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As I write this review of An American Werewolf In London, it simultaneously occurs to me that this John Landis masterpiece, along with a great, large shitload of other titles featured in this Pit Of Horror Archive section, happened to come out in the watershed year of 1981. If ever a single year in the 1980's produced a thoroughly commendable body of horror film classics, then 81's the one.
The tongue-in-cheek humor of Landis' script is also what helped get it rejected by several potential backers. At the time, if you wanted to make a werewolf movie, you played it straight and scary, not off-set with wise-cracking undead victims warning their infected friend of his inevitable transformation the next full moon. But what they failed to realize is that the dark humor is, in fact, what set An American Werewolf In London apart from previous turgid efforts and made it a rousing box-office and critical success.
Two vacationing American college students (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) happen into a pub on the British countryside and are warned by the superstitious folk there to "stay off the Moors." Naturally, once they leave the pub, they aimlessly stray from the main road and find themselves on....well, you know. So the local werewolf attacks them, kills Dunne and is about to do the same to Naughton until the beast is shot dead by locals.
Once Naughton awakens in a London hospital sometime later, he is understandably disoriented by his injuries and distraught at the news of his friend's death. A nurse (Jenny Agutter) takes a shine to him and invites him to shack up with her (sorry, there's just no delicate way to put that) once he leaves the hospital. Then the impending werewolf symptoms start up. No appetite for food. A voracious libido. And now visions of his dead friend coming to warn him that if he doesn't take his own life, he will assume the curse and turn into a werewolf himself on the next full moon, which is coming up shortly.
Our hero doesn't heed the warning, and by the light of the full moon (along with Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising thundering away on the soundtrack) he transforms into a carnivorous beast. This Rick Baker-created werewolf makes short work of a half-dozen or so Londoners. Of course when he wakes up naked in the wolf-pen at the London Zoo, he doesn't remember much of anything, he's just anxious to get home and figure out exactly what's going on. Now he has to come to terms with his dead friend's repeated visits and decides to get himself incarcerated so as to avoid any further lycanthropic episodes. There is a hilarious scene in Picadilly Square whereby he tries to get himself arrested by loudly proclaiming, "Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit!" It doesn't work, though, as his lady-friend nurse mistakes his behavior as grief for his dead friend, and she pursuades the incensed bobby to let her take him home. The trouble now is, another full moon will hang in the sky tonight. And despite his best efforts while hiding out in a porno cinema, the title character cannot overcome the tranformation which sends him into a murderous rampage in Picadilly Square. The story does reach a conclusion, and despite the appearance of a semi-sequel in 1997 (An American Werewolf In Paris), this film stands alone as a milestone in both make-up effects and the just-right balance between horror and comedy which so many other films terribly lack.
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