A comedy-horror that left me a little confused as to what it's trying to do. The comedy and horror elements are both fairly well done, but sometimes sit together uneasily, and while many scenes of 'American Werewolf in London' are superb, many others are eye-rollingly bad.
It opens with two friends traveling across northern England, which is obviously barren and underpopulated. They stop by in the pub from 'The Wicker Man', before being kicked out back on to the moor, where they stupidly ignore the creepy locals and stray off the road, where one is killed by a werewolf and the other is maimed before the locals shoot it.
Now if you know anything about werewolves, you can see where this is
going. David (the guy who was bit) is taken to London (because that's
where the only hospital is, apparently. Or because it's near the US
Embassy). Queue a series of brutal moon motivated killings.
I liked the soundtrack, though it was basically one song, but I like the song. I also liked the makeup, and this is one of the ways that 'American Werewolf in London' stands out. Rick Baker was behind it all, and what I liked the most was the gory appearance of the undead Jack, as well as the werewolf transformation itself, which is played out in what is now quite a well known scene.
The movie really is funny. I'm not 100% sure it's intentional all the time, but I could believe that it is. England is just too quaint, it must be taking the mick out of the way American cinema portrays Britain - and most other countries. My favourite line was "You made me miss. I've never missed", delivered by a guy playing darts in the creepy rural pub, after one of the Americans asks about a five pointed star painted on a wall.
The movie chugs along at a reasonable pace, though some scenes are unnecessary, and concludes well, though I'd have preferred David had already started attacking Alex before the gun squad shot at them (maybe hitting Alex a few times to), then maybe cut to a close up of Alex's face as she struggles to remain conscious (wide eyes, shallow breathing) with the dead David lying alongside her, before cutting to black with the credits rolling and 'Blue Moon' playing jarringly.
The movie chugs along at a reasonable pace, though some scenes are unnecessary, and concludes well, though I'd have preferred David had already started attacking Alex before the gun squad shot at them (maybe hitting Alex a few times to), then maybe cut to a close up of Alex's face as she struggles to remain conscious (wide eyes, shallow breathing) with the dead David lying alongside her, before cutting to black with the credits rolling and 'Blue Moon' playing jarringly.
American Werewolf in London: 55.9