An American Werewolf in London
An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 supernatural comedy horror film written and directed by John Landis. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, the film stars David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne and John Woodvine. The title is a cross between An American in Paris and Werewolf of London. The film's plot follows two American backpackers, David and Jack, who are attacked by a werewolf while travelling in England, causing David to become a werewolf under the next full moon.
Landis wrote the first draft of the screenplay for the film in 1969 and shelved it for over a decade. Prospective financiers believed that Landis's script was too frightening to be a comedy film and too humorous to be a horror film. After achieving success in Hollywood with the comedies The Kentucky Fried Movie, National Lampoon's Animal House, and The Blues Brothers, Landis was able to secure financing from PolyGram Pictures to produce An American Werewolf in London.
An American Werewolf in London was released in the US by Universal Pictures on August 21, 1981. It was a critical and commercial success, winning the 1981 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and makeup artist Rick Baker winning the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup. Since its release, it has become a cult classic. A sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, was released by Hollywood Pictures in 1997.
Plot
Two American graduate students from New York City, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are trekking across the North York Moors. As night falls, they stop at the Slaughtered Lamb, a local pub. Jack notices a five-pointed star on the pub's wall. When he asks about it, the pub-goers grow hostile, prompting him and David to leave. The pub-goers warn the pair to keep to the road, stay clear of the moors, and beware of the full moon. David and Jack wander off the road and onto the moors, where a vicious creature attacks them. Jack is mauled to death and David is severely injured. The beast is shot and killed by some concerned pub-goers who followed the pair. Instead of an animal carcass, David sees a naked dead man lying next to him before passing out.David wakes up three weeks later in a London hospital. Inspector Villiers interviews David and informs him that the locals reported that an escaped lunatic attacked him and Jack. David insists a rabid dog or wolf attacked them. An undead Jack later appears to David and explains that they were attacked by a werewolf; since David was bitten, he is now a werewolf too. Jack is cursed to walk the earth in limbo, neither dead nor alive, until the wolf's bloodline is severed. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon so he does not harm anyone.
Dr. Hirsch visits the Slaughtered Lamb to investigate, suspecting that David might have been influenced by local superstitions. When asked about the incident, the pub-goers deny any knowledge of David, Jack, or the attack. However, one distraught pub-goer privately tells Dr. Hirsch that David will endanger other people when he transforms.
Upon being released from the hospital, David stays with Alex Price, the nurse who cared for him. Alex tells David that she is concerned about his mental health, as he has been having hyper realistic dreams and nightmares. David rapidly develops a heightened sexual drive that he uses to seduce Alex. Jack, now even more decayed, appears and warns David that he will become a werewolf the following night, and again advises him to commit suicide. David refuses to believe him but when the full moon rises, he painfully transforms into a werewolf inside Alex's flat. He prowls the streets and the London Underground, killing six people. He wakes up the next morning naked on the floor of a wolf enclosure at the London Zoo, with no recollection of what happened, and returns to Alex's flat.
After learning of the previous night's murders and realizing that he is responsible, David unsuccessfully attempts to get himself arrested in Trafalgar Square. He calls his family to say he loves them, then loses the courage to slit his wrists with a pocket knife. David spots Jack, whose skeleton is now showing, outside an adult cinema. Inside, Jack introduces David to his previous night's victims, some of whom are furious with David and suggest different suicide methods to free them from their undead state.
David transforms into a werewolf while still in the theatre. He decapitates Inspector Villiers, and wreaks havoc in the streets, killing several motorists and bystanders. The police surround and trap David in an alleyway. Alex arrives, runs down the alley, and tries calming David by professing her love to him. Although David's consciousness briefly emerges to recognize Alex, the beast takes over and lunges towards her, forcing the police to shoot him dead. David's body reverts to human form in front of Alex as she mourns him.
Cast
Production
Development
came up with the story while he worked in Yugoslavia as a production assistant on the film Kelly's Heroes. According to Landis, he and a Yugoslav member of the crew were driving in the back of a car on location when they came across a group of Romani people. The Romani people appeared to be performing rituals on a man being buried so that he would not "rise from the grave."Landis wrote the first draft of An American Werewolf in London in 1969 and shelved it for over a decade. Two years later, Landis wrote, directed, and starred in his debut film, Schlock, which developed a cult following. Landis developed box-office status in Hollywood through the successful comedies, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House and The Blues Brothers before securing $10 million financing from PolyGram Pictures for his werewolf film. Financiers believed that Landis's script was too frightening to be a comedy and too funny to be a horror film. Universal Studios execs were pressuring the director to cast Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as David Kessler and Jack Goodman but Landis went with unknown actors instead.
Filming
Filming took place between February and March 1981 because director John Landis wanted the film to take place during poor weather.The moors were filmed around the Black Mountains in Wales, and East Proctor is in reality the tiny village of Crickadarn, about southeast of Builth Wells off the A470. The Angel of Death statue was a prop added for the film, but the red phone box is real, though the Welsh road signs were covered by a fake tree.
The pub shown in the film known as the Slaughtered Lamb was actually a cottage located in Crickadarn, and the interior scenes were filmed in the Black Swan, Old Lane, Martyrs Green in Surrey.
An American Werewolf in London was the first film allowed to shoot in Piccadilly Circus in 15 years. Landis accomplished this by inviting 300 members of Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service to a screening of his new film The Blues Brothers. The police were so impressed by his work that they granted the production a two-night filming permit between 1 and 4 a.m. Traffic was stopped only three times for two-minute increments to film the automobile stunts involving the double-decker bus. Other filming locations included Putney General Hospital, Chiswick Maternity Hospital, Redcliffe Square in Earl's Court, the area around Tower Bridge, South Kensington Underground station, Tottenham Court Road Underground station, London Zoo, Putney High Street, Belgravia, Hampstead and Southwark.
Filming also took place at Twickenham Film Studios in Richmond Upon Thames.
Music
The film's upbeat soundtrack consists of songs which refer to the moon. Bobby Vinton's slow, soothing version of "Blue Moon" plays during the opening credits, Van Morrison's "Moondance" plays as David and Alex Price make love for the first time, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" plays as David nears the moment of changing to the werewolf, a soft, bittersweet ballad version of "Blue Moon" by Sam Cooke plays during the agonizing wolf transformation, and the Marcels' doo-wop version of "Blue Moon" plays over the end credits.The score was composed and conducted by Elmer Bernstein and recorded at Olympic Studios in London, engineered by Keith Grant. Bernstein's score can be heard during David's nightmares, when Dr. J. S. Hirsch drives through the moors to East Proctor, and when Alex confronts David in the alley. Though Bernstein wrote and recorded music to accompany the transformation scene, the director chose not to use it. The three-minute passage was eventually released by Bernstein under the title "Metamorphosis".
While an official soundtrack album was never released, Meco produced "Impressions of An American Werewolf in London" which was released by Casablanca Records. The album was produced and arranged by Meco, featuring covers of Bernstein's score and three songs from the movie, and four original songs.
Home media
The film was first released in 1981 on VHS and Betamax under the MCA Videocassette Inc. label and on LaserDisc and CED under the MCA Videodisc label. In 1984, MCA Home Video released it on LaserDisc. This would be the last time Universal would release the movie on home video for 17 years. The following year, Vestron Video acquired the video rights from MCA/Universal and released it on VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc in 1985. It was released again on LaserDisc in 1989 and 1995, and again on VHS in 1990 under the Video Treasures label and 1991 and 1994 from Vestron Video.The film was first released on DVD in December 1997 by LIVE Entertainment according to a LIVE DVD Advertisement. It was presented in a non-anamorphic widescreen transfer and contained the film's theatrical teaser trailer. Universal eventually got the video rights back and released a 20th-anniversary "Collector's Edition" DVD on September 18, 2001, making it the first time Universal released the film on home video since 1984. It included an audio commentary with actors David Naughton and Griffin Dunne, interviews with John Landis and Rick Baker, a 1981 promotional featurette, silent outtakes, storyboards and production photographs. A coinciding VHS was released on the same day. The high-definition version of the film was first released on HD DVD by Universal on November 28, 2006. A high-definition Blu-ray Disc and 2-disc standard-definition Region 1 DVD release of the film titled An American Werewolf in London – Full Moon Edition was released by Universal on September 15, 2009. The Region 2 DVDs and Blu-ray were released on September 28 and are known as An American Werewolf in London – Special Edition.
In 2016, Universal re-released the film on Blu-ray as a "Restored Edition" to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the film's release. On October 29, 2019, Arrow Video released a 4K restoration as part of a Blu-ray box set that contains all previously released extra material; the documentary Mark of The Beast: The Legacy of the Universal Werewolf; the 2009 making-of documentary Beware the Moon; filmmaker Jon Spira's video essay "I Think He's a Jew: The Werewolf's Secret;" a new interview with Landis; lobby cards and a booklet.