An American Werewolf in London (1981) User Reviews

Hilarious and Horrifying

[framptonhollis · 8/10 · 20 October 2016]

While it isn't high art, "An American Werewolf in London" is easily among the most entertaining films that I have ever seen. It mixes humor and horror in a way that, while tonally inconsistent, it provides so many scares and laughs that I didn't care what its flaws were.

The film's sense of humor is definitely because the film's director and writer, John Landis, has directed so many great comedies. If you gave the same premise to a much more serious filmmaker, they probably would have made a straight horror film, subtracting all of the brilliant laughs that Landis gives us. Of course, part of what makes "An American Werewolf in London" so special and so entertaining is how hilarious it is. It's almost unbelievable that a movie with so many horrific and gory moments can also be laugh out loud funny throughout.

Another important part of "An American Werewolf in London" is the use of the acclaimed, award winning special effects, that earned Rick Baker a well deserved Oscar win. The werewolf transformation scene definitely lives up to the high expectations anyone viewing the film for the first time may have. It's legitimately disturbing, and amazingly well done!

Terrifying & Funny.

[SamJamie · 8/10 · 18 August 2020]

An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 horror comedy film written and directed by John Landis. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, the film stars David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, and Griffin Dunne. The film's plot follows two American backpackers, David and Jack, who are attacked by a creature while traveling in England, causing David to question whether he will become a werewolf under the next full moon.

After watching an American Werewolf in London for the first time I found the film to be a clever mixture of comedy and horror which succeeds in being both funny and scary, The film possesses an overriding eagerness to please that prevents it from becoming off-putting. It delivers a good share of scares and dark laughs. Some of the special effects are a little creaky now, but the snap of Landis's editing and the razor's-edge balance of horror and comedy are still fresh. The metamorphoses into the werewolf scenes are spectacular and the beast's rampage through Piccadilly Circus is marvellous. Splendid gory fun. It feels increasingly like a symbol of traveller abroad alienation-what trying to live in a place that isn't home can feel like: confusing, rageful, even physically debilitating.

Truly a werewolf classic...

[paul_haakonsen · 8/10 · 20 January 2022]

Interestingly enough then the 1981 horror movie "An American Werewolf in London" still is one of the most iconic werewolf movies out there and has been so for 41 years. That is some impressive feat, I have to admit that.

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch writer and director John Landis' 1981 movie again here in 2022, and of course I needed no persuasion to do so, because "An American Werewolf in London" truly is a horror classic. And I find that the movie is every bit as entertaining and enjoyable as it was back in the day when watching it as a kid.

The storyline is pretty straight forward, and it is actually rather enjoyable, despite being somewhat generic. But take into consideration that this movie was made in 1981, so it was somewhat pushing boundaries back in the day.

The visual effects were great back in the day. And I will actually go as far as saying that they still hold up now 41 years later. Sure, there are signs of aging, but having just seen the movie again, I still find the special effects in the movie rather enjoyable and good. Especially the transformation scenes, they are just spectacular and very, very impressive for a movie 41 years old.

The cast in the movie is good, and I've always liked David Naughton in this movie. But the movie also have familiar faces on the cast list such as Jenny Agutter, Frank Oz and even a short appearance by Rik Mayall.

If you enjoy werewolf movies, then you should be well-familiar with "An American Werewolf in London" already, and if you are not familiar with this 1981 classic, then you should make haste and acquire a copy and sit down to watch John Landis' masterpiece.

My rating of "An American Werewolf in London" lands on a well-deserved eight out of ten stars. This is a classic werewolf movie, and it is one that can be watched over and over.

Amazing Film

[connorjw · 9/10 · 1 October 2018]

An American Werewolf in London (1981) is a flat out great movie. There are good characters, good humor, a hilarious ending, and some scenes scared the hell out of me. The film's pretty inappropriate, with some nudity and awesome gore. This film is one of if not the best werewolf movie you can watch. Some of this makes you feel like you're in the protagonist/antagonist's mind, and the movie had some good suspense too! Overall, the film is definitely watchable, scary, humorous, and one of my favorite films.

both entertaining as a technical marvel, as comedy, and even as horror

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 25 September 2006]

John Landis has one of his most memorable films, as it challenges him as a director of comedy and horror, and he's rarely done better in the latter. While many of his best films are among the comedies that he directed for SNL alumni Belushi and Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, An American Werewolf in London stands apart from those by casting David Naughton, Jenny Aguter, and Griffin Dunne in the parts- all practically unknowns then- and giving them some of the best kinds of genre roles imaginable. The two friends played by Naughton and Dunne are out on vacation, sort of, and they stumble upon a town loaded with superstition about wolves and other things. When Dunne gets killed and something, uh, peculiar happens to Naughton, it changes both of them- principally because Naughton keeps seeing Dunne, deteriorating throughout the rest of the film, even as he both turns into the werewolf ("Beware the moon, David, beware the moon") and falls for a kind nurse played by Aguter. All three roles are realized well, though it might be prudent to put a lot of good will on the male leads, as they both go under Rick Baker's still show-stopping make-up jobs.

This is the kind of production that could go in a few different directions, and for someone like Landis's skills it could've gone in those directions, either one, considering his background. It could have been a send-up much like his Kentucky Fried Movie. It could have been just dumb, pure camp like one of his lesser comedies of the 90s. But here he's really sticking to his guns to make it really believably scary, but also with a sly, coarse, and crude sense of humor about it. It's almost in tune to what would come a few years later with Ghostbusters, only without the mega-wit and overall mainstream appeal. It's a cult item that probably isn't seen by many as Landis's other films, yet I still remember things very well from the film years later, indelible things like the use of songs (obvious, sure, by 'moon' being all over the place, but everything from Van Morrison to CCR to the main Blue Moon theme used during the crossover are really dead-perfect for what's needed). Aside from the obvious make-up scenes, I remember being both freaked and delighted by the undead exchanges with David, especially when it finally reaches its purest absurdity in the movie theater scene.

And even the ending, unlike other Landis films, is with a tinge of tragedy and sadness. This is not the ending a typical comedy director would bring, as by now we've really gotten on the side of David, the scorned protagonist turned bloody villain by way of a curse. Some of the scenes that end up cutting back to the old rural village, as I also remember it, were not my favorite scenes as they brought more of the superstitious stuff that is not necessarily needed. It's the bits with Naughton, with Dunne, and even with the lady of the film that make it worthwhile. It's fun but not too goofy or bad B-movie-like, and it's scary without being cheap. It's basically the finest synthesis yet from the filmmaker to combine his gory theatrics with his firm, cool sense of humor. It's also one of my favorite films of 1981.

Great film, full of humor and thrills.

[Deviant-7 · 3 February 1999]

One of the best werewolf movies ever made, full of dark humor and gory thrills. As most people know, this has one of the best human/werewolf transformation scenes in cinematic history! The only other movie to show such detail is The Howling. This movie is really fun to watch, and if you are seeing it for the first time you will be shocked at some of the things you see. Great performances from the cast, and an excellent script make this a memorable experience. Unlike monster/horror movies today, this film has no computer-aided special effects. It doesn't need them, for this is a landmark film.

One of the best transformation scene with top notch effects. The Bollywood unofficial remake messed up both the transformation n effects.

[Fella_shibby · 7/10 · 5 May 2021]

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs n found it scary and then again in the early 2k on a dvd which I own.

But aft revisiting it recently, i found that most of the kills are offscreen n it takes hell lottuva time for the creature mayhem.

Generous with a 7 cos it was scary then and this movie has the best transformation scene n the make up effects r top notch.

I liked the scenic village and the isolated moors. Its on my travel list.

The decapitation scene is well shot n the traffic accidents n mayhem on Piccadilly Circus junction is more brutal than some of the kills.

The Zapata moustache guy in the porn movie n the way he walks out from the room is funny.

I found the lead actress Jenny Agutter attractive but her sex scene is lousy.

Can someone tell me where does David's or for that matter the werewolf's *enis disappeared during the transformation scene.

There is a Bollywood unofficial remake which i saw in the 90s in a theatre n had a blast cos the effects are cringy n the movie is badly done. They have changed it from a werewolf into a weretiger one n added some religious mumbo jumbo stuff.

Still Funny & Frightening After All These Years

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 9 November 2005]

Here's a film that never fails to entertain, year after year. It's almost a quarter of a century old but hasn't become dated and the special effects, which were astounding in its day, are still good. Director John Landis is so good at making entertaining movies. This is one of his best.

The appeal to this film is the combination of horror, suspense, action and humor. The latter actually is the key ingredient because this can become a downright scary movie. The levity here and there is welcome relief. There is just the right amount of contrast between horror and comedy.

For parents wanting to know, there also is a fair amount of rough language and there two sex scenes, one as part of the story and one "on screen" in a porn- movie theater where the two male leads meet late in the story.

Jenny Agutter is the love interest in here, a very pretty woman whom Americans audiences aren't that familiar with. It isn't just her: neither of the two leading (American) male actors in this popular movie ever became stars, either.

An entertaining but silly sequel came out almost two decades later, "An American Werewolf in Paris." I own both movies but much prefer this one.

A crackpot horror/comedy (not really in that order)

[reko-latvanen · 6/10 · 3 March 2020]

Two Americans travelling in The UK are attacked by a werewolf. One dies and the other survives, only to turn into a creature of the night himself. This 1981 John Landis cult classic starts off on a relatively moody and loose note, but the mood quickly evaporates when the setting changes from the moors to contemporary London and the focus shifts from honoring horror traditions to an unconvincing love story. The loose quality of the film is here to stay, though, and your enjoyment of the experience depends largely on whether you can accept characters acting wacky for the hell of it. For me, the fact that the second act is mostly just this instead of actually advancing the story kinda tanks the whole film.

The film does have its pleasures. The iconic special effects and makeup work are fantastic, working for both gruesome and amusing affect. All the actors seem to be on the right frequency when it comes to balancing conflicting styles and tones. Griffin Dunne really elevates his few scenes with deadpan delivery, even as his undead character's appearance keep getting closer to a meatloaf.

While by no means terrible, I was underwhelmed by this supposed gem. It's more of a time waster than anything, though fairly decent as such.

My favourite werewolf movie

[Stevieboy666 · 10/10 · 24 September 2018]

Lost count of the number of times that I have watched this classic. There are just so many things that I love about it, beginning with the opening scenes that were shot in the Black Mountains, not far from my home & a place that I know well. Then to the Slaughtered Lamb, joining the likes of Brian Glover & a very young Rik Mayall. And finally on to London. It is a fantastic combination of horror, comedy and even romance, brilliantly paced and of course showcasing Rick Baker's amazing special effects. And last but certainly not least it stars the very beautiful Jenny Agutter. Not only is this my favourite werewolf movie but it is almost certainly one of my top 10 horror movies of all time. Essential viewing.

Pros and cons

[benjyboom · 6/10 · 22 October 2019]

Pros: Pretty consistent in tone, maintains chaos and forward momentum throughout Can be funny Scenes with the undead friend were a lot of fun, some of the best character writing in the movie was between David and undead Jack Quality makeup

Cons: Very poor action scenes when werewolf is just murdering others Some jokes are just unfunny Ending falls very flat

Best part: werewolf causing 6 six different car accidents, collateral damage, very uncontrollable and chaotic Worst part: ending, such a boring, conventional, nothing was learned or challenged ending

My favorite best werewolf film of all time a true horror icon classic!

[ivo-cobra8 · 10/10 · 15 October 2016]

An American Werewolf in London (1981) is a cult classic horror werewolf slasher flick. It is my third favorite werewolf film of all time!

An American Werewolf in London is not only the best werewolf movie ever made it is also one of the best genre films of all time. I grew up watching this film and it is a childhood favorite of mine. I first saw this movie when I was 13 years young of age, it is a childhood movie for me and it is the first werewolf film I ever saw. I love this film to death and I think it is a great horror film of all time! It is one of my personal favorite horror werewolf movies of all time.

It is very scary, especially the ending you can see a human's head falling down the street. I don't know much about the cast I don't know almost anyone except actress Jenny Agutter I know her from Logan's Run (1976) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). This film is directed by John Landis who directed a lot of comedy films. The movie was entirely shot in London, Surrey, and Wales, which you can see a beautiful country side in the UK. This film: The Howling (1981) and Dog Soldiers (2002) are my top 3 favorite werewolf films this will be my number 2 favorite film.

Plot: Two American college students are on a walking tour of Britain and are attacked by a werewolf. One is killed, the other is mauled. The werewolf is killed but reverts to its human form, and the local townspeople are unwilling to acknowledge its existence. The surviving student begins to have nightmares of hunting on four feet at first but then finds that his friend and other recent victims appear to him, demanding that he commit suicide to release them from their curse, being trapped between worlds because of their unnatural deaths.

This is a classic horror film about two young American men, David Kessler (played by Naughton) and Jack Goodman (played by Dunne), attacked by a werewolf on a backpacking holiday in England. With Jack killed, David is taken to a London hospital, where his disturbing apparitions of his deceased friend informs him that he is a werewolf and will transform at the next full moon. What I love about this film is: I love the story, the special effects and the humor in here. In the opening scene you have a really beautiful view on an England country side when you see David Kessler and Jack Goodman walking down the road. This movie is really beautiful shot I love that two young men best friends are traveling together and seeing England in a country side. I love the werewolf story and everything in it.

I love the characters in this movie, the story is a full long horror film with awesome black comedy in it, practical effects by Rick Baker that still rival some god awful cartoon ps1 CGI now a days!!! I have seen this film more then any other movie and it still feels fresh. And while filmed in the early eighties, it feels timeless. The blend of horror and humor are perfect. The horror comes at you brutal and/or fast and the humor is never forced but comes naturally out of the absurdity of the events (waking up naked in the zoo, having your dead friend tell you that you are a werewolf.) Oh man, this is such a fun movie. It's a great werewolf story with enough gore for the splatter junkies, and enough story to make it better than just some run-of-the-mill horror flick. This was created in a time when horror was HORROR, as opposed to these kiddie flicks with predictable jump scares we get today.

The special effects, done by the great Rick Baker, are absolutely astounding, even more believable than a lot of what we get today. The first transformation scene is one of the best to ever be featured in a werewolf film, especially with the convincing screams of pain from David Naughton. The actual look of the werewolf is also just as great, giving one of the most menacing and evil appearance I've ever seen on a wolf. The howl sounds like a mixture between a man's scream and an actual beast giving a call, a sound that sends a chill down your spine every time you hear it. These sort of details remind you that even though there's comedy in it, Landis did put great focus on the horror aspect of the film.

An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 British-American horror comedy film written and directed by John Landis, and starring David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, and Griffin Dunne.

Overall: An American Werewolf in London is a timeless excellent cult classic movie my favorite number 2 werewolf film of all time! Score: 10/10 I love this film, the acting is really solid the characters in this film a well written. The special effects in this movie are well made. This movie on it self's stays a true classic in a horror genre and it is way better movie, than these days horror movies that are in PG-13 ratings awful!

Blue Moon

[electronmove · 7/10 · 21 March 2022]

The most memorable scene has to be the abrupt cut to the credits and then blasting the "Blue Moon" song by the Marcels. While the effects are brilliant and steal most of the show, there is not much in the way of actual werewolf cinematography, as you get split-second glimpses of it from afar or extremely close up, and only towards the end. When you look at the film as a whole, it is amusing yes, but the word-of-mouth surrounding the film seems to be more enigmatic than the experience of watching it. The comedy is dark and sprinkled throughout, but not strong enough to garner a real laugh, and the horror is well executed, but not atmospheric or moody enough to give you a feeling of uneasiness, the closest it gets being the beginning in the moors.

More noteworthy than entertaining

[MBunge · 5/10 · 27 April 2013]

Time is a cruel judge and there are few better examples of that than An American Werewolf in London. This is a well made and very clever film which, in its day, was more remarkable and historically significant. The passing of the years, the coarsening and acceleration of our culture and the movie's own impact on popular imagination have unfortunately robbed it of most of its appeal. Now, the most noticeable things about it are its weaknesses and not its strengths. As cliché as it sounds, sometimes you really did have to be there to appreciate what all the fuss was about. That's the case here, so I'd first and foremost encourage anyone who watches this flick to keep that in mind.

David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) are a couple of puffy coat-wearing Yanks who are backpacking their way across England when, on a night when the moon in full, they're attacked by a savage beast on the moors. Jack is slaughtered, the beast slain by villages and the badly wounded David only sees the animal transformed back into a man before he wakes up weeks later in a London hospital. There he flirts with a beautiful nurse (Jenny Agutter) and chats with Jack's undead spirit. The beast, you see, was a werewolf and Jack is condemned to spend eternity in limbo until the monster's bloodline is ended. David survived being bitten, which means he's going to become a werewolf. So, the only way for his friend to rest in peace is for David to kill himself. And he's better hurry up about it because the next full moon is only a few days away.

There's a lot to admire in An American Werewolf in London but I'm going to start with its flaws, since those are what most modern viewers will primarily see in it. The plot is painfully sparse and nothing more than the bare bones of the werewolf story everyone learns growing up, with no attempt to expand, extend or amplify the tale. Writer/director John Landis uses some startling dream sequences to fill time, but there's no disguising that little happens for the first hour of this year. The special effects, while cutting edge for their day, have been far surpassed. Anyone who's grown up with horror-comedy as a fully formed sub-genre will also detected the abrupt and severed nature of how the two are blended here. The ironic, self-referential distancing that has come to traditionally lubricate the mixture is almost entirely absent. Even when the occur virtually side-by-side, the laughs and screams the film means to provoke are separate impulses. The movie has funny bits and scary bits and there's not a lot of connection between the two.

Those are the things that will cause a lot of viewers to react negatively to An American Werewolf in London and that's a shame. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments here. Landis demonstrates his skill by succeeding where so many lesser filmmakers fail by making his characters talk and act like believable human being who are just living their lives, rather than designated victims waiting to be killed. The horror genre has also developed a look, sound and feel where if you see any random 15 seconds of film, you instantly know it came from a horror flick. That's not the case here. This looks, sounds and feels like a regular movie that just happens to deal with supernaturally violent subject matter in comedic fashion.

And while it may not have been the first to do so, An American Werewolf in London might have been the most important factor in changing lycanthropy in Hollywood. The image of the werewolf in entertainment used to be someone in regular human clothing who was really hair and had an animalistic face. Landis rejects that concept in favor of a four-legged creature with a snout and mostly non-human aspects. In the wake of this film, werewolves stopped being guys in costumes and became puppets or CGI creations and that visual interpretation helped establish the parameters for everything else about the notion. The pop culture evolution of the werewolf could have gone in a completely different direction. Instead, John Landis became the midwife, if not the father, of all the howling beasties we see in the Underworld and Twilight franchises and most every other werewolf story told since this one.

I liked An American Werewolf in London, but more as a museum piece than as entertainment. It has its charms. It's also going to seem dated to those to young to remember what werewolf movies were like before it. As long as you understand that going in, you'll probably enjoy it.

Ooooo. Scary.

[Andy-496 · 9/10 · 26 October 1998]

The old adage of the simplest ideas being the best is once again demonstrated in this, one of the most entertaining films of the early 80's, and almost certainly Jon Landis' best work to date. The script is light and witty, the visuals are great and the atmosphere is top class. Plus there are some great freeze-frame moments to enjoy again and again. Not forgetting, of course, the great transformation scene which still impresses to this day.

In Summary: Top banana

One of my favorite films

[BrandtSponseller · 10/10 · 29 January 2005]

While backpacking through Europe, two friends, David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), find themselves out on England's moors, despite advice to avoid them. When a wild animal attacks them, one of them dies, and the other just might be turning into a monster.

Director John Landis' "pet project"--he had to sit on the script for 10 years before he had enough clout from other films for this one to be greenlighted--is an excellent, seamless melding of comedy and horror, with a surprising amount of brutality and one of the most wonderfully dark, abrupt conclusions ever made.

John Irving once said that he loves to put comedy and tragedy in close conjunction because each can make the other more effective. That's just the effect that the combination has in An American Werewolf In London. Both the comedy and the horror in the film are fully committed to, unlike many attempts to merge the two. If "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" is ever true, this is an example. The comic bits wouldn't be nearly as delightful if they didn't supervene on the disturbing, and the horror wouldn't have near the impact if they didn't arrive in the context where you half-expect the next moment to be just as lighthearted and amusing. Both the initial "animal attack" and the apocalyptic ending are perfect examples of this.

Aside from that exquisite unusualness, An American Werewolf In London has many other superb characteristics. The cast is perfect. Naughton, who also starred in the seriously underrated Desire, The Vampire (aka I, Desire) (1982), carries the film with ease. The cinematography is excellent. The shots of the countryside (actually filmed in Wales) are actually both beautiful and very eerie at the same time. The make-up effects are awesome, and the transformation effects are unsurpassed. The music, which is primarily a number of different "moon" related pop songs, is also perfect, partially because of the bizarre contrasts in mood that the music creates, which echoes the comedy/tragedy juxtaposition. Unlike many other films, every scene in this one is a something I'd like to spend years exploring. The settings, the characters, the scenarios are all so fascinating.

This film is a 10 out of 10 even with one hand tied behind its back. If you enjoy it, and you're open minded about newer horror film styles, the "sequel", An American Werewolf in Paris, is also worth a watch.

a lovely stroll on the moors

[Thomas Dunson · 17 November 2009]

THE GOOD

terrifying and laugh-out-loud moments alternate and occasionally even coexist (not the most easiest things to blend, as illustrated by the fact that there are very few successful results out there; this is one of them)

never over-the-top funny and thus manages to keep up the masterfully established eerie atmosphere

terrific soundtrack, full of beautiful and cleverly employed songs (among them various interpretations of «Blue Moon» as well as CCR's «Bad Moon Rising»)

references classic Universal monster horror films – whereas nowadays any kind of nods are confined to what was in theaters the previous year – I'm looking at you, «Scary Movie» (not that there's a particular reason for me to pounce specifically on that stinker, it's just used in a synechdochic way, if you will, to represent all that other revue-style garbage that there truly is no shortage of, where parody – which is arguably the kind of humor those flicks aim for – degenerates into an incoherent series of poorly written and executed sketches that cater to an illiterate teen or teen-minded audience)

Mark Twain is referenced – hooray for the days when culture was cool and one wasn't frowned upon for being able to speak at least one language reasonably well!

all the references feel natural, make sense within the story and often help to further it

the short but effective nightmare (and nightmare within a nightmare) sequences

the metamorphosis: classic and painful to watch

the hilarious dialogue where the undead suggest ways to David of how to best kill himself (and the way it's staged – in a porno theater, all the undead covered in blood – doesn't hurt, either...)

the "ghost zombies" (or "zombie ghosts"?) concept: walking the earth, yet invisible to the non-cursed, immaterial, yet with gruesome wounds and decomposing (becomes a running gag with Jack) – original and unique

loving attention to detail throughout and filled with nice little touches: keep an eye out for the disclaimer at the end of the closing credits

THE BAD

not enough of the moors and «The Slaughtered Lamb»: those were easily the best, for most atmospheric and creepy sequences in the whole movie; I want more! Do you hear me, Mr. Landis: more! Why not give us a whole film set in that village / hamlet / whatever and its surroundings? (a prequel, sequel, whatever)

while not downright bad, the ending certainly is controversial: some consider it radical, fresh and consequential, others find it cheap, unimaginative and random, and I tend to at least lean towards the latter group (what the former describe, in my opinion more applies to, for example, the ending – or the turn of events near it – of «To Live and Die in L.A.» – it's just much more convincing and fitting there, since that film is more "existentialist" in subject and tone in the first place)

in fact, the whole film has an uneven feel to it, like they rushed into production with an unfinished script (yeah, sure, many times that's a deliberate creative choice, but whatever the reasons, it's just not fully working here); it's still much better than the bulk of its genre relatives, but its ever so slight imperfections go beyond almost expected things like continuity errors or revealing mistakes and are instead structurally; one example: Doc Hirsch is a great character, fabulously played, but despite considerable screen time he goes nowhere, and a similar fate befalls the cop duo; what is there is good to great in itself, it's just that not all the parts integrate themselves into a larger whole, so that the result is not an integral whole but an accumulation of all kinds of different pieces – kind of like a patchwork rug instead of a unified whole

THE UGLY

rated "R" for a reason; and while it certainly can't compete with the gruesomeness, disgustingness and sadism indulged in by the legion of representatives of the so-called (for misnamed) "torture porn" sub-genre that's all the rave currently (and why should it?), it's still not for the squeamish

OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF MAN

"These dumb-ass kids. They never appreciate anything you do for them."

HOW THIS MOVIE WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE – OR NOT

does it for lonely night strolls on the moors (or in some metro tunnels, for that matter) what «Jaws» did for swimming in the ocean? – nah, but I'd still like to see your face in the unlikely event of hearing a howling in such a situation...

THINGS NOT TO BRING UP DURING A CONVERSATION

"Excuse me. What's that star on the wall for?"

QUESTIONS THIS MOVIE EVOKES

how came the first werewolf to be anyway? (bestiality?)

what would you do if you were in David's shoes?

could David be held accountable for the murders?

how will Jack look in the afterlife?

who slaughtered the lamb?

WHAT I LEARNED FROM WATCHING THIS MOVIE

"Have you ever talked to a corpse? It's boring!"

undead people have feelings (and eat!), too

"Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a f*ggot! Winston Churchill was full of sh*t! Shakespeare is French!"

British cops are exceptionally forbearing

now, not even the porno theater is safe anymore

sometimes, love is not strong enough

WATCH...

if you like your movies with guts in more than one way

AVOID...

if you consider yourself easily offended

IF YOU LIKED THIS ONE, DON'T WATCH...

«An American Werewolf in Paris»: lame, lame, lame

THE BOTTOM LINE

Worthy of not only watching but owning. So, go out and get it! Now! But remember:

"Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors." "Beware the moon, lads."

(Agree? Disagree? In parts or whole? Have something to correct or add? Let me know!)

Still comical and fun

[pc95 · 7/10 · 11 October 2014]

I've enjoyed John Landis's "An American Werewolf in London" on multiple watches over the years, but never reviewed it. So I watched it through for maybe the 8th or so time again recently and am impressed with its 3 equal parts horror, comedy, and romance. The director manages to fit a bunch into its tight runtime. Landis has made some snappy dialog tying in British and American culture with werewolf lore as well as sexuality. David Naughton plays naive well, while Griffin Dunne is in for some added sarcasm. Jenny Agutter meanwhile heats up the screen in a wholly clichéd "nurse" role, but her appeal is magnetic in the movie. For not having computers much to rely on the filmmakers do an solid job considering with creature effects. At 97 min the movie seems a little cut-off, yet plausible and acceptable. 7/10 for this early 80s rock. Recommended

The best werewolf movie ever made.

[Teknofobe70 · 9/10 · 6 April 2005]

It's always tricky trying to write a review of a great movie that you've loved for years. Attempting to finally put down in words exactly what makes it so great seems almost impossible ... but I'll give it a shot anyway. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you, An American Werewolf in London -- Two American's arrive by truck in the Yorkshire moors, as part of a three-month tour of Europe. As they walk along the country roads, they engage in realistic back-and-forth banter and we learn that Jack is unhappy with the situation and would much rather be in some continental city, whereas his friend David is glad to explore the English countryside. As the sun goes down, they take refuge inside a pub called "the Slaughtered Lamb", to escape the cold. The locals are unfriendly, especially when they ask about a pentagram painted on the wall ... the two of them eventually take the hint, and leave to continue walking through the moors.

Wandering off the road into the dark grassy land, they begin to hear strange and frightening howling noises, and see something big stalking them in the shadows ... suddenly Jack is attacked, and David flees the scene before turning back to help his friend, but he too is set upon by some kind of wolf-beast until the locals show up armed with shotguns. He wakes up in a hospital, and learns that his friend Jack is dead. While there, he falls in love with a beautiful young nurse. As he recovers from his trauma, he has peculiar dreams about monsters, misty woods, and killing. Then he starts having gruesome visions of his dead friend, who warns him that he is becoming a werewolf ...

There are so many memorable sequences in this movie it's unbelievable. My favourite has always been the initial werewolf attack on the moors -- I first saw the movie when I was very young and that was the one that scared me most of all. I also remembered the dream sequences particularly well, and that poor man who is stalked by the werewolf in the London underground. It's an incredibly surreal movie, especially during the excellent hospital sequences, because, well, becoming a werewolf would be a pretty surreal thing to go through! All of this is helped by the high quality of directing from John Landis, and Rick Baker's infamously brilliant make-up inventions.

The soundtrack is also excellent -- Landis' idea was that he would only use songs with the word 'moon' in the title. Since then the songs "Bad Moon Rising" and "Blue Moon" are automatically linked with this movie by anyone who's seen it. The cast is also very notable, and both David Naughton and Griffin Dunne give funny, competent performances as the two Americans, while the all-star British cast is headed by the brilliant Brian Glover, Jenny Agutter and John Woodvine.

Some of the comedy may be a little cheesy, but most of it is still worth a few laughs. You should bear in mind that this was the first real horror comedy ever made, and these days they're a dime-a-dozen. If it hadn't been for American Werewolf, the genre would certainly not have been the same. This is an indisputable classic of the horror genre, and an incredible important movie. Two decades on, it's easily still deserving of it's title as the greatest Werewolf movie of all time.

Howl at the Moon

[piratecannon · 7/10 · 26 December 2012]

I love monster movies. I guess there's just something about the visceral thrills associated with waiting for some sort of uber-gross supernatural being to spring out of the shadows and make a bloody mess of things. When the monster/horror genre is mixed with comedy, the result—as we've seen in recent years—is often gold. Whether it's Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, or any variety of B-movie schlock, a good time is (generally) had by all.

And that's the case with John Landis' 1981 film An American Werewolf in London. It's silly and punctuated by instances of extremely dark humor, and it rarely makes any attempt to work true "emotion" into the narrative. This, of course, is a good thing.

After a somewhat slow opening, we witness two friends—who are backpacking across Europe—stumble upon a shady pub called "The Slaughtered Lamb." When they walk through the door, the effect is pretty much the cliché turntable-coming-to-a-screeching-halt scenario that you've seen a million times before. A room full of hard-nosed Brits eyes them suspiciously, and the boys' seemingly innocent inquiries about a pentagram that's painted on a wall doesn't help add levity to the situation.

After some awkward moments, the pair is once again traversing the English countryside. It's then that a monstrous wolf-creature attacks them out of nowhere, killing one and injuring the other.

The survivor is taken to a hospital in London, where he soon realizes that, when the moon is full, he'll transform into an unstoppable killing machine complete with fangs, claws, and brambles of tangled hair.

Said protagonist falls for his nurse, and they embark on a brief love affair that involves little more than intimate encounters in a shower and playful banter regarding the possibility of humans becoming creatures of the night.

As you'd expect, the humor is what elevates Werewolf above any offerings of similar quality. Landis strategically places appropriate moments of dry actions/line-delivery throughout the movie, and the contrast between the horrible gore inflicted by the monster and the overly "proper" behavior of some of London's finest citizens makes for a chuckle-worthy fish-out-of-water scenario.

The problem, though, is that are far too many moments where the story— quite simply—lags. Throw the funny but much too abrupt finale into the mix, and it seems as if Landis and company have somehow avoided taking full advantage of a great premise.

If you've never seen An American Werewolf in London, it is worth checking out. It has one or two moments that will likely cause you to double-over in raucous laughter, but, when compared to more recent comedy/horror fare, it seems like little more than a fleeting slice of mildly amusing nostalgia.

Look no further

[blob-93964 · 10/10 · 21 November 2016]

If You're looking for a good Werewolf movie look no further than this absolute timeless classic from 1981. An American Werewolf in London is without a doubt the best Werewolf and Horror/Comedy ever made. The special effects are unsurpassed. If Werewolves were real this is exactly how they would look, instead of a human shape with a wolves head, it looks more like a massive very scary looking dog/wolf. You catch a glimpse of it on the Underground scene and then again at the very end. They couldn't have made it look more real if they tried. It has an absolute perfect balance of comedy and horror. The horror of the movie is very scary and the comedy is often hilarious without adding the mistake of slapstick (An American Werewolf in Paris). There is also a bit of a love story thrown in. I think this is and always will be my favorite horror of all time and was probably the first real horror that I saw as a child (Shown to me by my very irresponsible babysitter when I was just 7). I hear it's due for a remake, it would have to be a pretty amazing movie to surpass this one.

Is That A Grin Or A Snarl?

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 25 February 2015]

I'll make this short and sweet, like the old lady's dance.

The beginning is highly atmospheric. One night, two American college kids stop in a pub with the portentous name, "The Slaughtered Lamb." This is in Yorkshire and the pub is surrounded by flat, foggy moors. The pub itself is warm and inviting but the patrons are not, especially when one of the kids, David, asks about the shrine on the wall, the shrine with the pentagon on it.

They are booted out into the night by the surly patrons, with a warning to stay on the road and avoid the moors, as Sir Henry Baskerville was once told. Well, Sir Henry survived. And that's the difference.

The remainder of the film, as much of it as I saw, takes place in London, which, you'll remember, is a big city and not at all as frightening as those filmy and ominous moors. However, when David wakes up in hospital there, recovering from his bites, he's attended by the kind of nurse that hospitalized men dream about and that do not exist in real life.

I'll tell you, Jenny Agutter, uniformed or undraped, lightens up the picture and the city.

Outstanding special effects. If you enjoy the sight of ripped and sagging flesh, with bath tubs of blood, you'll be delighted. It's also supposed to be a comedy because it's approach to the material is light hearted. Yet, the truth is, all that blood, all that brutality and violence, aren't very funny, no matter how well they're nested in a plot full of wisecracks.

And the central figure, David Naughton, isn't much of an actor. He gets the comic sense of the situation across but his features and demeanor don't know the meaning of anguish. Jenny Agutter can't really act either but I don't care. She's not the sleek, naked teen ager of "Walkabout," but she has an offbeat beauty and the precise diction that you could listen to forever.

Our Dual Natures Served Up Hollywood Style

[jstock426 · 10/10 · 26 September 2005]

John Landis reveals a philosophical take on mankind in this film, namely, that we have two natures: one benign, one monstrous. The werewolf legend handily serves as that proposition's allegorical vehicle, and compared to the alluded-to Nazi atrocities in two scenes, the legend actually pales. Sadly, under the dark impetus of our arrogance and vanity, our metaphorical "full moon", man is perfectly capable of transforming into nightmarish beast.

As a director, Landis approaches Hitchcock in terms of scene economy and symbolism. For example, the opening sequence set on the moors of northern England features the tragic hero David and his friend Jack climbing out of the bed of a truck laden with sheep - benign animals destined for slaughter. Biped "sheep" David and Jack meander to "The Slaughtered Lamb", a pub sheltering cowering, xenophobic locals from the monster afoot on the moors during full moon. Soon the inhospitality of the town folk compels the two lambs to leave - virtually sending them to their slaughter.

And so it goes throughout this brilliant film. Without revealing the ending, it can be stated that Landis makes his case against the idea that love conquers all; instead, he suggests that love only gives the beast within us pause.

Beware the moon.

An American Werewolf in London (1981) **1/2

[JoeKarlosi · 6/10 · 17 October 2009]

I felt it was time to re-watch this movie and give it another chance. I saw it at the theater in 1981 when I was 19 and I immediately disliked it due to what I felt was its over-reliance on comedy and not taking itself seriously enough as a horror movie. Well, today I finally decided that after almost 30 years it was time for a new viewing with a more open mind.

Overall, after this re-watch I have to say I am now far less harsh on American WEREWOLF than I was in 1981. I think that what seemed so ridiculous and silly to me in 1981 doesn't play nearly as foolishly in 2009, and especially not after another 20 years of seeing so many far worse and TRULY stupid modernized horror films. In fact, during the first 60 minutes of American WEREWOLF I'd say there wasn't really any "misplaced intrusive comedy" that hurt the experience for me at all. As a matter of fact, I was surprised during this re-evaluation at how serious much of the film actually played to me. 28 more years and so many inferior goofy modern horror misfires really polished it up in my eyes. It wasn't comedy that got in the way during the first hour; if anything, it was the lack of anything really happening until that first powerful transformation sequence.

I was really enjoying the film, and was almost prepared to give it a 3 out of 4 star rating myself; except that the foolishness eventually reared its silly head during the scene where David wakes up in a zoo and runs around nude asking a little boy for his balloons to cover himself up, rather jolly and apparently not even the least bit properly shaken up that he's just woken up naked in a zoo in a cage with real wolves and doesn't know why! Okay, so that was only a little bit of passable nonsense ... but then when David wears a woman's coat, and starts screaming loudly in public for a London booby to arrest him, shouting: "Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Sh-t!! Cu-t!!!"... well, that started sounding more like the old AWIL I remembered and despised from my youth. And the entire sequence in the porn movie theater with not only a revisit from his old friend Jack the Corpse, but now all his other victims' corpses joking around as well.... that was too much, and I found myself going down to a rating of "Above Average" instead of "Good".

A word about Jack and his constant appearances as a deteriorating corpse ... I took them all to be David's own hallucinations because he's been driven near the point of madness, so these were not a hindrance. But with the last visit in the movie theater, I wondered how David could be imagining all those other victim's faces he killed, considering he never met them? Maybe he remembered what they looked like and all their names form when he was a wolf? ANYTHING but figuring that these dead people were real and actually sitting in that theater (which they couldn't have been, as the theater was empty afterward).

In the end, I liked the movie better. It's not going to be a personal favorite I'd choose to see anymore, but I guess I'd now consider it a pretty good werewolf film, and one of the more respectable of the "modern versions". There was certainly enough gore and violent scenes staged to offset the light parts. I would say that if Landis cut out the whole sequence of David conversing that last time with the dead people in the movie theater, and all that junk of him trotting around town with the balloons and wearing a woman's coat, as well as that desperate yelling at the policeman to get arrested and saying really stupid things, this would have been a MUCH more effective horror film.

BUT I do have to stand as correct in one thing I have maintained form the very start back in 1981 as to why I was not a big fan of the movie. After the show I played an interview on the DVD with John Landis, and the very FIRST words out of his mouth regarding the movie were: "Everyone keeps saying this is a COMEDY! But it's not a Comedy -- it's a HORROR FILM!!!" So, after all these years of people insisting it's a "comedy" or at least a "horror/comedy", here was Landis himself stating he meant it to be a "horror movie", but it turned out to have unnecessary silliness in it that I think hurts it. **1/2 out of ****

Way too much padding

[son_of_cheese_messiah · 5/10 · 10 July 2014]

AAWIL is a modern day setting of a hoary old horror cliché. Man gets bitten by werewolf, becomes a werewolf himself and then goes on the rampage etc. All this is familiar stuff, done to death many times, but here we have the addition of a strain of darkly morbid comedy, represented by the regular appearances of Jack in increasing degrees of decay throughout the film. This raises the film above the average, but it does not save it from the boring musical montages (there are 3 of them!) or the frequent gimmicky nightmare sequences (too many to mention) which pad out the middle portion of the film.

The film starts well on the Yorkshire Moors, with the local inhabitants of a village pub (the wonderfully named "Slaughtered Lamb") playing the part of ignorant and fearful villagers in films we have seen made many times. Then David is bitten and Jack is killed by the werewolf and then David wakes inexplicably in London (why? Are there no hospitals in Yorkshire?) Nurse Alex takes a liking to Jack and gives him a treatment beyond that usually available on the NHS. (It is not standard practise for English nurses to watch over patients at night or read them to sleep with stories but Americans seem to romanticise much about the NHS). There is some laboured comedy involving 2 detectives investigating the case. Then the padding nightmare scenes start. First David running naked and killing animals, then one involving his family being killed by masked Nazis(huh? what relevance does this have?) from which he awakens to see Alex being killed by another masked Nazi -but this turns out to be just another dream. This is such a cheat that I almost feel like giving it a 1 rating just for that.

Things perk up with the re-appearance of Jack. Then Alex whisks David to her flat. This brings about the first montage, a love making scene to "Moondance". Soon we will get "bad moon rising" in a rather pointless montage quickly followed by "Blue Moon" during the actual transformation scene. This transformation is very impressive.

Eventually David goes to a porno cinema to meet Jack again, who is now very decomposed. This scene, we the appearance of a host of people who David has killed, demanding he kill himself is the comedy highlight of the film.

The final climax is overblown but the effect is rather ordinary.