American Werewolf in London (97 minutes)

"Waking up at the zoo, that's not so insane. Having no clothes on? That's insane."

It’s officially spooky season and while I jumped the gun and started watching scary movies the last week of September, nothing quite feels like October. It gets darker earlier, there’s a crisp chill in the air, the leaves are crunchy underfoot, and we’re pretty sure that the shadow on our nightly walk is something sinister. If you’re having a strong reaction to this (either you love summer or hate scary movies) stick with me. The genre has a spectrum, which is something that is hard for other genres to do. You can love the paranormal type but hate slasher flicks. You could like psychological thrillers but want to skip monster movies. What I’m saying is-- give fear a chance. This month I’ll be giving you four opportunities to do so.

Today we’re covering two subgenres in one movie - horror comedy and creature feature. American Werewolf in London (1981, 97 minutes) is one of my all time favorite Halloween movies and definitely a top creature feature for me. In general I love the lore behind werewolves, and I find the variations across stories infinitely intriguing. In this take, two backpacking college students, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), come across a wolf-like creature while lost out on the moors of rural England. Jack is killed while David survives only to find that he is plagued by horrible nightmares, visitations from a ghostly Jack, and the fear that he may turn into a werewolf under the light of the next full moon. 

AWIL (please, I need an abbreviation with a title this long) is a well-loved classic even though in 1981 it was poorly received by some critics (I’m looking at you Ebert). For Ebert and others they had a hard time reconciling the pace of the film and its breakneck turns from funny to horrific. But these two points are exactly why I love it. I mean, I don’t have to say it again but I will, just in case you’re new here: I LOVE SHORT MOVIES. There is a way to execute a story in a short window of time and AWIL does it. Horror is best when we don’t have all the answers. I will always allow a horror movie to skip on backstory if the motivation of our characters in the moment are clear. Ebert found our characters flat, but to me David and Jack are just how they should be. A little young, a little vapid, a little naive. The movie feels youthful and untethered from the things “adults” worry about. Even though David is certain he’s becoming a werewolf and his best friend is dead, he doesn’t let any of it ruin his vacation. He goes right ahead and hooks up with his nurse! He’s in college after all! I’m not mad about it.

I think for some, AWIL can come off as a competition between comedy and horror whereas for me I see the two running alongside each other. Horror movies have a way of being a bit self-serious and it feels more real to me to find the absurdity in something really bad happening. Of course, it works better here where someone is turning into a werewolf versus, like, a possession movie, but I stick by my point. There is something inherently funny about the impossible happening to everyday people. David and Jack didn’t conjure the werewolf. They didn’t go poking around to solve a mystery. No. They pissed off some locals and got lost. Luck isn’t on their side. 

Even funnier, their personalities don’t change after their experience. They’re still just a couple of dumb college guys. In fact, Griffin Dunne practically steals the movie as Jack with his few short moments. He first appears in David’s hospital room horribly maimed, and rather than be angry about his undead state he asks, “Can I have a piece of toast?” In TikTok-speak: Jack is so unserious. Even after he gives David the rundown of what’s happening he maintains his casual attitude, saying, “The undead surround me. Have you ever talked to a corpse? It's boring! I'm lonely! Kill yourself, David, before you kill others.” He’s a fratty Jacob Marley without the chains and I love him for it. 

Either because Jack is so unserious or because David is still a bit self-centered, he doesn’t take his friend’s warnings to heart. Jack appears to David again and again, appearing one final time after David’s first transformation into the wolf. This time Jack comes with guests: all six of David’s victims. They are trapped between life and death until David himself dies. This lore is specific to AWIL and is a nice touch to differentiate it from other werewolf stories. Sure, all movies and stories reference the afflicted being “haunted” by those they kill, but in this case David is actually very much haunted and visited by them. This final visitation scene occurs at a porno theater and is one of the movie’s funniest moments. The undead visitors argue the best ways for David to kill himself so they can all be released. Everyone maintains their personalities which seems to be a worse curse than your average ghost. They are excitable, rude, or indifferent. It is a scene unlike any other in a werewolf movie. 

Similarly, because Jack is able to visit David, we also witness the slow decaying of his physical body. From maimed werewolf victim, to rotting corpse, to skeletal remains, Jack is ever-changing. Not only is this a first (and only?) for a werewolf movie but it is done expertly by the now-very-famous Rick Baker. Baker would go on to win his first Oscar for his work on AWIL, and rightfully so. Aside from the excellent corpse work on Jack, this movie has one of the most grotesque and horrifying transformation scenes of any werewolf movie ever made. It makes you actually think about what it may feel like to turn into a werewolf. All of your bones changing shape and your genetic makeup being totally altered? Yeah that DOES sound painful to me. The bones snap, the skin stretches, the spine changes shape and we see it all in a well-lit apartment. A choice by director John Landis I applaud every time I see it. Typically this scene takes place outside in a dark wooded area, showing only bits and pieces of what is happening. Instead, Landis brings the transformation home under bright warm lights and shows us every gross bit of the change. 

American Werewolf in London is a collegiate romp through folklore that changed the way we think about werewolves. It is also a classic in the tradition of practical effects which look just as good today as they did then (and that is not something we can say about CGI). Though Landis’ career would go on to be marred by two deaths on the set of his Twilight Zone movie (he was exonerated from manslaughter charges) his refreshing, silly, and frankly, gross, take on werewolves has left a pretty big impression on monster movies and probably an even bigger one on me. 

You can watch American Werewolf in London on Amazon Prime