, the film feels distinctly like a European folk horror film. For a while, the humor stays relatively low-key, though pleasant, before eventually embracing Landis's love of cinematic carnage and summoning up some of the most hilariously deranged dream sequences and comedy setpieces imaginable. Towards the end, the film's strand of jet-black comedy centering around suicide (thanks to its nightmarish premise) becomes apparent, and after yet more raucous lunacy during its climax, the film ends with one of the best cuts to credits there has ever been. Ever wondered where Evan Morgan got the idea for The Kid Detective's bold, darkly hilarious final shot and title drop? Well, here ya go. And through it all, there's an undercurrent of Monty Python-esque riffing on the British way of life that provided a number of belly laughs for yours truly. The humor is like a cool drink of water: understated, but refreshing. It creates fun situations and throws fun character archetypes into them headfirst in order to make audiences laugh, rather than stopping to tell a joke every other line or so. There are few punchlines that aren't the result of clever editing, and for that, it has my respect.

I feel like I could write a whole thousand words about the subway sequence that sits in the middle of the film alone. It's both hilarious and frightening, as it relies on the genuine nightmare logic of being chased by something that you're too scared to turn around and confirm is even there, building into a frenzy until our hapless victim trips, falls, and looks back just in time for a pitch-perfect reveal of our bipedal creature slowly entering the frame. It's a brilliant piece of surrealism, and quite immersive. It asks more than a few questions about where the line lies that divide comedy from horror. lie and if we should even really care.

Yet, for such a wild film, it's very patiently arranged. The famous transformation sequence doesn't take place until the start of the third act, which is clearly the best place for it to prevent everything before and after it from blurring together. I didn't care for the middle chunk as much, which mostly concerns the somewhat obligatory romance subplot, though it does at least star Jenny Agutter, looking gorgeous as always. In fact, one of my only real issues with the film is its big sex scene, which despite starring one of the sexiest women to ever grace the silver screen, is weirdly uncomfortable, clinical, and kind of gross. Hell, it's even scored with Van Morrison's "Moondance." How do you fuck that up? There are rumors that David Naughton may have been politely rejected by Jenny Agutter 'irl' prior to filming this scene which would help explain it, but that's just speculation. It doesn't help that this scene looks the most like a seventies exploitation film out of anything in the whole film, complete with washed-out colors that render naked human bodies into so much grey meat.

As I just mentioned, the film has a cute licensed soundtrack consisting of moon-themed pop songs, like the aforementioned  "Moondance," along with Bobby Vinton's "Blue Moon" and even "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The look of the film is strong, often understated, though the opening stuff in the rural English countryside stands out as especially textured and sumptuous. The real standout when it comes to this film's visuals, however, are Rick Baker's incredible make-up effects. When David's friend Jack first reemerges, his wounds look strikingly realistic, with the skin around his neck looking as though it's been shredded. It's almost sickening. Then there's the transformation sequence, which Baker conceived of by observing the differences between a dog's skeleton and a human's, and the changes that our bones would have to go through to match up. In practice, it's probably less gory and icky than modern audiences would expect, but I actually ended up really liking it for its strange, surreal look. Its subtlety, and the way it holds and holds on shots while Sam Cooke croons far away in the background, really works for me. I've heard people complain that it made them laugh but my response is, yall do know this is a comedy right? If Landis had thought to himself that the scene looked funny during editing, wouldn't he have left it that way because the film is supposed to be an affectionate parody of werewolf films? I'd like to think so. It's not a failing of the film in any case, and I think the sequence rides the line between silly and nightmarish fairly well. Besides, no one can claim that that eight-second shot of David's face morphing into that of a werewolf at the end doesn't look unbelievably good.

Overall, this isn't a film for modern nitpickers who believe that corporate-mandated "updates" of films like this are better than the originals. The things that would be put down as 'not holding up' would assuredly be all the same reasons I found it a nice change of pace from more recent horror comedy fare. An American Werewolf in London is that rare trailblazing film that still holds up because its imitators have since taken its ideas in much different, more extreme directions, so that retains its uniqueness after all these years.