With that out of the way, I'd like to announce an exciting month-long project I've set for myself. Since October has started and Halloween season is well underway, I'm going to do my part to celebrate it by watching one horror movie every night this month. As a long-time horror movie buff, this is an idea whose time has come. I'll do a short post for each movie, although I won't be doing the in-depth reviews I would normally do. I will revisit some of these movies in the future for more comprehensive reviews. For now, though, follow me through the corridors of a dark castle as we meet up with werewolves, re-animated corpses, giant mollusks, demon-possessed women, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, mad doctors, vampires, aliens, flesh-eating furballs, giant insects, and tons more monsters and psychos. These are....
Zach's 31 Nights of Horror!
#1. An American Werewolf in London (1981) ***** stars
Directed and Written by John Landis
Stars David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne
Music composed by Elmer Bernstein
Make-up and Special Effects by Rick Baker, Elaine Baker (Rick's then-wife), Doug Beswick, Steve Johnson, Craig Reardon, and others.
The year of 1981 may have been the Year of the Rooster according to Chinese Zodiac Astrology, but for horror movie fans it was the Year of the Wolf. Three major movies dealing with werewolves were released that year: Joe Dante's homage/re-imagining of the werewolf sub-genre The Howling, Michael Wadleigh's socially conscious Wolfen, and the best of them all, John Landis's alternately funny and scary An American Werewolf in London.
Rick Baker's (as well as the team that assisted him) effects are simply breathtaking. Once again, a traditional movie werewolf was done away with in favor of a more sophisticated technique. Rather than showing David Kessler undergo his transformation through lap dissolves and cutaways, his entire body experiences a radical transformation. His nose, hands, teeth, legs, arms, and all other body parts completely change into those of a wolf's. Latex, bladders (inflatable plastic or latex balloons powered by air), and other ingredients help achieve the transformation sequences. One scene in particulate shows David undergoing a transformation without the camera ever cutting away. It is an absolute tour-de-force of special effects that still stands up 30 years later.
All the principals in this movie are great in their roles. David Naughton makes for a very tragic figure. Besides being a stranger in a strange place (as the title suggests, he is an American tourist in Britain), he lives with the effects of a werewolf bite that doom him from the outset. Jenny Agutter is very appealing as nurse Alex Price. She provides the comfort and companionship for David as he is trying to make sense of what has happened to him. Griffin Dunne is David's best friend Jack Goodman. Although he gets killed off early by the same wolf that bites David, that is not the end of Jack's presence. He reappears as a gradually decomposing corpse in various dreams experienced by David. These scenes are both shocking and downright hilarious. Despite his state of decay, Jack is able to talk with David in his dreams. The idea of your dead friend talking to you in your dreams about such subjects as his funeral and your sanity while he's rapidly decaying is both very frightening and very funny. But this isn't a comedy. There are some very funny sequences (e.g., David waking up naked in a cage with wolves in a zoo) but this is first and foremost a horror. The comedy is appropriately placed and never looks down on horror movies or werewolves.
Overall, I can't think of a movie that better portrays the werewolf. The effects are outstanding, the acting is convincing, and the story is completely original. No true horror fan's collection is complete without An American Werewolf in London. It gets my highest possible recommendation.
