Classic Film Night - An American Werewolf in London

An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 horror movie. The film was produced by PolyGram Pictures and The Guber-Peters Company and distributed by Universal Pictures. An American Werewolf in London was written and directed by John Landis.

The story is two friends, David and Jack are having fun during their trip to Britain. However things go horribly wrong when David is bitten by a werewolf. Now David must find a way to get rid of this monstrous curse or forever live his life as a werewolf.

My Thoughts

I do want to get this one negative out of the way, I don't like the ending song they used when the movie was finally over. Sure all of the other songs they used were upbeat and such but I really felt like that at the end of the movie there should've been a more sad and somber song played at the end.

Now let's talk about the positives things about the film one of those being the humor. Yes this can be a very funny movie at times. Which makes sense since prior to this John Landis made The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, and The Blues Brothers. But despite that I felt as though the comedy didn't overplay the horror elements, which is why I tend to agree with Landis when he said it's a horror movie that happens to be funny (or something like that I was paraphrasing).

Speaking of the horror elements, they were very good. The transformation scene all by it's self is disturbing and the werewolf has an intimidating design. Especially with those eyes, those things just scream "I will eat your soul".

The next thing I'll give the movie credit for is the performances. The cast does a great in this movie but I really liked David Naughton's acting the best. He's great because he balanced both the normal side of the character of David and the more horrified side of the character. And he made that transformation scene seem like it was the worst pain any human could go through.

There's also something else that I loved from the movie and that's while John Landis does follow the same werewolf tropes he did do somethings that put a different spin on it. I want spoil anything but one of those is that a werewolf's victim or victims can speak to the person who is cursed. That's a pretty interesting kind of lore to an old legend.

Now for the thing everybody praises about the movie and those are the special effects. And boy do they deserve all the praise. I mean anything you've heard about the effects are true, and the critics are definitely right when they say they still hold up today.

Guys I can't stress this enough but An American Werewolf in London truly is a great horror film. It has good humor, even better scares, the performances get a thumbs up (especially Naughton), there was a different take on the myth of the werewolf, and the special effects are something truly amazing. Sure I criticized the ending song but that was more of me just nitpicking which is way I'm not going to drop the rating for this flick.

My final rating is A Must Watch

Okay, I'm all done here. Due come back on Thursday, Oct 22nd for my review of Black Sheep. The horror movie not the comedy film starring Chris Farley and David Spade. Until then enjoy the rest of your day.