Howlingly indifferent

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

John Landis has never struck me as a talented comedy director, nor do I hold any of his work in any high regard. Though "The Blues Brothers" and "Animal House" make me laugh (not to mention a couple of Eddie Murphy comedies he helmed) yet "Into the Night" is as dull and inert as most black comedies can get, and the less said about "The Stupids" the better. Horror comedy or comedy-horror is certainly not his forte, and "An American Werewolf in London" is neither horrifying nor very comedic. Landis confuses the two so often that it is a real test of patience to consider what his intentions were.

In the opening sequence of the film, two American students, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), are walking through a deserted road across the English moors. It is deserted enough in those lonely country roads to be spooky. They arrive at some tavern where they are told to walk on the same road they came on and not go beyond it. Being that a full moon is ahead, they stray from the path and get bitten by a werewolf.

Jack dies from severe wounds yet David survives. He is kept at a hospital treated by a kind, sexy nurse (Jenny Agutter), falls in love with her and moves in with her. Unfortunately, David starts getting visits from Jack's decomposing ghost, who warns David that he will turn into a werewolf unless he kills himself. David refuses to listen, has nightmares within nightmares (the best jokey nightmare involves Nazi commandants as monsters invading David's family home), becomes a werewolf and goes on a killing spree in London, and keeps getting unwanted visits from Jack and the victims whom David kills.

The problem with "An American Werewolf in London" is that its tongue is not fairly planted on its cheek. The humor is wanting when the blood and gore take over, and there is copious amounts of both. Landis stages everything as if it was a horror movie trying to squeeze itself out of the comedy-horror film it is pretending to be. The killings are gruesome, and whatever humor there is left is supplied by Griffin Dunne (in his debut performance), who is not as funny as one might hope as the relentless cadaver.

The special-effects are well-done, as is the astonishingly good transformation sequence - easily the movie's highlight. But with pallid, indifferent characters and a highly uneven approach to the genre, "An American Werewolf in London" merely delivers a whimper. As for the abrupt ending, it is not a hoot. It is just howlingly bad.