AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) review
To this day, putting AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON on makes me feel good. It’s up there with goofing off with an old pal, finding a forgotten $5 in my pocket or being allowed an uninterrupted fifteen-minute nap in the afternoon. It’s one of those films every time I watch it, I wish I could’ve made it. And who wouldn’t? There is so much to love in it: natural acting, natural banter, realistic reactions to horror and pain (my favorite being when David in mid-transformation feels a need to plead forgiveness for calling his best friend a “meatloaf” during an earlier scene); a nice romance, friendship, a likeable ironic soundtrack, mystery, gore and a wonderfully terrifying werewolf (who comes with an even more terrifying howl).
There seems to be some kind of argument of what this film is exactly. Is it a comedy with horror elements? Or a horror film laced with comedy? Jesus, who cares. It’s funny and horrifying and that’s all that really matters. Some of the best scenes involve Jack the corpse (in various stages of rot) explaining the rules of the supernatural while complaining how boring being undead is. WEREWOLF has a special place in my heart because of this. I grew up emulating David Letterman and watching Dracula and Frankenstein. For me, having a fun, smart, well-made film that merged ironic satire with its monsters was a gift from on high, a gift that keeps giving even after thirty years.
