Definitely one of the better movies to come out of John Landis (you know, the guy who brought us Animal House and The Blues Brothers), An American Werewolf in London has it's funny moments, though the setup of the horror and comedy was REALLY unbalanced. One minute, there's a hilarious scene, the next minute, Landis tries to scare us shitless, succeeding only in making the serious scenes seem, well, less serious. Also, all the damned "full moon" or "werewolf" related songs on the soundtrack wear thin on me quick.
Anyway, this "Lycanthrope Films Limited Production" comes to us, as I said, written and direct by John Landis. Our story begins centered around two friends named Dave and Jack, who thought it'd be cool to hitchhike across Europe... even though they're currently in the England countryside, and England is an island... They pick up a ride on a sheep truck and eventually make their way to the now legendary "Slaughtered Lamb" pub, where many Englishmen sit around drunken and brooding and anti-werewolf and superstitious ornaments decorate the walls. When our guys leave, they’re given multiple warnings to be careful and stick to the well traveled foot paths. After they're gone, the old English guys sit around pissing and moaning because they pretty much sent the boys off to die. From what? Well, in case you really are stupid and not just faking it to get the handicapped parking tags, allow me to "spoil" it: they both get attacked by a werewolf.
Jack winds up without a windpipe, and Dave suffers from a major gash in the chest before the old guys from the Slaughtered Lamb show up in time to shoot the beast down and get Dave to the hospital. Of course though, when the werewolf reverts to human form after he's killed, the whole thing is passed off as an attack by an escaped lunatic... though the word "lunatic" comes from the root "lunar", which means "moon"... yeah, you know what’s going on.
So, 3 weeks later, Dave awakens in his hospital bed, scarred and battered, insisting that he and Jeff (who's dead of course) were victims of a wolf, not an escaped nutcase. This claim is quickly disregarded when the "witnesses" from the Lamb give a different story. Afterwards, Dave starts having dreams that he's running naked through the woods and mauling deer like some savage modern day Neanderthal, others where he's sitting in bed and transforming into a monster of the lupine kind, and still others about his family being slaughtered by Nazi wolves... Boy, has this kid taken much angel dust lately?
Life begins to get even more odd than his dreams, when Dave's dead amigo Jack's ghost (looking rather painfully mutilated) starts to haunt him, telling Dave he's become a werewolf and that the only way his victims can avoid limbo (i.e. "trapped on the Earthly plane without the benefits of the flesh & blood living") is if Dave kills himself and ends the legacy of brutality that comes with his werewolf-ism. Despite these hallucinations and visits from dead friends, Dave is released from the hospital, moving in with a nurse that he's grown quite "fond" of. Wonder if all nurses are so desperate for attention that they let their patients move in with them! If so, I think it's time I said goodbye to my left foot and hello to a lifetime of sponge bathes!
Well, as Alex (the nurse) shows Dave around London, and gives him an outlet for any sexual frustrations he might have, the doctor who worked on Dave is looking into these claims of werewolves that Dave was talking about, checking out the Slaughtered Lamb and having a secret pow-wow session with one of the jilted locals. As for Dave, he doesn't know whether to live in fear of his new life, or just make a mockery of it... welcome to my existence.
One night, as Alex is out, Dave has a seizure, freaks out, strips bare ass nekkid, then morphs through one of the best transformation FX jobs NOT done with CGI ever to grace the screens! He then lunges into the London night life to make a few kills. When he wakes up the next morning, he's dazed and confused (and still nekkid) when he awakens in the wolf cage at the London Zoo! Swiping a woman's coat though, he makes his way back to Alex's "flat". When he hears about the murders that were HIS fault, he tries confessing to a cop on the street, but he can't even get arrested right, as the cop passes it off as bullshit!
Since he can't seem to get arrested, he opts for different entertainment, following the dead (and looking even more decayed) Jack into an "art" (porno) theater, where the poltergeist introduces Dave to last night’s six victims, who also hassle Dave now, trying to get him to kill himself. Dave then proceeds to turn hairy once more (must be full moons aren't necessary in Landis flicks), killing a few more people before escaping into the streets to cause some more trouble! The cops, wait, "bobbies", hunt him down, cornering him in an alley! Alex tries to reason with him, but Dave's more beast than boyfriend, proving that love is NOT stronger than blood lust when he gets taken down in a hail of normal police bullets, mid-lunge for Alex's throat! It ends with Alex crying a lot while the naked Dave sits lying in a heap amongst the refuse before we shoot (bad pun intended) straight to the credits.
Most remembered about this movie by most viewers is the amazing and simply stupendous transformation FX, that would probably give even a make-up pro like Tom Savini a boner! However, as I said, the comedy and horror seemed like separate entities, as opposed to combining them. Which is it John, a horror movie or a comedy?! Make up your friggin' mind! Also, I was insulted that Landis felt he didn't need to stick to any of the popular myths built up about werewolves over the years. Dave turned WITHOUT the need for a full moon and he was killed by ordinary lead bullets, not a single silver slug amongst them! Though, I have to admit, I like the whole idea of the ghosts of his victims haunting him. But, just to make it clear, I wasn't amused when, "A naked American man stole my balloons"! Damn Yankee thief...
The Moral of the Story: Never do the dickhead tourist thing and laugh off local legends. I don't care if some one-eyed drunk in an alley tells you that a snipe will chew off your balls unless you fill your shorts with raw meat and lice, if you value your little helpers you'll fill your shorts with raw meat and lice damn it!
Sequel: An American Werewolf in Paris
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Definitely enough here to any entertain any group of H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. or aspiring H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. members, enough though it's a little too "Hollywood" for standard H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. protocol.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: The Howling or
Teen Wolf
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