An American Werewolf in London is a joint American/British comedy horror film directed by John Landis. Released theatrically in 1981, it has earned cult status due to the revolutionary special effects work of makeup artist Rick Baker. Along with Joe Dante's The Howling, released the same year, An American Werewolf in London is known for re-inventing the physical appearance of werewolves and for revolutionising the processes used to show a man shape-shifting into a wolf. It is also one of the first modern horror films to include elements of "black comedy" into a movie.
Plot[]
In north-eastern England, a truck full of sheep stops to drop off two American backpackers that hitched a ride: David Kessler and Jack Goodman. The driver reminds them to stay on the road before leaving, and the pair begins trekking across the moors in Yorkshire. It's all part of their three-month trip, which later will take them to Italy, where Jack hopes to meet the girl he's liked since the eighth grade.
When night starts to fall, the two friends decide to stop in a small town to rest and have dinner. They find a pub called "The Slaughtered Lamb" with a disturbing sign that shows a bleeding wolf head. Jack is reluctant, but David convinces him that they should enter anyway. Everyone inside instantly falls silent, and they don't go back to their things until the guys have made their order. While waiting, Jack notices something painted on the wall: a five-pointed star, usually used in witchcraft as a representation of the Wolfman. He asks everyone why they have that pentagram there, causing everyone in the pub to instantly get hostile and kick the friends out right as a storm is starting to brew outside.
The bartender doesn't agree. She thinks it's not right for them to let them go like this, but the men don't let her have a word: once again, they ask David and Jack to leave while reminding them to stay on the roads and to beware the moon. After the pair is gone, the men discuss the matter again, considering the fact they're probably sent the boys to their murder, but what is done is done. Telling them the truth would've been a bad idea anyway, since the guys would've not believed them.
When the howling of a wolf begins echoing in the area, the bartender asks the men to go fetch the boys, but they pretend to hear nothing. Meanwhile, David and Jack accidentally get off the road while they goof around in the rain. They start hearing the wolf howling as well and try to get back, but they realise they're lost, so they try their best to run in the opposite direction from the noises. However, David trips and falls, giving the wolf time to catch up and attack. The beast jumps on Jack and kills him, then goes after David, but it only gets to scratch him and bite him once before the men from the pub arrive and kill it. Before passing out, David notices a naked man on the ground, bleeding from his gunshot wounds.
Three weeks later, David is at a hospital in London, being taken care of by Doctor J. S. Hirsch and nurse Alex Price, who are discussing his case while he's still unconscious: the police report said he was attacked by an escaped lunatic. After dreaming about running through the forest, David finally wakes up and finds the doctor and an employee from the American embassy, who tells him his and Jack's families have already been told about what happened. He begins freaking out when he hears Jack is dead, so the nurse gives him a sedative, but before passing out again, he clarifies he wasn't attacked by a lunatic - it was actually a wolf.
A few hours later, two detectives from Scotland Yard come to ask David some questions, but they don't believe him when he says he was attacked by a wolf. The autopsy report from the policemen in Yorkshire and the testimony from the witnesses say it was a man so they think David probably hallucinated because of the concussion, unless he seriously believes he can prove some sort of monster conspiracy. David doesn't understand how there could've been witnesses, and Dr. Hirsch blames it on memory issues, but David assures him his memory is fine: it's his sanity he's starting to doubt.
Later, David dreams about running through the forest again. This time he can see himself naked and jumping on some wild animals to eat them. By the time lunch is brought to him, he isn't hungry and refuses to eat. Nurse Alex can't give him his pills if he has an empty stomach, so she starts force-feeding him herself, a gesture David finds endearing.
When David falls asleep again, another nightmare comes. This time he's running through the forest with his travelling clothes on and he sees himself on the hospital bed, making a monstrous face at Alex when she comes to check on him. When he wakes up, he tells Dr. Hirsch that his dreams had never been so vivid and real, but the doctor just checks his injuries to see if they're healing well and blames the nightmares on traumatic experience. David doesn't want to be alone, so Dr. Hirsch accepts to send him someone that can keep him company at night.
In the evening, Alex comes to read to him, but when David falls asleep, he begins having another nightmare. This time, he's in his family home and he has to watch as monster soldiers kill everyone before lighting the house on fire.
As soon as he wakes up, he tells Alex about it, but a monster soldiers breaks through the window and kills her, too. It's morning when David wakes up for real this time. He gets ready to eat his breakfast, but he suddenly sees something quite shocking: Jack's ghost is in the room, sporting the scars the wolf left on him. After telling David about all the people that came to his funeral, Jack passes on the message he came for in the first place: they were attacked by a werewolf, and they have both been cursed for it. Jack will walk the Earth in limbo until the curse is lifted, and David will transform into a wolf when the full moon comes around in two days. If he wants to avoid killing people and save Jack, then David must die. This news upsets David greatly and he refuses to listen to Jack any longer, so he calls the nurse, but when Alex arrives, Jack is gone. David kisses Alex before telling her he's a werewolf and that the ghost of his best friend has visited him, but Alex thinks he's been dreaming again, so David accepts that as an explanation.
Now David is healthy enough to be discharged, so Alex invites him to stay in her apartment, so they go there after stopping for groceries. After Alex gives David a tour of the place, the two of them end up sharing the shower and bed for the night. Once they are done and Alex has fallen asleep, David goes to the bathroom and finds Jack's ghost again, this time looking like he's starting to rot. After teasing David for getting a nurse girlfriend, Jack reminds him once again that he needs to die before he ends up killing someone. David tries to convince himself that this isn't real, and Jack goes away when Alex wakes up and comes over when she hears voices. She hears David out when he shares his worries, especially when he says that in the old movies only a werewolf's loved one could kill him.
Alex comforts him and tells him this is his guilt talking, he probably just feels bad because he couldn't save Jack. The following day, Dr. Hirsch drives all the way to Yorkshire to visit The Slaughtered Lamb and check on David's story. Everybody in the pub pretends they don't know what he's talking about when he starts asking questions, though. And when Hirsch notices the star on the wall, they just tell him it was already there when they got the place and left it as traditional decoration. Seeing as he won't find any answers here, Hirsch decides to leave, but on the way to his car, he finds a man waiting for him. This man warns him that David and the people around him are in danger, but before he can say more, a man from the pub comes out and makes him drop the subject.
Back in London, Alex is leaving for work, so David comes out to kiss her for goodbye. Now he's accidentally locked himself out of the house, so he has to go around and climb through the window. While trying to do this, a dog and a cat walk by and both animals react very hostilely to his presence. Once he's back inside, David checks his teeth and snarls at the mirror, but he doesn't notice anything weird. Then he tries to keep himself busy with various activities like watching television, eating, and reading, yet he continues to be bored. However, when night falls, things get less boring.
David starts yelling when he suddenly feels his body burning, and he takes off his clothes before he begins transforming into a werewolf under the light of the full moon. The he escapes the house, eager to find prey. His first victims are a couple that is visiting some friends for a dinner party - David catches them in the garden and kills them there. Hearing the noises outside, the owner goes to check and finds the bodies right after the wolf leaves.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, Hirsch is worried about David, so he makes Alex call her house to check on him. When nobody picks up the phone, Hirsch decides to share with Alex what he's found out in Yorkshire: the case was closed, they misplaced the file, and David's injuries were taken care of before he arrived in London yet no doctor had seen him, so this means the whole community is hiding what happened there. Hirsch believes it's mass hysteria, and if everyone else in that town believed it was a werewolf, then obviously David's mind after going through trauma would believe it too. Hirsch thinks David will go out in a deranged state and hurt other people while thinking he's a monster, so he decides to call the police, even when Alex points out that what David needs is psychiatric help.
Back to David, he's still out and about looking for more prey. He stops by the river to kill a group of hobos, then gets inside the subway station to attack a man that tries to get away from him but trips on the escalator, giving him the perfect opportunity to strike.
The following morning, David wakes up completely naked inside the wolf cage at the zoo, without a single memory of what happened. The wolves don't seem to mind him, so he easily escapes the cage and sneaks around, hiding in bushes and behind walls. First, he steals some balloons from a kid to cover himself and run around with more ease, then he takes a lady's coat from a bench. After putting it on, he takes the bus to return home, getting many weird looks on the way.
In the meantime, Dr. Hirsch calls Alex to see if she has news from David. Since she hasn't seen him yet, Hirsch goes to get the newspaper, which has published an article about all the deaths from the previous night. When David arrives home, Alex is relieved to see him, but she doesn't notice anything strange other than his story of waking up at the zoo. When Dr. Hirsch calls again to check on him, Alex tells him David is confused and enthusiastic, but far from crazy - in fact, he's pretty lucid. Hirsch decides not to tell her about the news and asks her to bring David to the hospital so he can be under his supervision.
The couple decides to take a cab to the hospital and while trying to make small talk, the driver comments on the deaths, pointing out all the victims had been mutilated. David immediately guesses it was his fault and makes the driver stop so he can come out and find a police officer. Alex doesn't want him to turn himself in because she doesn't think he belongs in jail, he just needs help, but David doesn't listen to her. He finds a cop and tells him he killed those people last night, but since the officer won't do anything, David starts insulting the cop and the Royal Family, trying to get arrested. The policeman just thinks David's a crazy man and leaves him to Alex, then leaves and asks all the curious watchers to do the same. Suddenly, David tells Alex that he loves her and kisses her before running away because she shouldn't be around him now that he's dangerous.
Back in the hospital, Hirsch is visited by the detectives again, who do admit the lab report thinks the killer was some sort of animal. They promise they'll find David, but they refuse to accept he may be connected to the murders.
Meanwhile, David calls his family to tell them he loves them, then tries to use a knife to end things, but he can't bring himself to do it. While thinking about his next step, he finds Jack's even more rotten ghost standing outside an adult movie theatre, beckoning him to follow him inside. David does so, and finds Jack sitting at the back of the room, ready to say "I told you so" before introducing him to some new ghost friends.
All the ghosts from David's victims appear around them, and together with Jack, they begin offering ideas of how to end things more efficiently than with a knife. Unfortunately, they don't get to agree on a method before the full moon comes out and David begins transforming again. The other moviegoers quickly fall victim to his attack, and when the usher comes in to check on the noise, he dies as well. A crowd starts forming around the theatre entrance when the ticket clerk begins crying out for help and soon the police come to help as well.
An officer enters the building and finds the wolf feeding on the body, so he quickly runs out and asks the other cops to help him pull down the shutter doors. More officers arrive to help, including the detectives, but no matter how many of them hold the doors, David is too strong. The wolf breaks through the rolling shutter and kills the detective before running away, causing a massive car crash in the middle of the street. At the hospital, Hirsch hears about this incident and tells Alex, who rushes out to try to help David.
She finds him by following the police officers, who have cornered the wolf inside an alley. Still believing she can appeal to David's consciousness, Alex comes closer to the wolf, offers her help, and tells him she loves him. It calms him down a little bit, but this isn't enough though - David snarls at her, and leaps at her, causing the cops to shoot him before he can attack. Alex watches the wolf return to his human form and die naked on the ground.
Trivia[]
- The tagline for this film is "Beware the Moon".
- An American Werewolf in London has been made available on Betamax, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray.
- Actor David Naughton had grown up having a crush on Jenny Agutter before ever knowing that he would one day film a love scene with her. [1]
- Director John Landis has a cameo appearance during the Piccadilly Circus pile-up as a man being struck by a vehicle. Landis performed the stunt himself for the film.
- The plot was made from this recap: A Man Was Walking in The Woods at Night And Got Infected With Something Terrible
External Links[]
- An American Werewolf in London at IMDB
- An American Werewolf in London at Wikipedia
- An American Werewolf in London at Themoviedb.org
References[]
- ↑ David Naughton; An American Werewolf in London; DVD Audio commentary; 2001