An American Werewolf in London

1981 horror comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A pair of tourists from the United States travel to England to demonstrate just how uncouth Americans can be.

"A naked American man stole my balloons." That line might sound comical, but you'd be surprised just how many times somebody in Europe says that daily. Not the same somebody, various Europeans who are having naked American males absconding with their balloons. That's the metaphor at the heart of this movie's message--a too-obvious anti-American one about how if you let Americans run amok, we'll violate your nurses and probably your zoo animals, steal the coats of your women, and bite our your throats. Here's some little known etymological information for you, and you don't have to pay me anything extra for it. Did you know that the phrase "to run amok" actually has to do with Americans misbehaving? AM, of course, is short for American while the OK part basically means "probably from Oklahoma." I almost want to give this a bonus point for being so blatantly anti-American, and that's not because I don't like America or anything but more because I just don't like the country or its people very much at all.

Anyway, the movie. In order for a horror-comedy to work, it really needs to satisfy in both of those categories. Special effects maestro Rick Baker handles the scary bits as predictably well as you'd expect. There's gross Jack, some zombie guys with firearms, and that transformation sequence which contains some effects that you'll never forget. The latter works even better because of the creaking and cracking sound effects. I love that effect because it's not hidden in shadows at all, just in your face and more chilling because of it. And it's long! It's like Landis et. al. are saying, "You knew this was going to happen. Now we're going to force you to see each agonizing detail of the protagonist's transformation into this titular monster!" And it kind of hurts a little bit, you know. There's another great horror movie scene with the werewolf escaping from the theater and a bunch of car crashes, a scene created with a great combination of stunts and some terrific editing. I also liked the first werewolf attack shown in this movie with some fast-moving-through-the-woods camera work a la Evil Dead. And then, there's the comedy. The rapport of the two buddies ("You have lovely sheep") is fun, as is the local flavor of the Slaughtered Lamb Pub where Drop Dead Fred (R.I.P., Rik Mayall) plays chess with a curmudgeonly guy. Then, there's a great moment where the horror and comedy come together beautiful during a scene in a porno theater where corpses converse with the protagonist with orgasm sound accompaniment. Throw in the ever-fetching Jenny Agutter, an appearance from the Muppets during one of the most weirdly-chaotic dream sequences that turns into a dream-within-a-dream, an impressive performance by a cat, and a good Bernstein score, and you've got one entertaining horror-comedy. "Blue Moon" (during a great opening with shots of foreboding landscapes at dusk and almost inappropriately bom-bom-bomming after an abrupt ending) and "Bad Moon Rising" might seem kind of easy, but who's going to complain about a little Creedence?

I first saw this movie when I was about ten and watched it with a dog named Gretel.