Release Date: August 21, 1981
Director: John Landis
Starring: David Naughton, Griffin Dune, Jenny Agutter, John Woodvine, Frank Oz
Favorite quote: “Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare’s French!”– David Kessler, trying to get arrested
This may or may not turn out to be my first cop-out in this series. I base that statement on whether my rationale for this choice holds water in the public eye.
I wanted to do a piece for Halloween, and I wanted to avoid obvious references to the day itself (i.e. Halloween Puppy). Apart from being the candy-laden costumed scavenger hunt we all remember as children, the prevailing theme of Halloween – at least in my eyes – is fear. I remember being younger and visiting haunted houses, looking to get spooked. The concept of true fear is something that I’ve grown out of for the most part, and it’s something that I miss about being young.
When I look back on the movies that scared the piss out of me as a child, I hang on five movies. Two of them didn’t scare me as much as revulse me: Cannibal Holocaust and Zombie. Those were absolute gorefests and not true horror. The other three are movies that almost everyone has seen: The Exorcist, Phantasm, and An American Werewolf in London. Of those three, however, An American Werewolf in London sticks with me as the most enjoyable of the bunch. I watched it at the age of 10 and was simultaneously awestruck and scared shitless.
The movie begins with us following two college kids, David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne). They are backpacking through the North York Moors in England when they come across a pub named the Slaughtered Lamb. Everyone seems jolly until Jack asks why there’s a pentagram carved on a wall? Suddenly hostile, they are told to leave, but not without a dire warning:
“Stay on the road; keep clear of the Moors.”
“Beware the moon, lads.”
Of course, being aloof college kids, they soon lose track of where they are hiking. They are smack dab in the Moors, off the road. And there is a full moon out.
They are lost and try to find their way back to the pub, but are attacked by a huge dog-like creature. Jack is killed, and David is brutally mauled but survives. The patrons of the pub shoot the attacker, whom David sees as a normal man before he loses consciousness.
David awakens three weeks later in a London hospital with no recollection of what has happened. He is told he was attacked by a lunatic, but he recalls seeing a large dog or wolf. Before long, Jack appears to him as a corpse and tells him they were attacked by a werewolf and that David is now a werewolf because of the attack. Not believing the vision, he tries to carry on…until the next full moon.
The writing in this movie is great, and a movie directed by John Landis at the height of his powers is destined to be incredible. But this movie stayed with me way after my first viewing because of my fear of what I was seeing. I was compelled to watch it over and over again, despite the fact that I was truly scared by it.
The one thing I will always remember about this movie, besides the terrific story and flawless pace, was David’s first transformation into the werewolf. There were numerous werewolf movies prior to this that tried to capture the transformation from human to lycan. Some, like the transformation in The Howling, were pretty realistic for the time. But in this movie, I saw a human being genuinely transform into a werewolf before my eyes. And remember, this was 1981. NO CGI!
It looked painful, with all the bones cracking and limbs distending, with the screams of agony punctuating the toll the transformation was taking on David’s body. It was mesmerizing to see the transformation, part by part, up to the incredible elongating of his face to form the monster’s snout.
Just look at this! THIS WAS DONE IN 1981!
The mastermind of that eye-popping (in 1981) sequence is legendary makeup artist Rick Baker. The man is a GOD in the makeup effects scene. Seriously, a look through his IMDB page will give movie buffs pause. He has had his hand in more classic movies than I have had my hand in cookie jars – literally OR figuratively!
And I believe his work in An American Werewolf in London is his absolute best.
The transformation effects were so incredible that the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category was added to the Academy Award in 1981 as a direct result. Rick Baker was, of course, its first winner, for his work in this movie.
The movie is more than just that scene. John Landis’s dark humor is present here; each time Jack appears to David, he is more decomposed. Whenever he kills someone, that person appears with Jack. During one scene in a movie theater, there is a crowd of decomposing victims, urging David to kill himself and suggesting ways to do it. Landis was awesome back then, and this movie shows him off wonderfully.
Fun fact: every song in the movie mentions the moon in them. That’s a classic Landis touch.
Am I ashamed for picking An American Werewolf in London as my Halloween special? Hell no! Though there were a couple of titles that I could have used and were way more obscure, credit needs to be given where it is deserved. This move, for me, instilled genuine fear in me when I first saw it, and I still recognize it today as a staple in the horror genre. To me, Halloween and horror go hand-in-hand. For those who feel it is a cop-out, I will not argue. I just hope my rationalization for using it will at least earn me a mulligan.
Back to business. Speaking of obscure John Landis movie gems …tune in next week!
