An American Werewolf In London (1981) - Full Reaction
Added 2021-10-22 15:44:44 +0000 UTCHey guys! This was a weird mix of horror and comedy for me because I wasn't sure when I was supposed to laugh. Round of applause for that make up work and the transformation scenes WOW!! That ending threw me for a loop, so abrupt and unsatisfying, you know how I like my "ribbon tied in a bow endings". I wanted more internal torture of him but because it was only 2 nights of him being a werewolf, I can see why they couldn't put more of that in. It felt spooky and Halloweenie and the make up effects were so cool, so it was a win!
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Comments
And this is why you should never go to a place called the Slaughtered Lamb/Duck or hang around in adult theaters.
Eddie Perkins
2025-03-01 05:02:58 +0000 UTCAnother one I haven't seen pre-school
SHANE MARSHALL
2024-02-14 13:34:27 +0000 UTCThis was one of the few Halloween films my dad really loved and he introduced me to it young. It's one of my must-watch films every year. Rick Baker won the first official Academy Award for makeup for this film. It truly is incredible work. Not sure if anyone stated this already but that US diplomat who shows up when David first awakens in the hospital is Frank Oz, the guy who voices Miss Piggy and Yoda.
China Andronicus
2022-10-31 22:27:58 +0000 UTCI never had the opportunity to see, the makeup is very good. It's the same person who made the video clip for Michael Jackson, right? It's a chance to see a "classic" :D
Grégory Gautier
2021-10-26 08:05:56 +0000 UTCYou should watch the werewolf movie Silver Bullet! It was made in Canada and stars the original Anne of Green Gables, Megan Follows!
Michael Jung
2021-10-25 21:12:48 +0000 UTCI guess I combined the name of David's friend, Jack with Baker. Unfortunately, I ended up naming him for the serial killer from Resident Evil, not the mild-mannered makeup artist. Oops!
Alan Kobb
2021-10-25 17:00:24 +0000 UTCLike your comment, but it's RICK Baker. not Jack.
Richard Maurer
2021-10-25 11:55:09 +0000 UTCThe Slaughtered Duck was two blocks over
Patrick Flanagan
2021-10-24 23:22:16 +0000 UTCI guess you've got to get it. This movie tries to keep it light, but does not skimp on the fear. It is not your usual horror movie, and it has a sad ending. Writer/Director John Landis had a problem selling this to a studio for the same reason. The studios could not decide if it was comedy or horror. As Jack had been saying, sadly there was no choice but for David to die. The movie ended right there because really there was no more story to tell. I realize that it felt unresolved, but the drama effectively ended with David's death, and the abrupt ending allowed the viewer to feel the same sense of loss as Alex, and the abrupt end of a young life. The abrupt Doo-wop version of Blue Moon that plays over the ending credits also shakes the audience. Some movies end long after the drama has ended as the writer tries to tie up every possible loose thread. Maybe this is harder to watch, but I appreciate the unexpected choice. The true star of this movie, of course, is RICK Baker, who designed the incredible transformation of David into a werewolf. All done without a single computer. You enjoyed Beetlejuice, but that movie would not have been the same if it were not for the makeup effects inspired by this movie. Someone else who was inspired by this movie was Michael Jackson who hired Landis and Baker to make the music video for Thriller, which is one of the best music videos of all time. More fun trivia. In order to get the London police to allow him to film in Piccadilly Circus, Landis took 300 members of the force to see his other new movie, The Blues Brothers (A must-see comedy!!!), and they loved it, so they allowed him to film one night.
Alan Kobb
2021-10-24 22:03:11 +0000 UTCHey Cassie This is an 80’s film, no CGI, all make up stop motion camera footage! and prosthetics! John landis is a brilliant director! Strictly straight to the point! A film About AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON! witch is exactly what it was! The werewolf is shot dead in the last seen! Film is over! That’s the second reason it my favourite werewolf film O and Cassie It’s the slaughtered lamb not the Slaughter duck in East Proctor
Neill
2021-10-24 20:10:40 +0000 UTCI liked the ending. I'm glad they didn't go with a standard "The power of love will save the day!!!' type of ending. That's what the audience in general was expecting and it appeared there were going for that for a brief moment and then they shockingly pull the rug out from under you. I like it when a film maker makes a really bold move like that. It was the only ending that makes sense. After all, even though David was the hero in reality he was the villain.
Ross Cicero
2021-10-24 19:13:03 +0000 UTCCassie... did you notice the cab driver when he heard about the murders? It was a young Alan Ford also known as Brick Top from "Snatch". I also had a HUGE crush on Jenny Agutter as a lad, more so from Logan's Run though. She was also in Marvels "Avengers", "Winter Soldier", and my sister's favourite show "Call the Midwife".
Doug Fisher
2021-10-24 08:47:56 +0000 UTCI think you described how i felt exactly. Strange but overall liked it! I would love to see a "making of" of that transformation scene to see how they did it
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:44:28 +0000 UTChaha just casually wearing the evenstar haha
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:42:45 +0000 UTCWasn't that the first year they even gave an academy award for that? I thought I read that after. It's crazy because they probably invented it because this movie needed to be honored in that way!
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:40:21 +0000 UTC7 or 8 ?! haha I wasn't even allowed to watch ET until I was 14, but then I was too scared anyways
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:38:36 +0000 UTCthey didn't really heed that advice very well!!
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:37:15 +0000 UTChahaha this is not funny but I am laughing WITH you that you said "my idiot parents" I'm so sorry! I weirdly had a lot of nightmares as a kid about wolves but didn't watch anything not G rated so not sure where those came from
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:36:14 +0000 UTCI have got so many suggestions for Shaun of the Dead, is it a spoof of a movie I need to see first?
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:34:06 +0000 UTCI def did not catch that! That is terrifying, I am guessing it was not played out? They weren't planning on coming to american soil and going into people's houses though right?
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:33:36 +0000 UTCoooh I need to go back and check for the casablanca poster! But in Beauty and the Beast, he still gets to live as a man :( (I've never seen Hunchback or King Kong :0)
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:31:40 +0000 UTCAhhh I really wanted to watch that one, not sure if I am going to be able to fit it in. Frankenstein will still be cool in like January right?>
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:29:19 +0000 UTCI did not kwow that about Thriller, so cool! You seriously explain things so well, that makes more sense about the ending now, I guess I need to see Wolf Man?
Cassie
2021-10-24 05:27:47 +0000 UTCNot quite knowing when to laugh and when to be scared is intentional. It's meant to keep you slightly off kilter and unsettled, never quite relaxing. Also, the part you bloop blooped through really didn't go much beyond what you saw. It was about that point when it turned into a joke. Porn in movie theaters was a thing back before home VCRs came along. And the idea seems weird to me, too.
Wally Hartshorn
2021-10-24 02:10:35 +0000 UTCShe's so innocent but in a good way. Like idk how to explain it.
William Bryan
2021-10-23 20:46:33 +0000 UTCHadn't seen this in years but that transformation scene still packs a punch. Incredible work from Rick Baker. You're fast becoming a horror veteran, 'Cannibal Holocaust' next week? Only joking, don't ever watch that film:)
Jay
2021-10-23 15:25:12 +0000 UTCMy idiot parents took me and my older brother to see this at the drive-in when I was six. Scared the shit out of me so much I had nightmares about the face in the dream scene in the forest for years and couldn’t watch it again until I was in my 30’s! Now one if my favourite movies!
thescourge
2021-10-23 15:13:00 +0000 UTCThat's so disappointing, that's some of the best dialogue jokes in any film there in that scene.
Dustin Nelson
2021-10-23 14:52:03 +0000 UTCActually they had trouble marketing it because of the mixed tone, the famous quote being "It's too scary for a [full] comedy but too funny to be [fully] horror".
Dustin Nelson
2021-10-23 14:44:14 +0000 UTCI haven’t watched Silver Bullet in a while but I feel like it’s horror light.
Mark M
2021-10-23 09:52:57 +0000 UTC@Aimee Have you watched the movie The Alamo starring Patrick Wilson?
Mark M
2021-10-23 09:51:11 +0000 UTCI like how the blanket failed her and she had to employ double elbows, LOL
Allen Bond
2021-10-23 08:11:33 +0000 UTCIt is a very weird, entertaining movie. I remember reading that John Landis wrote it when he was a teenager and stuck with that version years later, which explains why it seems like it's all over the place. Director Edgar Wright considers this one of his favorite movies, and used its unique comedy-horror tone as inspiration when he made Shaun of the Dead, which is a much better movie that pulls the comedic-horror element off more successfully.
Alex Villarreal
2021-10-23 07:48:05 +0000 UTCYou may not have caught this but the monsters that machine-gun David's family in his nightmare are wearing German helmets. This is a reference to a planned operation thought up by the German Military command in the closing days of WW2. The idea was in the event of German defeat, they would fight on as guerrillas against Allied occupying forces. This operation was called Operation Werwolf (German for Werewolf).
Phillip Ribbink
2021-10-23 06:41:00 +0000 UTCAnd Michael Jackson's creature from "Thriller" was created by Rick Baker...same guy who did the creature effects in this film.
Chris Reise
2021-10-23 04:20:30 +0000 UTCAs entertaining as this movie is I think both Silver Bullet and The Howling are better. For more straight forward horror Silver Bullet and The Howling are the answer. The comedic relief American Werewolf presents takes away from the horror element. My opinion though
William Bryan
2021-10-23 04:17:28 +0000 UTCA John Landis movie I like is ‘Into The Night’ starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Mark M
2021-10-23 02:03:31 +0000 UTCCassie, regarding the ending; it’s the classic Beauty and the Beast finale. Quasimodo and Esmeralda, King Kong and Ann... Props to John Fogerty and CCR for Bad Moon Rising. Anyone notice when Nurse Alex was giving a tour of her flat, the Casablanca poster on the wall? Young Frankenstein is a hoot. Put it up with Tremors.
Grinznmore
2021-10-23 01:18:32 +0000 UTCTrading Places (1983), Three Amigos (1986), and Coming to America (1988) are John Landis classic comedy films.
G
2021-10-23 01:18:18 +0000 UTCFun fact: The director John Landis also directed Michael Jackson's music videos "Thriller" and "Black or White".
G
2021-10-23 01:14:44 +0000 UTCI love that you say “bloop bloop” for fast-forwarding through a scene. In my family we always said “fuh fuh”, since that’s the abbreviation on the television remote for “Fast Forward”. 😆 Also, scenes like that in the porno theater are called “towel scenes” because my mother would always hold a towel up to cover the TV when we were kids. I have a distinct memory of watching this when I was home from school with chicken pox in first grade. It was, of course, the edited for television version and significantly shorter. I didn’t see the unedited version until I was an adult, and it was quite shocking even then. The practical and makeup effects in this are brilliant, especially considering it was released the year before I was even born! Also, the joke at the beginning about the airplane was referencing the Battle of the Alamo, which was a pivotal battle during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s to gain independence from Mexico. I’m a 6th generation Texan who had ancestors who fought in that war. 😁
Aimee
2021-10-23 01:09:21 +0000 UTCyou haven't heard "Blue Moon" before? wow. just messing with ya. this movie has been one of my favorites since I was a wee lad.
ron young
2021-10-23 01:07:35 +0000 UTCIt would be fun to watch Young Frankenstein with you. I guarantee you'll know where every laugh is.
softshoes
2021-10-22 23:24:09 +0000 UTCThat was my first time watching this movie in so many years, since I was a preteen. I don't know why I remembered Silvester Stallone having the main role in this. Now he just reminds me of Al Pacino. Also, when she went away for that part in the porno, she missed a very funny joke. I laughed so hard at that joke, got me rolling to tears! It was fun to watch this again after so long. Good reaction. Cheers.
Mr. Killeverything
2021-10-22 23:06:22 +0000 UTCThat song would probably be a little too on-the-snout.
Patrick Flanagan
2021-10-22 21:39:22 +0000 UTCAll the songs mention the moon. Needs the Warren Zevon song too.
Rich Mcclure
2021-10-22 21:14:31 +0000 UTCBravo. You handled those gory scenes like a champ. Next up, THE THING! John Landis wrote this when he was around 19 years old but it took over a decade for him to get the money to direct it. He became a huge comedy director in the 1970s with ANIMAL HOUSE and THE BLUES BROTHERS but studios were wary of him trying a horror movie, hence the humor. (Ironically this also made them wary as it was now considered too funny to be scary and too scary to be funny.) After directing this film Michael Jackson hired both Landis and his effects man, the brilliant Rick Baker, to make the video for his song "Thriller." The ending is abrupt but I think deliberately so. The movie is basically a commentary on, and inversion of, the classic Universal monster movie THE WOLF MAN from 1941. Unlike most classic movie monsters from this era - Dracula, Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein's monster, the Invisible Man - the werewolf wasn't an adaptation of a specific work of fiction but just drew inspiration from a number of often-contradictory myths and folk stories. The thing about silver bullets was basically pulled out of thin air by the original film's writer. So I think Landis took it as a writing challenge to come up with his own unique werewolf lore, like ignoring silver bullets and having the werewolf's victims haunt him in his human form. The ending of the film isn't really that much different from THE WOLF MAN, with the poor guy getting beaten to death by a silver club, dying and changing back to human. Roll credits. I think Landis was going for this but went for one last laugh by smashing to the credits and "Blue Moon" by the Marcels.
Patrick Flanagan
2021-10-22 21:00:56 +0000 UTCCatherine do you recognize Jack? He played a part in a sitcom we both love.
William Bryan
2021-10-22 20:47:56 +0000 UTCWow, his voice was so familiar but I didn't realize it was him.
Gábor Árki
2021-10-22 20:05:27 +0000 UTCI think I've heard of this one before, but never seen it until now. It had a strange vibe but overall I liked it. The ending felt abrupt and weird though especially with "Blue Moon" kicking in along the credits. The makeup and effects are really quite outstanding though, especially that transformation scene. It's amazing how much they achieved with just practical effects, creativity and ingenuity back then. One of the reasons I'm fond of The Thing too despite not really into the horror genre in general. I was quite surprised to see this was directed by John Landis. So far I only knew him as a comedy director by movies like Trading Places, Coming to America, Oscar, etc.
Gábor Árki
2021-10-22 19:56:34 +0000 UTCDid you recognize the voice of the guy from the Embassy who visited David in the hospital? It's Frank Oz...AKA Yoda, Grover, Miss Piggy, etc
Chris Reise
2021-10-22 19:49:10 +0000 UTCJust finished watching Beetlejuice with you. Just about to dive into "An American Werewolf in London" with you. You are gonna love it. P.S. On a side note, I'm loving your Elvish necklace.
Chris Reise
2021-10-22 19:25:30 +0000 UTCThis was quite popular in its day, and yes, the ending just ran out of steam. I’m not a big fan of the werewolf/vampire/ghost thing, but I did get hooked on a British series about exactly that. A ghost, a werewolf and a vampire end up as roommates in the series, Being Human. It was like Friends with a supernatural twist. It was sad, hilarious and tragic - the first 3 seasons were gold. The writing and acting was riveting. The three friends try to live like ordinary humans because they had consciences, but the nature of who they are is hard to shake off.
Catherine LW
2021-10-22 18:24:05 +0000 UTCMan 1: "What are you doing here? You promised never to do this kind of thing again!" Man 2: "I never promised you any such thing!" Man 1: "Not you, you twit, her." Woman: "I've never seen you before in my life!" Man 1: [pause] "Oh, sorry." The 80s were a weird time for filmmaking, that's for sure :)
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2021-10-22 18:10:50 +0000 UTCI remember seeing this movie in the 80's and loving it. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling in 1982. I always felt that the ending was apt. It's a comedy and a tragedy so it needed those tears at the end. Oh, and notice all the songs have "Moon" in them? Last Oh! Remember the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Sean Novack
2021-10-22 18:00:57 +0000 UTCI mean where else were people supposed to watch porn before home video? Though ideally with at least a good 6-seat gap between patrons (I assume - I'm not that old) Fun fact: Roger Ebert used to review X-rated "skin flicks" back in the days when the genre teetered on the edge of respectability, before plunging into the explicit porn we know today.
Robin T
2021-10-22 17:21:45 +0000 UTCI've always hated that abrupt ending as well. Such a big crescendo and then BAM, nothing.
Jack the Narrator
2021-10-22 16:39:44 +0000 UTCI agree about the ending. I wanted one more twist or catharsis or something. It's like it just ran out of ideas and stopped. But I love the idea of being haunted by his victims - very clever and hilarious. I suppose if you told the director about not knowing when to laugh, he'd probably say that was the point. Because life is like that sometimes, you know? I noticed a lot of moments like that in Saving Private Ryan, especially in the opening battle, that kindof seem played for laughs except the context is so awful. I find that very relatable, if not to that extreme.
Robin T
2021-10-22 16:13:39 +0000 UTCOh wow what a surprise! I was about 7 or 8 when I first saw this. I wasn't supposed to of course. It scared the crap out of me. I've Loved horror movies ever since.
Michael Lynch
2021-10-22 16:06:40 +0000 UTC*snicker* "Is that a thing? Porn in a movie theater?" Apparently cassie's never saw times square in the 80's
DanTheMan
2021-10-22 16:03:35 +0000 UTCYep, this, The Howling, and Silver Bullet are fantastic.
William Bryan
2021-10-22 15:56:29 +0000 UTCVery much a movie about moviecraft. Effects and makeup take center stage
Wu Sha Ling
2021-10-22 15:48:40 +0000 UTCStay on the road and out of the moars boys!! Glad you liked it Cassie! I remember my parents went to the drive in and came home talking about this when I was a kid and I couldn’t wait until I could see it
Freddy Spence
2021-10-22 15:48:11 +0000 UTCGreat Friday night film, thanks for getting this out in such a busy week!!
Jon Johns
2021-10-22 15:48:00 +0000 UTCNeato, cant sleep right now so might as well give this one a try.
David RedEagle
2021-10-22 15:47:58 +0000 UTC
