An American Werewolf In London

John Landis, USA / UK, 1981, 97 minutes

American Werewolf in London (AWIL) is one of those seminal 1980s films. Directed by John "Animal House" Landis, as a result of AWIL, a certain "Whacko" Michael Jackson got him to direct the most expensive pop video ever made, Thriller (with some of the scariest images ever put before camera - though admittedly that was before Michael put his make up on...).

AWIL starts with two American tourists, David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), on a walking tour through the Yorkshire Moors. The two are attacked in the middle of a misty night by what they originally think is a wild dog or wolf, but true to the title it is not just a wolf but a WEREwolf.

Jack is killed outright, but David escapes to the most uninviting bar in the UK - the Pleasance - oh no, it's in Yorkshire - darn! Here the locals (including Brian Glover - head of the Tetley tea folk and Rik Mayall in his first cinema role) are originally fearful, but grudgingly help the half cut up American by going out and shooting the "wild dog" with a silver bullet, and David is sent off to hospital in London (obviously they don't have hospitals outside the capital).

Sorted you might think, but David starts having nightmares, where he is hunting through the woods and soon people in London mysteriously get ripped to shreds by a... "wild dog". David starts having hallucinations where the people killed by the wild dog appear to him. Jack also appears stating that he is their killer: until he is dead they cannot pass over into the next world.

David in the meantime falls for love interest Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter) who in standard promiscuous British nurse fashion (could we have a few more stereotypes here? we've already had the dour in-bred Yorkshire men) immediately moves David into her bijou swinging flat in the centre of London (back in the days when a nurse's salary could get you a cool pad in swinging Islington).

The violence and special effects of AWIL were revolutionary at the time and won awards, though seem a little dated now. Still the finale in Central London is well worth watching and look out for cameo role by director John Landis as the man being smashed into a window, in the scene after the porn movie (a scene most recently ripped off in Donnie Darko).

Well worth watching to see what made Michael so BAD!

Review by Stephen Brennan
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2003