31 Days of Halloween: Day Two

An American Werewolf in London (1981 – Rated R in the US for gore, violence, language, a porno scene, shots of David Naughton’s junk and Jenny Agutter’s boobies during the sex scene.  Think about THAT next time you see her in The Avengers.)

Summary (from IMDB):

Two American 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 find a way to die to release them from their curse, being trapped between worlds because of their unnatural deaths.

RBWood’s Rating (Out of Five): 4 pints of Lager

Look, I’ll be honest with you.  The effects are a little dated, but I saw this movie when it first came out and it scared the living hell out of me…perfect for a repeat viewing for the month of horror flicks.  I had forgotten so many detail…Elmer Bernstein’s score, for example, was perfect to set the tone.  The dialog created by John Landis along with his direction is sharp, witty ans is interspersed with humor creating a tight package.  Quite frankly, despite the effects, the makeup work and the overall story still work, and work well.

The only distraction was me remembering my mom saying “I can never watch another Dr. Pepper ad again now that I’ve seen his ‘thingy.'” (David Naughton, who played David Kessler, was in popular Dr. pepper ads at the time he’d filmed this).

Griffin Dunne as David Kessler’s friend Jack was fantastic as the undead comic relief, and he, along with David’s other victims have a memorable scene trying to convince the newly cursed werewolf to kill himself in the middle of a porn theater.

The relationship between David and Alex (Agutter) is short and of course destined to fail, but is handled well and leads to the climactic fight between British cops and the monster. 

In my opinion, well worth a revist if you’ve seen it previously.  If you haven’t, give it a watch.  There is no sparkly werewolves in this flick.

Tomorrow: You’ll have a hankerin’ for pea soup.

Peace