DIRECTOR'S CUP FILM ANALYSIS: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)

DIR John Landis
EXEC Peter Guber, Jon Peters
PROD George Folsey Jr.
SCR John Landis
DP Robert Paynter
CAST David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, Lila Kaye
ED Malcolm Campbell
MUSIC Elmer Bernstein

“A naked American man stole my balloon.”
“WHAAAAAT?”

Horror comedy. Tragic love story. Werewolf movie.

Because of this film, for me the song Blue Moon will forever be associated with the English moors, Bad Moon Rising with Mickey Mouse, Moondance with Jenny Agutter… Ahh, Jenny…

“I believe a werewolf can only be killed by someone who loves him.”

It’s a sexually charged film right from the beginning as the film opens on the two vacationing college students discussing the merits of “Debbie Klein” (a name that, in the early 80s, had connotations from Debbie Does Dallas to tight-fitting Calvin Klein jeans). The werewolf who attacks David in the beginning of the film reverts to a naked man upon his death, underscoring the unnatural violation perpetrated on this obviously hetersexual male (who would later don a woman’s coat when he finds himself in a similarly naked situation).

“Lot of weather we’re having.”

David is taken in by Nurse Price, a young and nubile Jenny Agutter, noted sex symbol of such films as Logan’s Run who flirts with David in the hospital and upon his release, takes him right home to her shower. She claims she’s not accustomed to these things, but one has to wonder, though David is clearly on the hunt here as he has been since their flirtation began. Indeed in the days leading up to his final ’capture’of Alex Price he’s been plauged by dreams of running naked through the forest, stalking and devouring wild deer.

“Beware the moon, lads.”

Men can turn into animals. Rape. Pedophilia. These are largely male-driven. Landis knew what he was doing, tapping into the roots of myths and legends—the fear of our darker natures. The werewolf can only be killed by someone he loves—this turns out to not be the case in a literal sense, but it heightens the humanity at David’s core. He doesn’t embrace his darker nature, but he also can’t stop it. He’s told he has to kill himself to sever the curse and set his victims free and spare future victims, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

David’s nightmares are shocking for their brutality and for their place in the narrative, portrayed as supposedly real events within the story. He sees his family being slaughtered by Nazi demons, his love interest being stabbed to death by same—the people he cares about struck down by his newly discovered nature, a similar nature explored by many college males like him.

“I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf!”

If I’m not mistaken this is the first film introduction to discuss special effects, but they’re certainly worth mentioning here. Actuallly the effects master who would earn an Oscar for the film almost didn’t work on it. Rick Baker was working on Joe Dante’s The Howling at the time, but Landis talked him into working on his project, leaving his capable understudy Rob Bottin in charge of that film (Bottin would go on to oversee the seminal effects on John Carpenter’s The Thing). Baker, like Landis, grew up with Universal’s classic The Wolfman, wherein the transformation effects consisted of static shots of the actor in different stages of makeup quietly transitioning from one to the other until the final stage was reached, often in shadow and obscured. The transformation in American Werewolf takes place in a well-lit room with practically nothing obscured, and the results are jaw-dropping to this day. They’ve never been equalled, frankly.

The makeup effects for David’s friend Jack, a jovial if not doomsaying corpse in various stages of decomposition for much of the film. The infamous ‘flapping piece of flesh’ on the neck prosthesis, which viewers have difficulty taking their eyes off of (if they can watch at all) was a happy accident only realized once the actor was in makeup.

“Remember the Alamo!”

What sets the film apart from nearly all other horror films is the characterizations, not only of the main parts but smaller parts as well. David is fully-realized and so is Jack, but it’s the little moments that stand out for me, like Jack casually pausing to smell the flowers in Alex’s apartment, or the camraderie, very believeably executed, amongst the patrons of The Slaughtered Lamb. You feel this is a real place with real people, huddled together that night away from the danger on the moors. This lends tangible credibility to the story and to David’s plight. Very few directors of these kinds of films have the deft touch to pull this off.

And it’s scary, too. The tension leading up to Jack’s brutal death is almost unbearable, as is the shock of the killings in the park, the eerie smoothness of the steadycam chase in the subway. The film pulls no punches—it prusues eack of its goals with the same tenacity and succeeds each time whether its the scare, the characters, the gore, the humor, the love, the tragedy.

Very nice introduction :)

It’s definitely one of the best from Landis, but the best is National Lampoon’s Animal House by far. With that said, this’ll have my vote, and I look forward to your future selections.

By the way, at the bottom of that last image, does it say “DOHN LANDIS”?

Good stuff. And if i’m not much mistaken in the top image that will be the Black Mountains/ Brecon Beacons (rather than the Yorkshire Moors) which i drove through yesterday in the glorious spring sunshine- a lot more inviting than in the film. I like the scene in the pub which milks the suspicion of the locals and the atmosphere. Yes, fine effects, and amusing. So the beast in men can only be calmed by a pretty nurse? Women, eh, what would we do without them? It’s my favourite Landis, but up against a strong opponent..

I love this film.

I just watched this film this weekend. It has a very unusual tone. But now I’m realizing this is true from a lot of films from this era. It was fun, but strange. The early 80s were a strange time for film.

Now for some various comments and nitpicking.

The entirety of the film up to the point of the transformation scene seemed mostly like it was just a build up to the transformation scene. Maybe it was because I knew ahead of time this was a centerpiece of the film. But every scene up to that point was basically just people talking about or insinuating how he was going to soon be turning into a werewolf. The film was more about what was going to happen then what was happening.

I also was pretty infatuated by Jenny Agutter in Logan’s Run, but she didn’t quite do it for me here. Maybe the lack of fantastic and futuristic wardrobe and atmosphere.

The college sex humor didn’t exactly do it for me. It’s not bad, but along the same lines as Animal House. Hearing about how two horndogs are going to bang some girl isn’t exactly the kind of witty conversation I find highly amusing.

It was kind of hard for me to believe these two guys found themselves out in this village where they did at the beginning of the film. How did they decide to get there? They didn’t even seem to know where they were going. The way they were talking they had the rest of their trip planned out pretty well, but then for some reason they just hitch a ride on a sheep truck and get off and walk off the path for a while until they see the lights of some unknown village. Sounds like they were looking for trouble.

And if the villagers were that afraid to tell people about the werewolves, why did they have that painting on the outside of the pub??

The the whole thing with the Jack and the other “undead” people didn’t make a lick of sense to me. If everything he said was true, why was he always so calm and jokey about it? How was it exactly that he was appearing to David? If he could appear any time he wanted and had nothing else to do but roam around waiting for the “blood line” to end, why wasn’t he pestering David every constant moment? And if all of the people who have ever been killed by the werewolf bloodline in the course of history were still wandering aroudn waiting for David to die too, why weren’t these hundreds or thousands of people all constantly appearing and pestering David? And the thing with him appearing as his body was deteriorating didn’t make any sense either. If he is in this other realm why does the body he appears in still look like the one he has departed from? And if the body is supposed to be decaying at a normal rate as seems to be indicated by the progression that we see Jack reappearing, how come he still looks like he has a totally fresh wound the first time we see him even though the doctors tell us that David has been in a coma for several weeks? Sorry if I sound nitpicky here, but the logic of this is kind of the main hinge of the entire conflict.

Also, I’m pretty shocked at how empty that tube station was where the guy got killed. Are there really huge tube stops that are ever that empty any time of day?

Also, the soundtrack just sounded like Landis was trying to find every pop song with the word “moon” in the title that charted. ;)

Ooooh, I just noticed in the cast list that Rik Mayall is in this film. How did I miss his crazy mug?

I know it sounds nitpicky, but those were just some things that I was wondering. I did have fun with the film and I liked the ending.

Also, the soundtrack just sounded like Landis was trying to find every pop song with the word “moon” in the title that charted. ;)

One of the best things about the film ;p

Riss:

IT’S A WEREWOLF MOVIE! ;)

And lots of horny college guys talk that way, of course—as I stated in the intro it underscores the theme of the film.

I think your logic with the undead is confused—the bloodline that carried the curse only includes those people killed by David, since he’s the last of the bloodline.

As to your other questions (why the tube was so empty, why Jack only appeared at certain times, why the awesome sign at The Slaughtered Lamb), the answer is both elegant and obvious:

Because it was in the script ;)

This film was a staple of my adolescence. It’s filled with memorable sequences: the first attack on the moors, the transformation, the subway chase… It’s funny, exaggerated, deliciously gory and marvelously executed. For me, at least, its a horror classic!

I know I know, it’s a werefolf movie. I just had to get some of those things out of my system. Just the way my mind works. :)

I appreciate it either way, brother. Beware the moon.

Vote Landis, today!

The part of the film that interested me the most was that the comdedic elements surrounding the film came from the parts of the film surrounding the myths of werewolves instead of the violent “actions” themselves.

Found this great pic of Rick Baker sitting amongst his AWiL creations.

The Rick Baker deluge continues! Here is a great interview with him from Fantastic Fest where he discusses the film.

Video streaming by Ustream

Transcript (from Badass Digest ):

This week lucky Fantastic Festers were able to watch a 35mm print of An American Werewolf in London and listen to Rick Baker chat and answer questions about his experiences on the film. BAD got a chance to sit down with the man himself.

BAD: Are you excited to have An American Werewolf in London screening here as part of Fantastic Fest?

Rick: Yeah, I’m excited to see the poster. It’s just nice to know that thirty years after we made it, we can still fill a theater.

BAD: I can assure you that there is no expiration date on the drawing power of American Werewolf. Now correct me if I’m wrong, did you get started in thisindustry doing episodes of Davey and Goliath?

Rick: I did. My very first job was at Cloaky Productions. I was involved with the last couple of Gumby’s that they made, and did a lot of stuff on Davey and Goliath. My hobby, trying to make monsters out of makeup, was an expensive hobby. If I was lucky I would get a quarter per week allowance, but I wouldn’t always get it because my parents didn’t have it. To buy a quart of rubber was like $8 or something, that was a lot of money for me. I had to mow a lot of lawns and save my money for a long time. Eventually it was clear I needed to get a job. I didn’t have a car, I used to walk to every supermarket and fast food place within walking distance trying to get a job. Nobody wanted me. I grew up thirty miles east of Los Angeles where there are no film people. For some strange reason, Cloaky Productions was there. My father, who was a truck driver, was supposed to deliver some plumbing supplies to a place that was right next door to Cloaky and accidentally went into the wrong place. So he told me about it, he knew I was interested in stop motion, and he said, “well, maybe you could try getting a job there.” So I went there with a box full of stuff and started working there the next day. That was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school.

BAD: Very cool, so it was kind of by accident?

Rick: Yeah, and propinquity. That place was a kind of a magnet for every nerd film guy who was a Harryhausen fan to show up at some point. At seventeen when I was working there, Doug Beswick who I did my first film with—Octaman—was already working there. And he knew this guy David Allen and David Allen knew this guy Dennis Muren. And then one day this guy stop-motion animator Bill Stromberg showed up who had a young protégé named Phil Tippett. So it was the whole group, I’ve known them since I was seventeen and we all had the same interests. We were kind of like the geek squad and we hoped to one day work on a movie. And we’ve basically changed the industry that we were in. Now we’ve all got Oscars and it’s unbelievable to me that this group of kids, who were basically fanboys, are now doing this.

BAD: Holy shit, that’s an incredible crew. Doug Beswick worked on Empire Strikes Back, Ghostbusters, Evil Dead II, and a ridiculous amount of other awesomeness and Phil Tippett’s resume reads like a list of the greatest movies ever made. I feel like I’m hearing the creation story right now. And you actually worked with Tippett on Star Wars of course. It’s interesting because there was a time when special effects makeup wasn’t a collaborative process and artists didn’t want to share their secrets; back in the era of people like Dick Smith, although he was kind of the one breaking out of that mold. Do you prefer working alone or do you revel in working with some of these other guys?

Rick: I like both. I like it to be my vision, and I think design-by-committee isn’t the best way to do it. That’s how you get watered-down mishmashes of things. It was unbelievable to me that we all got to work on that film. The cantina stuff I was involved with was kind of an afterthought. They had already filmed the cantina sequence, Stuart Freeborn already did a whole bunch of stuff for it, and George just wanted to embellish it. So he asked Dennis, “do you know anybody that can make some masks?” And he said, “yeah, I know a guy.” BAD: “I think I might have somebody in mind.” Rick: I mean it was for no money because as far as Fox was concerned it was finished. So we had to do it really cheaply and not as elaborately as we wanted to, but it was such a cool idea for a scene. George showed me what they had already and I thought it was so cool. It was great to be involved in Star Wars. BAD: I can only imagine. So getting back to American Werewolf. Given the extensive canon of werewolf films that existed even back when this film was made, what was your specific approach to make American Werewolf it’s own beast? Rick: Well that was more John than me. When I was doing Schlock, which was John’s first film, I was only twenty. John had by that time already written American Werewolf and he knew exactly what he wanted. He gave me the script then and we made the movie that he wrote. I think that’s one of the few films I’ve done in my life where the script that I’d already read is what we ended up making. The only major difference between John’s original script and what we ended up making is that scene in the porno theater. In the script it was a cartoon theater, because when John traveled through Europe, at that time went to this theater it was originally a cartoon theater and then it became a porno theater in the interim. BAD: That’s a pretty drastic change in business models Rick: He told me what he wanted the transformation to be. We both loved seeing Fredric March turn into Mr. Hyde and Lon Chaney Jr. turn into the wolf man. But it just doesn’t make sense for them to sit still and change a little bit, and then change and change, and then get up and move. He thought that transformation would be painful and he wanted to show the pain. And from day one, he insisted we not use horror lighting.

BAD: That scene is so stark, it’s right there in front of you.

Rick: The transformation was going to happen in the girl’s apartment, it was gonna be lit like an apartment. I was like, “can’t we take advantage of a little bit of shadow?”

BAD: So he made it a more challenging for you because it was basically going to be under spotlight and in full view. Rick: It was a lot more challenging, yeah. But we planned it out. We storyboarded the whole thing and we pretty much shot it as the storyboards. And it’s stuff that doesn’t seem to happen these days. The mentality is always “we’ll fix it in post because we don’t want to think about it now.” He asked me in the beginning, “what would it take for you to do this.” I said, “some time and money.” When I did Schlock, I did it entirely by myself. I had six weeks and $500 to figure out how I could do this. I told him that if we had more time and money that we could do better stuff. And he gave us that in American Werewolf.

BAD: But the effect was still sort of a trial-by-fire?

Rick: Well yeah, he knew that we were only going to be able to do a little bit of shooting per day with some of these stages. So what we did was to shoot the movie, have a wrap party, and then came back with a smaller crew and shot the transformation. We had someone for lights, a camera operator, and a grip or two so we could spend ten hours in makeup if we had to and not be rushed. It was a plan, you know, and they don’t do that anymore.

BAD: No, they don’t. I mean look at the most recent Wolfman. You actually created some practical effects for the film that were almost completely replaced with CG.

Rick: Yeah, we didn’t get to shoot any of it. We made stuff based on no information from anybody. Just me thinking of what would be cool. We were invited to the set the day they were shooting stuff and there was no makeup or anything there. It was all gonna be done in the new modern way.

BAD: And that’s the thing, there’s a contentious relationship between practical and CG. Do you think there can ever be a happy marriage of the two? Rick: Oh yeah, and I think there has been. I was involved with Digital Domain on Benjamin Button. That was a really interesting experience because when CG first started happening, suddenly I was a dinosaur in the eyes of a lot of people.

BAD: I’m sorry, but that’s absurd

Rick: And especially since these guys were doing some really shitty CG, like nowhere near as good as the stuff I could do. They were trying to learn stuff that I learned a long time ago. But it was a really different experience on Benjamin Button. They came to me because they knew that I could do this, that I could sculpt each head better than they could on the computer. They wanted to use my eye and my ability to make these heads that they scanned to make the models and they got the paint job from what we did. Then they asked us to come look at the stuff and critique it. So I’m finding more and more now that they are starting to recognize that the old farts have some knowledge and some skill and that they can benefit from that.

BAD: Well I know I will always prefer the practical. So the word is that you are returning to the Men in Black universe soon. What can we expect from MIB III? I’m assuming your return to the franchise is not just rumor.

Rick: Oh no, I’m working very hard on Men in Black III. Last I counted we had 105 aliens.

BAD: Badass. We’ll be on the lookout for that. Thank you, sir.

I have seen AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON so many times now, yet everything never gets old whenever I watch it. Comic dialogue, splendid special effects, good selection of oldies music, memorable scenes (funny or serious), interesting take on werewolves (plus the undead), David Naughton & Griffin Dunne as show-stealing duo: David & Jack, exterme gore, spooks-a-poppin’ (too bad the film never scares me), and oh-la-la nudity is what makes it the greatest horror film of all time.

We could be friends.

For sure, I agrre. :)