Werewolf Flicks: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

First thing I have to say is doesn't that title sound like a comedy? I'm serious. I first heard of this movie in a little book called Monster Madness that I got when I was either twelve or thirteen. It was mentioned briefly in the section on the Wolf Man and when I saw that title, I immediately thought, "Is this a comedy?" It just seemed like a funny title. In any case, I had never heard of the film until then and over the years, I learned more and more about it from other books such as John Stanley's Creature Features movie guide, a horror film trivia quizbook that had a section on it, and even a book on special effects that I found in my high school's library. That latter book was what intrigued me because it talked specifically about the transformation and the way it was described, it sounded unlike anything I had ever seen in any werewolf movie. Obviously, I couldn't hear about this movie without learning how awesome the effects were supposed to be and how it won the very first Oscar for makeup but that was the book that talked about it in great detail. Bottom line, it sounded really cool. I finally saw a glimpse of it in a little known horror and sci-fi documentary that I received on video for my fourteenth birthday which was simply called The History of Sci-Fi and Horror. Hosted by Butch Patrick, the thing mainly consisted of Patrick talking over trailers, photographs, and movie clips with almost no actual audio from the films for most of the documentary. I saw a brief glimpse of the transformation there but with no sound and less than perfect picture quality, I wasn't able to draw anything from it. But then, that winter, I received the newest VHS release of Halloween II as a Christmas present and one of the previews before the movie was for the new DVD release of An American Werewolf in London. I saw a lot more of the movie then than I had ever seen before and what I saw looked awesome. Needless to say, that made me feel like I had to see this movie. I can't remember exactly but it was some time after that, either the following spring or the one after, when I got the VHS and finally watched the movie.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of what I had just seen when the movie was over. It's funny because I thought back to when I first saw the title and thought the movie had to be comedy because, in some instances, it was a comedy, with the songs that play on the soundtrack, David running around naked for an entire sequence, and so forth. But then, in other instances, it was an extremely violent, disturbing horror film and still, in other instances, it was a movie that was just plain weird. I didn't hate it, mind you, but again, after it was over, my mind was really struggling in processing it. However, as often happens, when I watched it more and more, I began to enjoy it more and more. I grew to appreciate the utterly macabre nature of the film overall as well as the comedy, which is very dark in some spots, and just the sheer strangeness of it too. Now, I can honestly say that I consider An American Werewolf in London to be one of the greatest werewolf movies ever, second only to the original Wolf Man.

While on a backpacking trip across England, American college students David Kessler and Jack Goodman come to a small village near the Yorkshire moors. They decide to stop at a pub called the Slaughtered Lamb but get a rather cold reception from those inside when they walk in and an even colder one later on when Jack becomes curious about a star painted on the wall. After deciding to leave, the two boys are given strange warnings from the pubgoers such as, "Stay on the road, keep clear of the moors," and, "Beware the moon." As they walk off into the night, they unknowingly stray off the road and become lost on the moors. After the full moon rises, an unearthly howl begins echoing across the moors. They try to find their way back to the Slaughtered Lamb but become all the more lost and soon realize that the howling animal is now stalking them. Eventually, they are ambushed by a large, wolf-like creature that rips Jack to pieces and mauls David but is shot to death by the villagers before it can kill him as well. David loses consciousness and awakens in a London hospital three weeks later to find that Jack is dead and that the official report is that they were attacked by an escaped lunatic. David, however, clearly remembers that their attacker was a large wolf and he begins have to a series of disturbing nightmares during his stay at the hospital. This culminates in him being visited by Jack's mutilated undead corpse, who tells him that the creature that attacked them was a werewolf and that not only will he himself become a werewolf when the full moon rises again but all of his victims will be cursed to walk the Earth as the living dead like Jack until the wolf's bloodline is severed with his death. David, however, still thinks he's suffering from the trauma of what happened to him and soon, moves in with his lovely nurse Alex. The two of them soon become lovers but Jack again appears and warns David that if he doesn't kill himself soon, he will become a werewolf. David, however, doesn't believe it and, sure enough, painfully transforms into a large, bloodthirsty wolf and goes on a killing spree in London. Now, David must make the choice whether to take his own life or go on living and murdering innocent people.

I must say that I absolutely love John Landis as a personality. This guy just seems like such a fun, energetic, wise-cracking guy, like somebody you'd want to spend an afternoon with hanging out and talking movies. Moreover, you can tell in both the film itself and in interviews that he absolutely loves the horror genre. Before I saw the movie, when I first found out that most of his filmography consists of comedies like Animal House and The Blues Brothers, I wondered if he did this film simply as a lark but nope, he grew up watching the classic horror films as a kid, just like me, and still has a passion for it to this day. It's remarkable and, like I said, I think his love for the genre really comes through in this film. Now, yes, the guy has had some ups and downs in his career and life, the lowest point being that horrible mistake he made on Twilight Zone: The Movie that resulted in the deaths of Vic Morrow and two kids and while that was indeed horrible and Landis should take some responsibility, I still feel that he's a sincerely good guy. I just can't hate somebody who's so cheerful and loves horror films as well as the world of cinema at large as much as he does.

There are two big reasons why I think the film is as effectively disturbing as it is. One is that the two leads, David Naughton and Griffin Dunne, are very likable in their respective roles. These are two funny, charming guys who remind you of the roommates that you had in college. They're not looking for trouble or anything. They're just on a fun, sightseeing trip in a country that they've never been to before and neither of them deserve the horrific fate that befalls them. That's the other reason I think the movie is very effective. They're in a strange land, far from their friends and families and not only do they encounter something that neither of them believe in at all but also by the end of the movie, it has destroyed both of their lives. Basically, it gives you pause in letting someone you know go off to a strange place because, as what happens here, they might not come back. There are two scenes that hammer this feeling home for me. One is the dream that David has where he's at home with his parents and younger brother and sister and suddenly, a bunch of Nazi demons (or whatever those things are called) burst in, slaugher his family, and destroy his home before ultimately killing him. And not only that but it's one of those double dreams where a Nazi demon appears and kills Alex as well. That to me shows how something he cannot possibly comprehend has entered his life and, if he lets it, will destroy everyone that he loves (like if he ignores his werewolfism and goes on home, which would lead to him changing and killing his family). The other scene, and this one gets me even more, is when he calls his home and tells his little sister Rachel to tell their parents as well as their younger brother Max that he loves them all. He also has to lie to her and say that he's, "all better now," and he even has one last playful little tiff with her, saying, "No, I'm not being silly, you little creep!" It's just so heartbreaking in many ways. He knows he'll never see his family again and this is the last time he'll ever have that type of argument with his little sister. Also, I find it really tragic that he didn't get to say goodbye to either of his parents, that they last time he ever spoke to them was before he left for England. And who knows if Rachel will give them the message? Since she's a little kid, she may just think her older brother is being silly and not tell them it properly or not at all or she could just plain forget. It's a depressing thought, even more so when you realize that Jack never got a chance to say goodbye to his family and David got a chance but missed his parents. On top of that, judging from David's being informed that both his parents and Jack's parents have been informed of his current condition and Jack saying that David's parents came to his funeral, it seems like both families were very close and the events of this movie no doubt did some incredible damage to both of them. Basically, like John Landis himself has said, this is very much a horror film and, the gore and makeup effects aside, the most horrific side of it to me is the emotional despair prevalent throughout.

As I said up above, David Naughton is very likable in the lead role of David Kessler. He's simply a decent, charismatic American kid who seems to find the prospect of exploring a country that he's never been to before exciting, while his friend Jack is blase about the whole thing and only cares about having sex with a girlfriend he's meeting later on. He's the one who's really polite to those inside of the Slaughtered Lamb when they walk in, despite the icy reception they get, and he also has enough tact not to ask something that not's any of their business, like the purpose of the pentagram on the wall. Once Jack asks about it and the pub becomes completely silent as a result, he knows that it's time for them to leave. If I have one complaint about David, it's that when Jack is attacked by the werewolf, he at first runs off and it takes a long period of Jack screaming his head off before he finally runs back to help him. Now, granted, he was sincerely horrified when he saw Jack's mutilated body but still, if you think about it, Jack's death and his getting turned into a werewolf is his own fault (although, if he had tried to help Jack, then one of several things would have happened: Jack would have become a werewolf and David would have been killed and become one of the undead, both of them would have become werewolves, or both of them would have become the undead so I guess they were screwed no matter what David did). In any case, you have to feel really bad for David once he regains consciousness in the London hospital. He finds out that his best friend is dead, the police are treating him like he doesn't know what he's talking about and insist that he and Jack were attacked by a maniac and not an animal, he begins having disturbing nightmares, and, again, all of this is happening to him while he's stuck as a stranger in a strange land. The worst part of all is when Jack's reanimated corpse begins appearing to him, looking more and more decomposed each time, and continues to warn him that he will become a werewolf the next time the full moon rises. With all of this bizarre and horrifying stuff happening to him, David isn't sure if he's losing his mind or what. The only good thing that comes into his life is Alex, his nurse, whom he falls in love with and begins living with at her apartment in London, where they have a nice, passionate romance. But soon, even that is taken away from him when he realizes that he is, indeed, a werewolf and that he must take his own life before he kills more people, including her. At least with Alex, he gets a chance to tell her that he loves her before he leaves her. It's still sad because that's the last time she sees him, unless you count the ending of the movie where she walks up to him in the alley when he's a full-blown werewolf. While there is a hint that there's still a bit of David in there when she tells him that she loves him, that doesn't last long when he lunges at her and the police shoot him dead. So, that moment when he ran away from her was truly the last time she saw the man she loved. Again, not a happy story in the slightest!

Griffin Dunne's role of Jack Goodman is a character that has several distinct sides to him. At the beginning of the movie, he's the real wise-cracker of the pair, making sarcastic remarks about everything around him and coming off as rather uninterested in the country he's traveling through. He's the one who's initially rather freaked out by how eccentric the Slaughtered Lamb is, both in regards to its exterior and the people inside. He really knows that something is up when he says the pentagram (or pentangle, as he refers to it) on the wall. He shows that he has maybe a slight interest in the macabre since he knows that the pentagram is used in black magic and he's also the one who makes the connection between it and werewolf lore (when it comes to the movies, anyways). He makes a big mistake when he asks out loud what the star is for, causing all activity in the pub to cease. Jack is more than happy to leave when David prompts him to, feeling more uncomfotable now than he ever did before. I like how even when he's freaked out by what happened in the pub and is scared to death when they hear the werewolf howling, he's still making his wise-cracks. Thinking, or rather hoping, that the creature that's circling them in the darkness is nothing more than a large dog, they turn around and walk the other way, with Jack going, "Walking away. Yes, here we are, walking away." However, Jack is soon attacked and ripped to shreds by the werewolf and three weeks after he's buried back in America, he appears to David in the form of a reanimated corpse. It just cracks me up how when he first appears to David with his throat ripped open and his face mangled, the first thing he says is, "Can I have a piece of toast?" Moreover, instead of immediately getting to the matter at hand, he decides to shoot the breeze for a little bit, telling David that a lot of people came to his funeral and that his ex-girlfriend found a new lover immediately afterward. When he mentions who it was that she went to, he comments, "An asshole! Life mocks me even in death." Even after he's dead, Jack is still Jack. He's still making his wise-cracks, like when he appears to David the second time, sees that he's been sleeping with Alex, and comments, "A nurse, huh?" or when he picks up the Mickey Mouse toy in Alex's living room, waves its hand at David, and imitates Mickey's voice while saying, "Hi, David!" You got to love the dark humor of a mutilated and gradually decomposing corpse, moreover that of the protagonist's best friend, doing and saying these things.

However, even though Jack is still funny when he becomes back as a corpse, there's a very palpable feeling of sadness and melancholy about him in these appearances. He talks about his experience in being in limbo and how much of a depressing, awful existence it is. His line, "You ever talk to a corpse? It's boring!" is funny but it also shows how miserable he is, hammering it home by following it up with, "I'm lonely." There's also a sense of sad irony about the fact that he's discovered that what he and David mocked back in the village of East Proctor is real in the most horrific way possible. He tells David, "The supernatural, the power of darkness? It's all true. The undead surround me." Dunne says this stuff in a very melancholy tone, particularly in his warning that if David doesn't take his own life before he becomes a werewolf, he'll curse more people to endure the torture that Jack is going through. The way he tells David to beware the moon the first time he appears to him in the hospital is particularly ominous. Finally, it all culminates when David meets Jack for the final time in the porno theater. By this point, not only has Jack's body horribly deteriorated but so has his spirit. Even though he still has his sarcastic wit, it feels more melancholy than ever before, like his experiences in limbo and David's failure to listen to him have just made him dead in every sense of the word. Listen to the way he tells him, "I did tell you so, you schmuck" or, "Oh, be serious, would you?" The only real emotion that's coming through him now is slight annoyance towards David. Otherwise, he just doesn't seem to give a shit about anything, even when it comes to keeping David from killing more people. Maybe that's why he had them meet in a porno theater. He hoped it would put some life back into him! In any case,  we can assume David's eventual death does finally set Jack and everyone else free from their limbo (that is, unless you count the slight link between this film and An American Werewolf in Paris as a continuation).

Of the main characters, the one that I'm not exactly sure how to feel about is Jenny Agutter as Alex Price, David's nurse and eventual lover. Now, Agutter is a very lovely woman and plays the part well, coming across as genuinely caring and loving David. But the problem I have is one that I've heard others comment on: their relationship is sporadic to say the least. Let's break it down. David has been at the hospital for three weeks but has been unconscious for most of the time. The only interactions between the two of them are her helping to sedate David when he becomes hysterical upon waking, having to force-feed him to make him take some medicine even when he insists that he's not hungry, and keeping him company late at night when he tells Dr. Hirsch that he'd rather not be alone. Now, granted, she did seem concerned for him when he calls out in his sleep in her introductory scene and they do become acquainted enough to where they start calling each other by their first names but that hardly counts as any indication of something major on the horizon. While we can see that David is becoming enamored with her, she doesn't seem to have the same feelings until much later. While he does sporadically kiss her when she checks on him after he becomes hysterical due to Jack's first visit, she seems just as surprised and confused as anybody else would be when it's over. She offers him a place to stay when she learns that he doesn't have anywhere to go once he's released from the hospital but I find that to be more out of genuine concern for his well-being. When they get to her apartment, she does admit that she finds him attractive but passively resists his advances toward her. And then, the next thing you know, they're taking a shower together and having sex afterward. The first time I saw this movie, that threw me for a loop. I was wondering if I missed something because it was so unexpected. Now, the scene itself is very passionate and romantic, made all the more so by the accompaniment of the song Moon Dance, but, again, it's just so out of left-field. I don't have a problem buying the fact that there is a connection between the two of them for the rest of the movie because they play it very well but if I had my druthers, I would have liked it to have been developed more. Something else that I just thought of. To the end of the movie, Alex believes that David's thinking about being a werewolf and that Jack is visiting him from beyond the grave is all in his head, even when he runs away from her so he won't harm her the next time he changes. And yet, when Dr. Hirsch comes to her that night and tells her that there's a disturbance in Picadilly Circus involving a mad dog or something of that nature, she immediately says, "David!" Moreover, when they arrive at the scene, Alex runs down the alley where David has trapped himself and talks to this big, snarling wolf like she knows for sure that it is David. What, now she believes he's a werewolf? What made her change her mind? And what if she's wrong? Of course, we know that wolf is David but how does she? For all she knows, this could just be a wolf that escaped from the zoo so she could be risking getting bitten in half for nothing! Again, it doesn't ruin the movie for me but it's another aspect of Alex's character that feels very rushed and underdeveloped.

One character that I really like is John Woodvine as Dr. Hirsch, the doctor who treats David at the hospital. At first, he's mainly a stern authority figure who puts the nurses in their place, like when he says to Nurse Gallagher, "Surely you perform some function here at the hospital? Then get on with it," and right after that when, in a less stern voice though, he also tells Alex to go about her duties. He's more understanding with David, knowing that he's been through something horrible (I like the slightly disapproving way he looks at Inspector Villiers when he's arrogantly telling David they don't believe his story), but, of course, simply believes that his insistence that he and Jack were attacked by an animal rather than a maniac comes from somebody who's severely traumatized. The one line from him that I don't really like, though, is when he says to David, "Please, remain sane... at least, until you're no longer our responsibility." Not a very good beside manner, basically saying, "We're only nursing you back to health because it's our job. What you do when you get out of here is your business." But, in any case, he is sympathetic enough to have Alex keep David company when he says he doesn't feel comfortable being alone. Where he starts to become a truly likable character is when he decides to investigate David's werewolf claims by going to the village of East Proctor himself. While there, he sees enough strange behavior from the villagers to tell him that they are, indeed, hiding something. While he still doesn't believe in werewolves at this point, it's clear that he has become genuinely concerned about David, worrying that his belief that he's a werewolf might lead him to harm other people. He realizes just how severe it is when he discovers that six people were ferociously killed and mutilated that night. Again, I don't think he believes that David is a werewolf at this point but he does believe he's very disturbed and asks Alex to bring him to the hospital so he can care for him. Like I said with Alex, I'm not sure when Dr. Hirsch decided to believe that David is a werewolf. Maybe the newspaper and television reports that the murder victims were found half-eaten as well as Inspector Villiers saying that the forensics people believe that an animal was probably involved convinced him, as well as Alex, that there was more to this than they originally believed. He obviously does believe it when he comes straight to Alex and tells her about the incident going on that involves a mad dog or something similar. (Even if that is the answer, I still don't think Alex should have stupidly gone up to something that could just be a dangerous animal and not David.) Whenever he became convinced, I like that Hirsch started out as a stern authority figure but grew into somebody who genuinely cared about David and wanted to help him. But, as with Alex, his efforts ultimately proved futile.

There are some pretty interesting characters that frequent the Slaughtered Lamb pub. The most memorable one for me is Brian Glover as the chess player. At first, he comes across as just a rather jolly jokester, telling everyone in the pub a joke about a crashing plane. It's obvious he does this often due to the reaction everyone gives him when he starts to tell the joke: they're not too enthused at first but soon, they let him go along with it. He gets a pretty big laugh for a joke that I don't think was that funny but it's clear everybody in the pub likes him and his jokes. But his demeanor, like everyone else's, completely changes when Jack asks about the pentagram on the wall. He seems to be the one most willing to get them out of the pub as quick as possible. Even though he does give them the vague warning, "Beware the moon, lads," he doesn't let them stay or tell them what the pentagram was for so the world wouldn't, "know our business," as he says. He's willing to let two innocent people get killed to keep the secret and he even goes so far as to act like he doesn't hear the werewolf howling when he obviously does. He just feels, "It's in God's hands, now." He's especially hostile when, later in the movie, Dr. Hirsch appears at the pub and asks questions about what happened to David and Jack on the moors. Once he learns that Hirsch isn't a police officer, he angrily resists his questions, eventually telling him, "There's nothing for you here, sir." He also makes sure that nobody else tells Hirsch the truth, angrily shouting at the dart player, "That's enough!" when the latter tries to do so (the way Glover yelled that was awesome as well). I kind of wish the movie had gone back to him one last time because I wanted to learn more about him. In any case, he's a memorable character.

Not everybody at the Slaughtered Lamb is as cold as the chess player is. The barmaid (Lila Kaye) isn't that kind to David and Jack when they first enter the pub, shooting down every one of their drink requests in a rather irritated tone, but she's the one who tries to make the pubgoers stop them from leaving, knowing the danger they will be in. Over and over again, she says, "You just can't let them go!" and she even tells the chess player that he could have told them truth (although, as the dart player says, they probably would have just thought they were all crazy), She becomes all the more distressed when she hears the werewolf howling in the distance, saying, "We must go to them!" It's probably because of her that the villagers eventually do go out and kill the werewolf, even if it was too little, too late. However, she keeps quiet about what happened when Dr. Hirsch is investigating the attack, only answering his question about the pentagram on the wall and even then, lying about it. I guess she figures she has no reason to tell Hirsch the truth so she just decides to keep quiet, especially with the chess player's ever watchful eye on everyone in the pub. The most conflicted pubgoer is the dart player (David Schofield). He's the first one to become hostile towards David and Jack when the latter's question about the pentagram causes him to miss the dartboard, saying he's never missed it before. He also insists to them to go but he warns them to stay on the road. He keeps going back and forth after the two leave, telling the chess player that letting them leave is murder and also ignoring the werewolf's howls like the former is. I think in truth, he didn't want them to leave but seems to be a very impressionable person, going along with the chess player given the authority he appears to have over everyone else in the pub. He was right, though, when he told the barmaid that telling David and Jack why they shouldn't leave would have been foolish because they would have just thought they're insane. Later, when Dr. Hirsch comes along, the dart player feigns ignorance like everyone else, denying the attack. But after Hirsch says that he works in the hospital where David was brought, the dart player clearly begins to panic and gets up to leave, saying he wants to check on his dogs. The chess player, either knowing what he's trying to do or feels that it will make him look suspicious, angrily says, "The dogs are fine!" The dart player goes out anyway and later, meets with Hirsch privately to warn him about what's really happening. No doubt by this point, he feels extremely guilty for having let David leave the pub and I also feel that Hirsch's statement that David was taken to a London hospital and nursed back to health made him realize that a lot of other people are going to be slaughtered if something isn't done. He tries to tell Hirsch the truth but is chased away by the chess player before he can do so, only giving the doctor some rather cryptic warnings. Like the chess player, I'd like to know what happened to him afterward.

Some other notable characters include the two cops, Inspector Villiers and Sergeant McManus, who take on the investigation of what happened to David. Villiers (Don McKillop) is by the far more unlikable of the two. He's an arrogant prick of an inspector who shoots down David's assertion that he and Jack were attacked by an animal rather than a man and tells him that as far as they are concerned, the case is closed. He's also reluctant to think that David killed the six people the first night of the full moon but he does agree to find David when he's reported missing (I love how Dr. Hirsch puts Villiers in his place in this scene, saying, "Regardless of what you think, Inspector, the fact remains that David is missing!") On top of that, he's an absolute asshole to Sergeant MacManus, getting onto him for everything. When they first meet with Dr. Hirsch, he asks them if they'd like some tea. Whereas Villiers declines, MacManus says that he'd like some tea but for some reason, Villiers shoots him this nasty look that makes him say, "Maybe not, no thanks. Maybe later." He shoots MacManus the same look when he speaks before he can in this same scene, like he's supposed to be the one who talks first. Worst of all is when he degrades MacManus, when the former says that David looks to be in his right mind and not someone suffering from trauma. He says, "Inspector, the boy seems all right to me and..." with Villiers saying, "And what, Sergeant?" MacManus sheepishly says, "And I don't rightly no, sir," with a smug Villiers responding, "That is precisely my point." What a dick. It's really satisfying when the werewolf bites Villiers' head off when he bursts out of the porno theater. While Villiers is very arrogant, MacManus (Paul Kember) is much more sympathetic and understanding. He's clumsy, mind you, knocking over something in Dr. Hirsch's office when the latter is on the phone and quickly scrambling to put it back together, but, as I said, he's the one who is open-mind to David's insistence on what he really happened to him and Jack, saying, "Two strong boys would be able to defend themselves against one man." Near the climax when Hirsch and Alex implore the police to find David, MacManus is the one who reassures Alex that they will find him, whereas Villiers didn't do anything of the sort, just loudly stating, "We will find him, I can assure you of that!" I'm really glad that MacManus wasn't killed by the werewolf as well because that would have just been way too cruel.

Frank Oz, who often appears in John Landis' movies, has a brief role as Mr. Collins, who works at the American embassy in London. He comes across as sympathetic towards David, informing him that both his parents and Jack's parents know what has happened, but when David becomes hysterical, he gets downright offended. His last line is, "These dumbass kids, they never appreciate anything you do for them." Of course, there are the London citizens whom David murders in his first night as a werewolf. I like how Harry Berman (Geoffrey Burridge) and Judith Browns (Brenda Cavendish), the couple whom David kills first, are still all smiley and happy even when they're among the undead. I guess it's because they're still together but they're just so enthusiastic and giddy, including when they're suggesting ways that David can take his own life in the porno theater. It's hilarious. The three bums, Alf (Sydney Bromley), Ted (Frank Singuineau), and Joseph (Will Leighton), on the other hand, are the ones who are the most vicious to David when they meet him as the undead, with Alf opening with, "Can't say we're pleased to meet you, Mr. Kessler!" Ted is especially angry, seeing as how when Jack tells David that he shouldn't hang himself because he could end up painfully choking to death, he yells, "So what? Let him choke!" And then there's Gerald Bringsley (Michael Carter), whom David murdered in the subway. He's the one I feel most sorry for because he lost the most, saying, "You've left my wife a widow, and my children fatherless." He's not the angriest of them all, but is rather weary and bitter towards what David has done to him, saying he must die so he can be at peace and gives him suicide advice with an air of just wishing he would do it already. You can't tell me it's not a memorable scene. Two more things I have to mention are a couple of the kid actors in this movie. The boy with the balloons (Rufus Deakin) is memorable for the classic line, "A naked American man stole my balloons." The way he said it made it all the more funny, especially with how that woman said, "What?" Finally, there's this kid Benjamin (Colin Fernandes)that Alex is charged with taking care of. He's this weird little kid who only says, "No!" whenever he's asked something. I've never understood what was with this kid. Obviously, there's something wrong with him since he's in a hospital but is that why, because he's mentally challenged and only says that one word or something? If that's the case, shouldn't he be in a nursing home? I don't know, I get caught up on weird things in some movies.

While people tend to draw a lot of comparisons between An American Werewolf in London and The Howling, in reality they're two vastly different movies. While The Howling was a satarical, in joke-filled way of bringing the werewolf myth into the modern day, American Werewolf is trying to tell a more traditional werewolf story in the style of the classic films of yester-year, albeit with new some new twists to it and still set in the 1980's. Now, there are some things they do share. One is the juxtaposition between the traditional setting for this type of film and the fact that it's still taking place in the modern age. In this case, it's the windswept moors where the film begins and the setting of modern-day London where it ends. However, whereas the wooded area of the Colony in The Howling was more akin to a fairy tales and classic stories like Little Red Riding Hood, the moors fall more into the tradition of the Gothic horror films of the 30's and 40's. And the small village of East Proctor is right in the tradition of all the little villages that plagued by monsters in those movies like Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and the Hammer films. I will say that the first time I saw the movie, its depiction of London threw me off a little. I think a factor was that after seeing all of those classic, black and white horror films of the 30's and 40's where London is treated as a city where everybody is either posh, wearing tuxedos, going to fancy dinner parties, and saying stuff like, "I say," "Spot of bother," and the like or Cockney, lower class pubgoers, I was unprepared for it to be treated like a real city. While most of its citizens are much more respectable than those in most American cities, London still has its seedy elements like the porno theater in Picadilly Circus, stuff on the TV like that woman Nina Carter talking about her sexual exploits, and other things like Nurse Gallagher deciding to have a look at David's nether-regions while he was unconscious. Still, despite those seedy elements, London isn't treated like a dangerous, sleazy city as Los Angeles was in The Howling (but then again, both of these depictions are true to life so there it is). In fact, the only time it becomes dangerous is when David becomes a werewolf and prowls the streets for victims. Another thing I picked up on in the film's depiction of London and England as well is that there are some instances of apparent xenophobia. The most obvious one is the reception David and Jack get at the Slaughtered Lamb. Now while that could be attributed to the idea that the little, isolated village doesn't get many visitors, when Dr. Hirsch arrives at the pub later on, the people inside take not of his presence but then immediately go back to their business rather than staring at him for a long period. Also, even though we know that Inspector Villiers is just an asshole all-around, I can't help but feel that his dismissal of David's claims come from the notion that he's American and his outrageous "fantasies" shouldn't be taken seriously. Maybe it's just me but I've always felt that way. Finally, there are some things about the depiction of Londoners here that is just... odd. The example that immediately comes to mind is when Harry Berman and Judith Browns are attacked by the werewolf and a woman looks out the window while he's ripping them apart. She says, "Shawn, those hooligans are in the park again." And after that, she says, "There's something going on out there." Uh, lady, do you not comprehend that a big wolf is tearing two people apart out there? I know it's dark but what the hell does she think she's seeing?Moreover, the guy Shawn goes outside to look and eventually steps on a severed arm. All he does is just look back up with an expression that kind of says, "Oh, wow." I know he's probably drunk but I would still think if you saw something of that nature, you'd have a stronger reaction than that. And I've already mentioned that kid Alex takes care of. Don't get me wrong, I still love this film but there are some things about it that puzzle me.

One thing that The Howling and An American Werewolf in London share through and through is the notion that in this day and age, everyone knows what a werewolf due to the movies. Not only does Jack know that the pentagram is used in witchcraft but, having seen The Wolf Man, he immediately connects it to werewolves and is, therefore, curious to know why it's painted on the wall of the pub. There's also an interesting thing about which movies people who live in England are more likely to have seen. When David asks Alex is she's ever seen The Wolf Man, she asks him, "Is that the one with Oliver Reed?" She's thinking of The Curse of the Werewolf, a 1961 film from England's Hammer Studios, which, naturally, is the one she's more likely to have seen. After Dr. Hirsch investigates David's claim of being attacked by a werewolf, he has a conversation with Alex where he talks about how if David had survived an attack by a werewolf, then he would become one himself during the next full moon. Now, he's saying this to explain how he feels that the beliefs of the people in East Proctor could influence David and make him merely think he is a werewolf when the full moon rises but still, Hirsch didn't need to do any deep investigation into werewolf lore to know what a werewolf is. Finally, as in The Howling, there's a hint of the idea that because of the movies, everyone thinks they know all the rules of werewolves. When David, Jack, and David's victims from the night before are discussing how he could commit suicide, one of them proposes that he shoot himself. David asks the logical question, "Don't I need a silver bullet or something?" Jack just shirks it off by saying, "Oh, be serious, would you?" Silver bullets are purely an invention of the movies, from Curt Siodmak, the screenwriter of The Wolf Man. They've never been part of real werewolf lore. As shown by David being shot to death by police officers with normal ammunition, "real" werewolves can be brought down by any means necessary.

Since it's directed by a guy whose filmography mainly consists of comedy, there was no way this movie was going to come out without having some funny stuff in it. A lot of the humor in the first act of the movie comes from Jack's remarks about their surroundings and at the beginning when he and David are talking about his intention to have sex with his girl. I like when they first arrive at the Slaughtered Lamb, Jack looks at the pub's advertisement that shows a wolf's head on a poker and asks, "Where's the lamb?" The joke the chess player tells in the pub is one of the broadest examples of humor in the movie. Landis has said that he likes people telling jokes in movies but even so, although I get the joke, I still think the reaction it gets from everyone in the pub is rather excessive. And as I mentioned earlier, I like David and Jack's reactions to the werewolf howling in the distance, particularly Jack's. When they first hear the howl, Jack ponders what it was and David says, "It could be a lot of things." Jack looks at him and goes, "Yeah?" David after a moment says, "A coyote." "There aren't any coyotes in England." "The Hound of the Baskervilles?" "Pecos Bill." "Heathcliff." "Heathcliff didn't howl!" "No, but he was on the moors." You can tell that they don't want to admit to themselves that it's a wolf that they hear. Also, the two of them realize it's a full moon and they remember the warning, "Beware the moon and stick to the road." It then hits them that they've wondered off the road and David just goes, "Oops." Even though they're lost in the dark and that howling creature is getting closer and closer, David still manages to let out some humor, albeit nervous humor, saying, "That's it, a nice stroll on the moors. Tra la la la la! Isn't this fun?" Of course, this humor is tempered by Jack getting slaughtered by the wolf but we'll get into that later.

After the start of the second act, the humor gets both darker and more outrageous. We have the bumbling Sergeant MacManus knocking a bunch of stuff over in Dr. Hirsch's office and scrambling to put it back up as quickly as possible; a stereotypical Hispanic (I think he's Hispanic) orderly who talks fast and when Alex questions him about what condition David is in, he says, "I'm an orderly, not a bloody psychiatrist! I push things around!"; and the horrific double nightmare that David has about the Nazi demons is tempered by him waking up with a start and saying exactly what the audience is thinking: "Holy shit!" The macabre humor comes from David's interactions with Jack's reanimated corpse and later with those of his victims. It's both hideous to see Jack walking around and talking to David while he's torn to shreds while continuing to decompose and yet, it's darkly funny since Jack is still himself. He's not the moaning spirit you would expect him to be. His first line to David when he appears to him is the casual, "Can I have a piece of toast?" That's hilarious and unexpected as well. Jack is also wise-cracking about how life is mocking him even in death with his girlfriend running to someone else right after his funeral. He even describes how miserable being in limbo is in a funny way with the fabulous, "You ever talk to a corpse?" line. The scene in the porno theater is especially funny when the full-scope of what's going on hits you. You have David sitting there with Jack, who is now basically a skeleton, and the corpses of his victims from the previous night, who are all covered in blood, discussing how David can take his own life. As I said earlier, the various moods the corpses are in make it even more interesting, particularly in how giddy and happy the couple is, even when they're giving David suicide suggestions. Jack admonishing that one bum for saying, "So what? Let him choke!" when he says why David shouldn't hang himself is also funny because, as Landis himself says, it's like, "I brought you hear to suggest ways he can kill himself but you don't have to be rude about it!" Anyway, all of this would be funny enough but, again, it's taking place in a porno theater and during the entire scene, you can hear porn music playing and the woman in the film moaning in ecstacy. It's such a huge contrast that it's quite funny when you really think about it. It goes even further when David starts to transform into the werewolf again in the theater and he sees some guy standing there and staring at him while he's moaning and convulsing. I didn't pick up on this the first time I saw the movie but I now realize that the guy thinks David is having an orgasm. Basically, it's making fun of the age-old metaphor that a werewolf transformation is like going through puberty and unleashing the wild, animalistic, sexual side of a person! That's quite brilliant. The macabre contrast with the porno playing is also taken a little further as it continues playing while David kills several people in the theater.

There's some other nice bits of humor like when David and Alex are riding on the subway at one point and David starts making weird faces at Alex while they're crammed in-between these outlandishly decorated people like skin-heads and the like. It's a minor moment but I always thought it was kind of funny personally. There's also the sequence where David ends up getting locked out of the flat after seeing Alex off to work and has to get in through the window. He tries to watch TV but there's basically nothing on except really boring stuff like a dart-throwing tournament (God, you'd have to be desperate to watch that) and that aforementioned advertisement for the program where Nina Carter is going to reveal all of her outlandish sexual exploits. Then there's this whole sequence where he's sitting around the apartment bored, trying to lay on the bed, trying to read, and trying to get something to eat but he can't keep himself preoccupied long enough, all set to Bad Moon Rising. However, as we'll get into later, while funny I think it suggests that something more sinister is afoot. There's even a bit of humor during the transformation where David, recalling an insult he threw at Jack earlier, says, "I didn't mean to call you a meatloaf, Jack!" There are two more sequences of humor that I feel I must point out. One is very blatant: it's when David wakes up naked at the zoo after his first night as a werewolf and has to get back to Alex's apartment. It's cheap humor, granted, with a naked guy running around the zoo and trying to avoid people but it's still funny, I think, like when he accidentally walks right in front of this elderly woman and then takes some balloons from that little kid to cover himself up (the loud squeak the balloons make when David runs behind this bench while grabbing this woman's coat always makes me smirk), which leads to that classic line that kid says to that woman. The bit where he's waiting for a bus while wearing that coat and the guy behind him is staring at him is also nice. And finally, I feel have to mention a bit that I think gets overlooked, which is when David, now realizing that he is indeed a werewolf, tries to get this bobby to arrest him. However, no matter what he does, the bobby won't do it. He uses strong language and when the bobby tells him there's no call for that, he decides to insult various revered English people: "Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare's French!" (The Prince Charles one nearly causes me to lose it every time, not only because of what he said but how he said it.) The bobby then tells him, "If you don't stop this disturbance, I shall arrest you!" David yells, "That's what I want you to do, you moron!" This whole time, Alex is trying to discredit David's claims, saying that he's just upset and the two keep arguing back and forth. When the bobby finally just tells the two of them to go about their business, David is so dumbfounded that he goes up to this poor woman and says, "Don't you think he should arrest me?" The woman just says, "Well, I don't know! Perhaps he thinks it's a prank!" David then screams, "You people are crazy!" This whole scenario just kills me because if you did something like that here in the States, you'd be arrested like that but David, who wants to get arrested, just can't do it no matter what! And as a final funny footnote to it all, later when Dr. Hirsch and Alex are meeting with the police, Alex tells Inspector Villiers that David tried to get himself arrested, to which Villiers responds, "Well, getting arrested isn't all that difficult." Buddy, you obviously don't know crap!

Like The Howling, the mythology that this film creates for the werewolf keeps some old traditions, dispenses with others, and creates some new ones. This film keeps the typical lore of the werewolf being an uncontrollable curse that takes shape whenever the full moon rises. In this film, though, we get to see just how unpleasant and agonizingly painful the transformation. Not only does the change itself look unbearable but David's screaming throughout it punctuates the feeling of pain even more so. Even more disturbing is that you can hear as well as see David losing his humanity, with his voice growing deeper and deeper until by the end of the transformation, he's howling and roaring. It's freaky to say the least. Going back and watching the movie for a second time brings to mind the idea that when the full moon is rising from behind the clouds at the beginning of the movie, the same exact same thing is happening to the man who is the first werewolf and when you hear him howling in the distance, it means that his transformation has just ended and he's now roaming the moors. I've also heard some complaints about the werewolves in this movie being quadrupeds instead of the traditional bipedal type. Even Rick Baker wanted it to be a biped but John Landis insisted on the, "four legged hound from hell," concept that he had come up with. Personally, I've never had a problem with the four-legged werewolf. A werewolf is a werewolf to me, no matter how many legs it's standing on. And, as I mentioned earlier, the werewolves in this movie can be killed by ordinary bullets instead of those made of silver. We also how David's being a werewolf affects him while he's still human. When David is locked outside of the apartment, several pets that he comes across bark and hiss at him, and when he wakes up in the zoo the following morning, all of the animals are going crazy. This has been a staple of werewolf movies from the very beginning, that animals can sense what the afflicted really is. I mentioned that entire sequence of David sitting around the apartment, restless and seemingly unable to keep still. While this is meant as a comedic section with Bad Moon Rising playing over it and whatnot, as I said earlier, I think there's a sense of something more insidious going along. The key to that comes when David seems to impulsively open the refrigerator and reach for some food, only to stop himself and say out loud, "I'm not hungry." He even goes back to it again later, once again realizing that he's not hungry. I personally think this is a sign that the werewolf is already beginning to assert itself and take control of him, causing him to do things impulsively. I also see his restlessness and inability to keep still as a sign that he's become infused with the energy and stamina of a wolf and feels kind of caged. Heck, I think even the song itself, with it being about bad things coming as well as just the title, is there to tell us that something is building. And the transformation takes place right after this sequence, so I think that should say something as well. The next day, when David gets back to Alex's apartment, he suddenly become very amorous and starts making out with Alex. He later tells her that he feels awesome and he's jumping around like crazy while doing so. Again, there's the wolf-side talking. It makes him energetic as well as crave for sex with Alex, again going back to the idea that the werewolf is the id run wild (although the way it's characterized is a bit different from how it was in The Howling).

The werewolf has a strange effect on David's psyche in the form of the bizarre nightmares he has while he's in the hospital. They allude to what he'll eventually become but, since they're dreams, they're much more abstract and non-specific. They consist of David running naked through the forest and then proceeding to stalk, kill, and eat a deer; a very strange one where David is running through the woods again, this time fully clothed, and sees an image of himself in the hospital bed in the middle of the woods which, in a quick shot, is shown to have pale skin, yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and snarls at Alex; and, of course, the infamous Nazi demon nightmare. I cannot tell you what was going through my mind when I first saw that. I was just like, "What in the hell?!" That just comes right out of nowhere and is a bat-shit crazy, chaotic scene with David's parents and siblings getting shot to death, his house trashed and set on a fire, and finally his throat being slashed, which causes him to "wake up." And then, you find out he's still asleep because a Nazi demon suddenly comes through the window when Alex opens the curtain and stabs her to death. That's when David wakes up for real. (John Landis has said that he took that from the Luis Bunuel film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie but a lot of other people must rip that off too because I've seen that done many other times in movies.) As I mentioned earlier, this scene is not only unexpected but also as horrific as you can get, showing that David's life is about to become a living nightmare and this is what will happen if he goes home to America or stays with Alex now that he's a werewolf. And, finally, there's the concept that all of the victims of a werewolf's bloodline, that being the passing of the curse from one person to the other, are doomed to walk the Earth in limbo until the bloodline is severed by the current werewolf being killed before it can pass the curse on which, needless to say, brings the werewolf to an even more sinister level.

The characters, acting, and interesting twists on the lore aside, An American Werewolf in London is most remembered for its makeup effects and for good reason. There's a lot of ground-breaking stuff in her and most of it is still amazing to look at to this day. Rick Baker was really getting a chance to show off with this flick and his hard work would result in his winning the first ever Oscar for makeup, which would launch his career into the stratosphere. To start off with, there's a lot of gore in this movie and it's all the more noticeable to how rich the color of the blood is, slightly akin to the blood in the Hammer films. The first death, which is Jack getting ripped apart by the werewolf on the moors, is not only gruesome with the visual of his clothes and then his flesh getting ripped apart as well as the violent biting and gnawing of the wolf but Griffin Dunne's screaming makes it all the more disturbing. There's also a brief but hideous shot of his mutilated body lying on the ground. Incidentally, I think the werewolf here actually looks better than the one that David becomes later in the movie. I know you only see brief, quick glimpses of it and if the camera lingered on it, it would probably look fake but from what I can tell of the design, I like it more than the ultimate werewolf, which we'll get into later. And I have to say, I feel really bad for the guy who had to lay there naked with big bullet holes attached to his body in order to show that the werewolf had turned back into the man he was. I know for a fact it was cold as crap when they filmed that so I hoped that guy got paid extra for that bit.

That dream sequence of David stalking and killing that deer is brief but, like all the rest of the violence in the film, it is shocking. I can never tell which part of the deer he holds up and takes a bite out of after he kills it but that image of him doing so while naked and covered with blood is pretty hideous nevertheless. And then there's that extremely brief shot of him with that pale-faced makeup in the second dream sequence that I went into earlier. It's only on-screen for a split second but the first time I saw this movie, that made me about hit the ceiling when he opened his eyes and let out that jaguar-like growl at Alex. Those Nazi demons caught me off-guard even more when they showed up in the third dream. Not only was their appearance unexpected but I wasn't sure what they were supposed to be, if they were meant to be werewolves or something else completely. Sure, one does look like a typical werewolf with the furry face and so on but one looks almost like a pig in some shots, one kind of looks how Jack appears later in the film (Baker said that creature is meant to be a decomposing werewolf), and then there's the one that holds David captive and eventually slits his throat. I don't know what that guy is supposed to be but he basically looks like a werewolf with a fur-less face and a snarling mouth full of sharp-teeth. The screaming and yelling that these things do make them all the more disturbing, especially how that rotten werewolf screams when he stabs Alex to death. That throat slit that David gets is brief but, again, savage-looking. It is a memorable scene but God, that takes you off-guard the first time you see this movie. Other than the transformation, the most amazing makeup-work to me in the movie is Jack's gradual decomposition. When he first appears to David freshly killed in the hospital room, he really does look like someone who has just been absolutely mauled. His neck wound is especially impressive. You would swear that those are real open tears in his throat and you can even see the inside of his throat during those close-ups. And that wiggling piece of flesh is particularly memorable. I know everybody talks about that but there's good reason: once you notice it, you can't stop staring at it. The slashes across Jack's face are convincing too with how they looked welted up and even slightly bruised. I find the second time he shows up to be even more cringe-inducing. Not only is he looking green but with the way the scene is lit, he almost doesn't look human when he's walking and sitting in the shadows. That brief closeup of his decomposing hands with big bite chunks, which are still bloody, taken out of them particularly make my skin crawl. As for when you see him in the porno theater, while it's still an impressive-looking piece of work, it's quite obvious that it's a puppet. The mouth-movements when Jack speaks is a little awkward and doesn't quite match what Griffin Dunne is saying (but, he was operating the mouth while he spoke the dialogue so I guess it was a little difficult to match it). In any case, though, it does look cool and I would take it over CGI any day. Also, the look of the other murder victims is rather underwhelming. They don't seem to have any wounds on their bodies but rather look like somebody just poured a lot of blood all over them (which is basically what John Landis himself did to them). I guess they didn't have time to give them all elaborate makeups and since they're fresh kills, they wouldn't require anything like that anyway but they could have at least put some scratches on them or something. But, now that I think about it, you probably wouldn't notice it in the dark lighting of theater so whatever. (With this concept of the victims continuing to decompose while in limbo, the very first victims of this werewolf line must look like dust at this point!)

Now, we get to what everybody remembers from this movie, which is David's transformation into the werewolf. There's no two ways about it, it's incredible. I had seen a tiny bit of it in that promo for the DVD on the Halloween II VHS and had read up about it but I still wasn't prepared for how both impressive and disturbing it is. It really does look like it hurts like hell. David feels the bad even before he starts changing, screaming that he's burning up. When his hands stretch out, I didn't understand at first what that had to do with becoming a werewolf but I understood once I heard Rick Baker explain that it's meant to be the enormous paws of the wolf taking shape, with the fingers curled into claw-like positions and if you look closely at the palm, you can see pads starting to form (the brief shot of his claws breaking through his fingernails when he's transforming in the porno theater makes me wince, I must say). There are two shots during the transformation that really make me cringe. One is the shot of his feet stretching (anything with feet, especially the heel, just gets me) and the other is the one showing his back, with his spine arching up and his shoulder-blades twisting into a different position underneath the skin. That latter image coupled with the sounds of bones cracking, flesh-squishing, and his screaming makes that feel especially painful. I knew how they made the hair grow even before I saw the movie but that visual was still interesting. What's really horrific is when David tries to get up apparently but falls on his back and you can see how his whole body is becoming more and more canine. His face is also starting to change but it's gradual, which makes it all the more effective because it gives that sense that the tiniest bits of his humanity are slowly ebbing away (like his teeth are suddenly sharp in one shot and when he falls on his back, that's when you notice how different his face suddenly looks, as well as how his voice is deepening into a howl). The big climax of all of this is his face stretching into the snout of a wolf, which is accompanied by his ears growing long and pointy as well. Like everything else, it is quite an amazing visual and from what I understand, received applause in the theater. After the face stretches, you get a dimly lit pan showing the werewolf not fully formed yet but developing and you can get a sense of what he looks like. (One thing I'd like to know is how did David get out of the apartment after he finished transforming? Since he's on all-fours, he obviously can't open doors and there was no evidence that he smashed his way out. And I think somebody may have noticed a big wolf pawing at and opening the doors to the flat and running out into the streets. For that matter, why did the lights suddenly cut off during the transformation? Maybe the power went out or something. I'm thinking too hard about this.)

The way the werewolves howl in this movie is very ominous and sinister-sounding. That combination of a howl and a roar that they produce makes them feel all the more demonic in my opinion. Their snarling and growling also give the sense that this is something that can tear you to pieces in an instant. John Landis has said that he originally intended not to linger on shots of the werewolf and only show him in quick cuts, which may be why I feel the first one looked more impressive than the one David becomes. During David's first night as a werewolf, Landis stuck to his guns and barely showed him at all, save for quick glimpses of him coming at that couple and then chowing down on their remains (you can see the guy squinting in that shot, by the way) as well as random closeups of his face. I also agree with Landis that the overhead shot of the werewolf coming towards Gerald Bringsley in the subway station is really intimidating looking. However, once Landis saw Baker's design of the ultimate werewolf, he was so impressed with it that he decided to show it a lot more than he originally intended. That, I think, was a mistake and I know Landis feels the same way. While the werewolf is designed well and does look intimidating, when shots linger on it for too long, it's obvious that it's a puppet. Now, when that cop comes across the werewolf chomping down on some of his victims in the porno theater (very gruesome-looking fake corpses, I might add), he looks really scary when he snarls at the guy. But once he bursts out into the brightly lit streets of London, he starts to look rather fake in some shots. I think he looks the worst when he traps himself in the alleyway and there are closeups of his face while he howls. And the way they created the running werewolf is innovative but when he's running down the alley, you can see bits of the mechanisms as well as the shadow of the person pushing the wolf. That said, I think the ramapage he goes on when he bursts out of the theater is really exciting, with him biting off Inspector Villiers' head (which, again, is satisfying as all get-out), storming into the street and causing a major traffic accident, and him walking through the crowd while snapping at people. There are some deaths in that pileup he causes that really make you wince: people getting run over, flying through windshields and windows (John Landis himself in one brief shot), and that cop who gets sandwiched between two cars (that had to be a painful way to go). And, finally, the last shots of the werewolf in the alley when Alex walks up to him does have a memorable moment, even though the wolf itself does look fake. It's when Alex tells him that she loves him and the wolf relaxes his face from the snarl-position he had it in, suggesting that there is still a bit of David in there. But, of course, he lunges at Alex and is shot dead by the police, turning back into David as he dies, ending the movie.

You know what my biggest complaint upon seeing An American Werewolf in London for the first time was and still is? It's too short. When I originally saw it, I wanted it to go on for another half-hour or so. Honestly, I wanted more werewolf action. You get some good bits like the attack on the moors, the transformation, David's first night as a werewolf, and the climax in Picadilly Circus but I really wanted more. I used to complain that he only becomes the werewolf twice in the movie but after I thought about it, I realized that I really like the Hammer film The Curse of the Werewolf and Oliver Reed only changes twice in that movie and you only really see him the second time so I retract that gripe now. What I wish it had gone on to is that David actually escapes from the commotion at Picadilly Circus, changes back the next day, is eventually found by Alex who tries to help him but is unable to, he changes again, and is killed right before he can attack her, much like the actual ending of the film the way it is but more to it. I think that would have added an even sadder and more tragic element in that she now knows he's a werewolf for sure and wants to help him but it's beyond her control and she must allow him to be killed. But I'm not the screenwriter so what do I know?

Music-wise, that is in regards to an actual score, the film is pretty light. The late Elmer Bernstein, who did a lot of scores for John Landis, composed what little score there is. It's not exactly iconic but there are some nice cues in here, like the soft, dream-like piano theme that plays as David and Jack walk towards the village of East Proctor at the beginning of the movie; the theme that plays during the dream sequence of David running through the woods, the beginning of which sounds kind of like a more orchestral version of the Jaws theme to me and you hear a variation on the latter part of this theme during the scene where Dr. Hirsch is driving to East Proctor, which is also a nice piece of music; there's another piano theme that plays during David's second dream where he sees himself lying in the bed in the forest that has a nice sound to it, which is beautiful but a little frantic as well; the mystical music that can be heard in the background when Jack first warns David that he's a werewolf; another soft, dream-like bit of music that plays when Jack appears for the second time, this time sounding a little more eerie and complimenting the bizarre imagery of a decomposed man walking around the apartment well; and the music that plays in the montage of the activity in Picadilly Circus right before David transforms again in the porno theater. Other than that, a lot of the movie has no music save for the songs, which I think works best for a good portion of the movie. For instance, that shot of the full moon rising at the beginning of the movie with no sound other than thunder rumbling in the distance is particularly ominous, more so than any bit of music could have ever made it.

Song-wise, Landis purposefully chose a lot of songs that are upbeat and, therefore, clash with the dark nature of the film, making it both funny and yet more disturbing at the same time. There are three versions of Blue Moon that play during the film. The first is the slow, soothing version by Bobby Vinton that plays over the opening credits, which actually fits with the nice shots of the English landscape but, when I first saw the movie, it put me off a bit because I wasn't expecting it. Until the title came up, I was wondering if I had the wrong film! Now, though, I don't mind it and I think it's a nicely deceiving way to open the film. The second version of Blue Moon is by Sam Cooke and plays during the transformation. Oddly, that song fits with the scene because of how bittersweet it sounds and it kind of matches the agony David is going through. Finally, there's the extremely upbeat doo-wop version by The Marcels that plays over the ending credits. I kind of take issue with that because the ending is so abrupt. One minute you're looking at David's dead, naked body while Alex is crying and then, you're watching the credits while hearing, "Bom, bom bom, bom bom, dingy dong ding." That was really jarring the first time I saw it (especially since the VHS I had at that time cut directly to the credits instead of to black) and I still think it is to this day. You need a little time to take in the tragedy of what's happened before being hit with that song or at least I think you do. Van Morrison's Moondance plays during the sequence where David and Alex are making love and that song is perfect for that scene. Can you think of a better song to make sweet love to than that? Finally, Bad Moon Rising by the Creedence Clearwater Revival plays during the section where David is stuck at Alex's apartment and, like I said, despite its upbeat tune, its lyrics foreshadow what's about to happen. Overall, save for that last version of Blue Moon, I think the songs in the movie were used rather well and actually fit most of the stuff they're put to.

An American Werewolf in London is definitely a unique entry in the werewolf subgenre. It takes the classic lore and mythology and does some interesting new things with it, it's an extremely gruesome and disturbing film and yet, is quite funny too, it has some likable characters, is a showcase for special effects that are still amazing to this day and set Rick Baker on his path of becoming one of the best effects artists in the business, and, above everything else, is a nice little love letter to the genre from a true fan. Granted, while I don't think the film is entirely perfect and I feel that John Landis did make some mistakes, it is a great flick overall and is very worthy of being the cult classic that it is. And, it's one of my favorite werewolf movies, second only to The Wolf Man. If you haven't seen it, it's best that you prepare yourself for what an odd film it is in general because if you go into it expecting a typical werewolf movie, you will be thrown (like I was, although I've obviously grown to enjoy it very much). Be ready for that and you'll have a good time because it is a fun flick and makes a great triple feature with The Wolf Man and The Howling. So get those movies and this one together and prepare to have one fun, hair-raising night!

Werewolf Flicks: The Howling (1981)

I have quite an interesting history with The Howling. Like a lot of contemporary horror films, I first became aware of it when I saw the VHS cover in the horror section of my local video rental store. Well, that film as well as the covers for the myriad of sequels. I remember being really freaked out by the werewolf that was shown on the cover for The Howling V. That got to me for some reason. But, that's neither here nor there. In any case, I didn't understand what these movies were about. I knew they had something to do with wolves but since the titles and such didn't just come out and that they were werewolf movies, it wasn't until I read the synopsis on the back of one that I realized that was the case. Since it was a series, I naturally assumed that they were all one long story about the same werewolf, like how Larry Talbot went on and on from one film to another. It wasn't until years when I bought John Stanley's Creature Features guide book about horror movies that I found out that wasn't the case and that the original Howling was by far the best one. I also figured that since the first one was the only one I saw in real video stores and in the video section of Wal-Mart. Reading about it and looking on the back of the VHS and DVDs, it looked interesting and, being a big fan of werewolf movies, my interest was piqued. I finally saw it on DVD in 2003 when I bought it, along with many other movies, with the money my family had given me for my birthday. By this point, I had already seen and become a big fan of An American Werewolf in London so I was looking forward to The Howling since it came out the same year as that film and was rumored to have the same type of amazing makeup effects.

And, I must confess, The Howling didn't exactly grab me the first time I saw it. I think the problem was I was spoiled by the rather fast-pace of An American Werewolf in London whereas this film has much more of a slow, deliberate build-up and for the first half hour or so, you wouldn't think it was a werewolf movie if you didn't know ahead of time. I thought the direction, the look of the film, and especially the makeup effects were solid but still, I came out of the movie with mixed feelings. Still, I liked it enough to buy the special edition DVD when it came out in 2003. By watching the film more and more as well as listening to the audio commentary and checking out the making of documentary on the DVD (which is really good, I might add), I slowly but surely began to appreciate the film more and more. By this point, as I'm writing this review, I can safely say that The Howling is one of my favorite werewolf movies. It's much more than just a special effects showcase or even a typical werewolf flick. It has some great acting, nice use of some familar faces, has fun with its genre in the form of some sly humor and references, and even works as a satire on some subjects. It is, by and large, a very unique flick.

After receiving numerous phone calls from a stranger who calls himself Eddie, Los Angeles news anchor-woman Karen White agrees to take part in a police sting operation to capture the man, whom the police feel may be the violent serial killer who's been terrorizing the city lately. Karen meets Eddie in a projection room in the back of a porno store, where he forces her to watch a film of a young woman being raped. Eventually, Eddie tells Karen she can finally look at him, saying he wants to give her something. When she does so, she sees something that horrifies her and Eddie attacks her. Before he can hurt her, the police officers who have been trailing Karen manage to shoot Eddie. Though unharmed, Karen suffers from traumatic amnesia and can't remember what happened inside the booth. After she continues suffering from the trauma, to the point where pieces of what happened start to come back to her in her dreams and she's unable to proceed with a newscast at one point, Karen's therapist suggests that she and her husband, Bill, go to "The Colony," a secluded resort in the California countryside where he sends only a select group of patients. The majority of people at the Colony are enthusiastic at the prospect of Karen being there and welcome her with open arms. Karen, however, begins to hear eerie howling sounds in the woods at night which are followed by other spooky happenings such as the cows in a nearby pasture being found half-eaten and Bill being attacked and bitten by a monstrous, dark creature one night. Back in Los Angeles, two of Karen's colleagues at the news studio begin investigating the background of Eddie Quist and discover links to Eddie's crimes and old tales of werewolves; moreover, they discover that Eddie's body has disappeared from the morgue. After more strange events occur at the Colony, Karen soon discovers that everybody there, including her therapist, is a werewolf and while her therapist wants Karen to become one of them, the majority of the others have decided that they'd rather have her dead than left alive to possibly reveal their secret to the world.

The entry on the film in the book 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die said it best by saying you shouldn't expect Joe Dante to make a typical werewolf movie. This was Dante's third film as director (or, as he jokes, his second and a half film since he co-directed Hollywood Boulevard with Allan Arkush) and although it started out as a fairly straight-forward adaptation of the Gary Brandner novel of the same name, Dante and his producer Michael Finnell eventually decided to discard that and do whatever they wanted. To that end, Dante brought in John Sayles, who had worked with Dante on Piranha and, at the same time, was also writing the script for Lewis Teague's Alligator. Together, they constructed a movie that kept the same basic idea of the book but has the self-aware, satirical and referential style that you always see in Dante's movies. To that end, I must say that The Howling has one of the most unsual tones I've ever come across in a movie. On the one hand, the demoninant feeling is one of a very serious horror film with a lot of genuine scares, atmosphere, suspense, and nightmarish and disturbing imagery and ideas. And yet, there's also an undercurrent of satire and self-awareness as well as Dante's trademark tongue-in-cheek humor and references to other films. With all these different styles and tones bouncing around in the film, you would think that they would clash and that the shifts between them would become jarring. Somehow, though, Dante is able to make it feel very natural and the humor never interferes with the horror. I don't know how he does it but Dante is able to shift between tones in a lot of his movies with the same type of skill, like how in Gremlins, he's able to go from a whimsical, Spielberg-type movie to a true horror film and then to an out and out live-action cartoon in the style of Warner Bros. and Tex Avery. It truly shows what a talented and underrated filmmaker he is and, to that end, I think The Howling is right up there in his filmography.

No horror actor deserves the title of Scream Queen more than Dee Wallace in my opinion. From The Hills Have Eyes to Cujo, Critters and so on, she is truly one of the most recognizable women of the genre. I also think she deserves the title because she really does scream her head off. In every horror movie she's been in, there's at least one scene where she seems like she's about to faint due to hysteria and boy, if she isn't like that a lot in The Howling! I have mixed feelings about her character of Karen White. On the one hand, it's always possible to sympathize with Wallace because not only she is very pretty but, in this film in particular, she has a real fragility to her. You really do feel bad for her as she goes through the trauma of having narrowly escaped with her life from a deranged killer, developing a sense of intense fear over whatever happened to her inside the projection booth, something that she can't remember, and having to deal with a husband who, while supportive and caring, is unable to understand what she's going through and is starting to become frustrated. With the stuff that she's going through and the feeling you get that she's one step away from breaking all the time, you can't help but become attached to her, especially when she figures out what's really going on and how much danger she's in. When she gets bit near the end of the movie, I always really feel for her when she cries, knowing that she's doomed to become a werewolf herself. On top of that, she decides to sacrifice her own life to warn people that werewolves are real by transforming in front of everybody during the evening news and having her friend Christopher put her out of her misery. So, she is a likable and empathatic character. However, I can't help but criticize a couple of aspects to her performance. For one, I feel that she's a little too much of a damsel in distress. The only real way she fights back in this movie is when throws acid on Eddie Quist after he becomes a werewolf right in front of her. Other than that, all she does is scream and cry and has to be rescued by somebody else. Now, that does damage my ability to empathize with her and I know not everybody is capable of kicking ass when the need arises but I would have preferred it if she had played Karen a bit more like the way she did Donna Trenton in Cujo, as in fighting back against the threat that she's up against. I know Karen is a different character from Donna but I would have liked to have seen a little more of that tenacity in her. Also, some of Wallace's reactions to certain things have always seemed a little... off to me. The biggest one to me is when she finds Terry's mutilated body at her therapist's office. She's just found the body of her best friend with her throat ripped open and all she does is let out a brief sob and then she covers the body up. If I found my best friend dead, I would think I'd have a stronger reaction than that. I also think I would have reacted a little stronger upon finding the slaughtered body of a cow in the middle of the woods at night too. Maybe Wallace and Joe Dante felt differently but I just think those reactions could have been done better. So, I like Mrs. Wallace in this film as I do in all the movies I see her in but I just have a few minor gripes about some bits of her performance here.

I've heard a lot of people rag on Christopher Stone's performance as Karen's husband, Bill Neill, saying that he plays Bill as a thoroughly unlikable character. I actually kind of disagree with that. I think you can tell that at the beginning of the movie when Karen is going to contact Eddie Quist and Bill sees footage of his crime scenes, he is genuinely concerned for Karen, especially when they lose contact with her. He also comforts her when she has her first nightmare about what happened in the projection booth. However, he does start to grow a little frustrated because he can't truly understand what she's going through and also because their sex life has stalled due to her trauma. Once they get up to the Colony, Bill gets the attention of the place's resident nymphomaniac, Marsha. Her desire for Bill comes to a head when Bill brings her a rabbit that he shot during a hunt to cook. Interesting thing is when Marsha comes onto him, Bill seems to go along with it at first and it takes a a few moments before he finally fights her off. Also, it's right after that when Bill is attacked and bitten by one of the werewolves. Since it came right after he resisted Marsha's advances, I wonder if that werewolf was Marsha, deciding to take matters into her own hands and doing something to ensure that Bill would become hers. If not her, then it at least could have been her weirdo brother T.C., who talked Bill into taking the rabbit to Marsha in the first place. After he's bitten, Bill seems to have mixed feelings about being a werewolf at first. On the one hand, he gives into the call one night and goes out to have sex with Marsha by a camp-fire, the two of them eventually turning into werewolves while doing so. However, when he comes back as a normal human the next morning, he looks at Karen in an odd way and tries to touch her but when she moves, he pulls back from her. Maybe at that moment, Bill truly realizes what he's become and he's afraid. He seems to have another set of mixed feelings later on when Karen accuses him of having been with Marsha. First, he hits her but then immediately looks sorrowful when she starts crying and he tries to comfort her but she tells him to stay away. The next exchange of dialogue has always puzzled me. When Karen says that she's going to leave with Terry, Bill says, "You don't know what it's like." Karen responds, "I don't want to know." Now, by this point, Karen doesn't know that there are werewolves, moreover that Bill is one of them. However, I think it's clear to say that what Bill meant is that Karen doesn't know what it's like being a werewolf. So what did Karen think he meant? Did she think he was talking about the sexual potency that she believed he had now found with Marsha and, therefore, she meant she didn't want to know what their filthy relationship was like in any way? I guess it doesn't matter because when she finds out the werewolves, she wants no part of them either so you could look at it both ways. Bill seems a bit hurt when she walks away from him and something tells me that might have encourage him to take matters into his hands the same way Marsha probably did with him. At the end of the movie, we find out that Bill was the werewolf who ultimately bit Karen but he's killed immediately afteward. While it could have been coincidence that he ended up being the one who did so, I like to think that he was determined for her to become a werewolf like him, as if saying, "I want you to be a part of this! I'll make you!" Who knows, maybe he would have kicked Marsha to the curb once Karen had become a werewolf. That's how I like to see it, anyway. Bottom line, I see Bill as a sympathetic guy who truly loved his wife but was frustrated by her lack of communication and when he became a werewolf, desperately wanted to have her as one too.

Patrick Macnee brings a touch of class to the movie as Dr. George Waggner, Karen's therapist who is also intent on having people understand that they shouldn't repress or deny their primitive, animalistic impulses. By the end of the movie, we learn why he feels this way: he himself is a werewolf and created the Colony to help other werewolves channel and control their affliction, that they can live with it without the fear of harming other people. His ultimate goal for the place is to use it as a safe haven to plan to become part of society. He feels that they can co-exist among human beings and to that end, he's had them raise cattle for their food instead of preying on humans. Some viewers may wonder why he brought Karen and Bill up to the Colony since that would definitely risk them being exposed. In a deleted scene, Waggner says that he had to know if Karen saw Eddie Quist change into a werewolf in the projection booth. If her memory had returned to her while she was in therapy back in Los Angeles, their cover would have been blown. One thing I don't quite get is why Waggner allowed Karen to meet with Eddie in the first place and why, according to Fred Francis, the TV station manager, he had been giving her advice on how to talk to a psychopath. The only thing that I can guess is that Waggner hoped that Eddie would turn her into a werewolf and then he could help her control her wolf side. I was about to say that maybe he was hoping she would lead the police to Eddie and they would kill him because he, in killing and mutilating people, was doing exactly what Waggner was striving against for the Colony. But that's out since the police wouldn't be packing silver bullets. Maybe Waggner felt that, with Karen on his side, she could help him encourage the members of the Colony who were reluctant to follow his advice to do so, including Eddie, who obviously wanted Karen to be with him (we'll go deeper into that shortly). In any case, though, Waggner loses control of many members of the Colony and they rebel against him, deciding to indulge their wolf-sides rather than control it. He tries to keep them from killing Karen but he's overwhelmed and it's ultimately Christopher who saves her. He's the one who also kills Waggner when he tries to attack him. I think the brief moment before his death shows just how skilled Waggner is in controlling his wolf side since, despite his audible growls, he never changes and he was probably going to change just enough to either bite Christopher or kill him and then change back. The only reason I feel he didn't do so was because he had put too much of a leash on his wolf side and he couldn't make it come up fast enough before Christopher shot him. Once he's shot, Waggner's dying words are, "Thank God." In the end, he felt that it was probably better to die than continue being what he was.

I can't help but like Belinda Balaski and Dennis Dugan as Karen's friends Terry and Christopher. Balaski is a Dante regular and I always enjoy seeing her because I think she's both attractive and is a good actor. Terry's a pretty straightforward character. She's Karen's best friend and you can tell how much she cares about her. She's the one who helps Karen out of the news studio when she freezes up during a report and she quickly rushes up to the Colony to meet with Karen after she frantically calls her and Christopher and tells them that Bill was attacked by a wolf. She also listens sympathetically and understandingly to Karen's fear that Marsha may be trying to make a move on Bill and that he may give in to it. Terry is also a great investigative reporter, uncovering clues about Eddie Quist and reading up about werewolves when she feels that Eddie's crimes may be connected to old werewolf lore. When she's staying at the Colony and she hears a lot of howling in the woods outside, he breaks out her tape recorder and records the sounds. She's also the one who discovers that Eddie was once at the Colony by figuring out that a landscape he drew is actually part of the general area. Her investigative instincts put her in great danger, though, when she snoops around Marsha's cabin and is attacked by the werewolves. She's ultimately killed in Dr. Waggner's office by one of the werewolves. The last thing I have to mention is that Terry is actually quite a bit stronger than Karen. When she and Christopher are investigating Eddie's apartment, a vicious dog suddenly pops up at the window and although she's at first startled as anyone would be, Terry immediately throws something at the dog, yelling, "Get out of here!" When she's attacked by the werewolves at Marsha's cabin, she fights one off with a hatchet and ultimately cuts his arm off. When she's attacked by another werewolf in Waggner's office, she fights back, turning a spotlight on in his face and even when the werewolf has her by the throat and is about to kill her, she still smacks at him. It doesn't work, though, but at least Terry was a fighter to the end. Like I said, I also like Dugan as Terry's boyfriend, Christopher. He's a lot like Terry in that he cares a lot about Karen, convincing Fred Francis to not make her go on the air right after she meets up with Eddie Quist and he's genuinely concerned as well when Karen calls them to tell what happened to Bill. He's also an investigative reporter like Terry and while he's at first reluctant to believe in werewolves, when Terry tells him over the phone that she's been attacked by one and hears her get attacked again, he immediately picks up some silver bullets from a novelty book store and sets off for the Colony. Christopher ends up becoming the real hero of the movie and he becomes quite a bad-ass, shooting werewolves left and right, trapping them a big group of them in a barn and setting it on fire, fending off werewolves as they attack the car he and Karen are in, and even getting into a shoot-out with one of the rifle-wielding werewolves. Finally, he's the one who helps Karen warn the world that werewolves are real and also puts her out of her misery after she changes, even though he tells her he's not sure he can do it. So, I thought Dugan did quite a capable job as Christopher.

As he usually does, Joe Dante filled the various supporting roles in the film with familiar genre faces. Kevin McCarthy, star of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, plays Fred Francis, the TV station manager. He's the embodiment of the film's satire on the media in that he acts like he's genuinely concerned about what they're reporting on and about Karen's well-being but in the end, all he cares about are the ratings. My favorite scene with him is after Karen freezes up during her report and they play a pre-recorded clip of Francis talking sincerely about "the culture of violence" that has been prevalent in the media lately. At the same time that clip is playing, Francis is on the phone, saying about Karen, "Who knows? Maybe she's pregnant," and then says, "Listen, get in touch with that Fugiyama, Fugimoto, or whatever the hell her name is and get her ready for the 11:00 report." After he hangs up, he looks at himself on the screen and tells everybody in the room, "Now there is a pro." He's just a dick. John Carradine, whom I was struck with in how he looked and sounded the first time I watched this movie, plays Erle, one of the werewolves at the Colony. While Carradine's acting was great as always, I find it a little hard to get a handle on his character. When we first see him at the Colony, after he mingles around this beachside party for a little bit, he tries to throw himself into the bonfire, saying, "I want to end it. It just goes on and on." Clearly, he's talking about his werewolfism and Waggner manages to calm him down and keep him from burning himself. After that, though, he doesn't seem as despondent about being a werewolf, even though he still acts rather eccentric. By the end of the movie, he's become very forceful about sticking with the old ways, as in preying on humans and indulging their wolf sides. When Waggner tries to stop them from hurting Karen and he's incapacitated by a few of the werewolves, Erle tells him, "You can't tame what's meant to be wild, doc. It ain't natural." So what caused that dramatic change in his behavior? The only things I can think of are either Erle's just senile, he was drunk, as Jerry put it, or he turned into a werewolf later that night and was reminded of how awesome it felt. I kind of lean toward the latter since when Karen is dreaming about Erle trying to throw himself into the fire that night, his yelling transitions right into the howling that Karen hears when she wakes up. I think that was meant to suggest that Erle is who we hear howling. In any case, Erle is definitely a memorable character. Slim Pickens has a small role as Sam, a local police officer who's stationed near the Colony. Basically, Pickens is just playing the typical, jolly redneck cop who is basically the only law in the area. And, as we find out at the end of the movie, he's a werewolf as well, meaning his entire demeanor is just a facade. Not much else to say about him other than Pickens plays him with his usual charm and likability.

One of the most memorable residents of the Colony is Elisabeth Brooks as Marsha Quist, the sexy, seductive nymphomaniac who has her eye on Bill as soon as she sees him. That woman is so attractive that it would be quite difficult to resist her and there's also a mysterious quality to her in that she dresses in black, doesn't say much, and lives in this bizarre cabin decorated with animal skins and bones in the woods. She makes it clear what she wants, though, due to her advances on Bill and, as I said, it's not too far fetched to think that she was the werewolf that bit him. In addition, she's the one who disapproves of Waggner's ideas about co-existing with the human race. By the end of the movie, she's become the biggest proponent for the werewolves turning against Waggner. She tells them, "You wouldn't listen to me, none of you!" She then says to Waggner, "We can fit in, you said. We can live with them. You make me sick!" She sort of becomes the new ringleader, telling Waggner, "You're through, doc. She's ours, now." And we find out at the end of the movie that she survived the burning barn she was trapped in at the Colony. It's a shame that they didn't do the sequel right because I would have liked to see her become the main villain. Marsha has a weirdo brother named T.C. (Don McLeod) who, just as Marsha sets her sights on Bill, becomes a little too interested in Karen. We see him staring at her during the get together on the beach and he's milling around her and Bill's cabin at night, watching her. He's also just a strange guy, always wearing animal skins as part of his clothes and has animal-like movements and stances even in his human form. He acts as a tracker during a hunt the men of the Colony take part in. As Sam says, "That boy's part bloodhound." He's seemingly a bit impressionable in that Marsha angrily gives one of Waggner's books back to him, saying that she doesn't want her brother reading it. You get a sense as well that he's loyal to his sister, sending Bill up to their cabin so she can seduce him and if Marsha wasn't the werewolf that bit Bill, I think it's safe to assume that it was T.C. In any case, T.C. is the werewolf that attacks Terry in the small woodshed outside of their cabin and gets his arm chopped off. We see him change about half-way into a werewolf when he's about to attack Christopher but he gets shot dead.

After seeing Robert Picardo play much more comedic roles in other Joe Dante films like Gremlins 2 and Small Soldiers as well as the many other movies and television shows he's been in, it's odd going back to this movie where he plays a serial killer and a rather creepy one at that in the form of Eddie Quist. You don't get a good look at his face at the beginning of the movie save for closeups of him licking his lips and a quick shot of the upper half of his face at the very beginning. Otherwise, his face is obscured by the darkness in the projection booth and you don't get a good look at him until much later in the movie when Karen runs into him at Waggner's office at the Colony. The biggest question with Eddie is why he was so interested in Karen and why he wanted to meet with her. I think it's obvious that he wanted to turn Karen into a werewolf and for her to be his mate. As he himself says while making her watch a film of a woman being raped (I assume he was part of the making of that film), "She didn't feel a thing, Karen. None of them do. They're not alive, the people here. They're dead. They could never be like me. But you're different, Karen. I watch you on TV... and I know how good I can make you feel. I'm gonna light up your whole body, Karen." That's when Eddie backs away into the darkness and, in ever deepening voice, he says, "Turn around now, Karen. I want to give you something." I don't think you could ask for a more clear cut answer than that. He feels Karen is the only one who could truly enjoy the pleasures of being a werewolf and wants to make her one so she will be with him. However, when he meets up with her again at the Colony, he's furious at her for bring the police down on him, saying, "I trusted you, Karen." After pulling a bullet out of his head, he turns into a werewolf (that transformation is the centerpiece of the movie, which we'll get into later) and was more than likely going to kill her before she threw acid at him and escaped. He's finally killed by Christopher later on.

One interesting werewolf character is Margie Impert as Donna, a woman who becomes Karen's friend at the Colony. She seems to genuinely like Karen and when she's brought to the barn at the end of the movie, Donna is the one who's telling how great it is when you're able to control and use the werewolfism or "the gift" as they call it. It's weird because once the other werewolves turn against Waggner and attempt to kill Karen, she doesn't really do much except stand back there and let them try to kill her. A reason for that could be that her husband Jerry (James Murtaugh) in on Marsha's side and tries to help everyone else kill Karen. She probably couldn't do much to stop him. Like most of the other members, Jerry was very welcoming to Karen and Bill when they first arrived but at the end of the movie, he's become very vicious towards Karen, saying that it was a mistake to her bring her there, and he tries to shoot Chrstopher but it killed before he can do so. He was one of the best lines in the movie, too. When Christopher says he has silver bullets in his gun after shooting T.C., he responds, "Silver bullets, my ass. Get up, T.C." He's turning into a werewolf while saying that so his voice suddenly deepens in mid-sentence and it's unintentionally funny. A similar character is Charlie Barton (Noble Willingham), who is even more jovial in welcoming Karen and Bill to the Colony than Jerry and is just as vicious at the end of the movie, telling the other werewolves to put Karen in her car along with Terry's body, set the car on fire, and send it down the coast road. It's also interesting because he's the one whose job it's been to raise cattle for the werewolves to feed on and it's one of his head that's found with its throat torn out. Did Charlie get a little restless and attack one of his own cows or something? Jim McKrell has a memorable part as Lew Landers, a newscaster who puts on a deep, strong voice like Gary Owens when he's reading the news but in reality, has an Andy Griffith-like drawl (he kind of looks like Griffith as well). My favorite moment with him is at the beginning when he's rehearsing his newscast in the bathroom but you don't realize he's in the bathroom until Bill comes in to wash his hands. Lew immediately drops the rehearsing, speaks in his normal voice, and adjusts his tie while telling Bill, "That's a brave little ol' girl you got there." As soon as Bill leaves, he starts rehearsing again. I just thought that was amusing. Kenneth Tobey, the star of many beloved 50's sci-fi flicks like The Thing from Another World, has a small role at the beginning as an elderly police officer who, along with his younger partner, track down Karen to the porno store and his partner is the one who shoots Eddie. And, of course, it wouldn't be a Joe Dante movie without Dick Miller, who plays a fast-talking, wise-ass bookstore owner (the character is supposed to be named Walter Paisley after the character Miller played in Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood but he's never named in the film). I love Miller in these types of roles. He's awesome. I like how he's a big expert on the subject of werewolves, explaining the rules of the creatures to Terry and Christopher, but when he's asked if he believes it, he says, "What am I, an idiot? I'm makin' a buck here. You want books, I got books. I got chicken blood, I got dog embryos, I got black candles, I got wolf-bane." He goes on to describe how somebody ordered some silver bullets but never picked them up. I also like what he says about the people his occult-theme store attracts: "We get 'em all: sun-worshippers, moon-worshippers, Satanists. The Manson family used to hang around and shoplift. Bunch of deadbeats." But I think his best line is the simple thing he says when he sees Karen change into a werewolf on the news: "Ooh, boy." That's so awesome. Dick Miller is the man!

Not only is The Howling a great werewolf flick but it also serves as an interesting satire on a couple of subjects. One is on psychiatry, particularly on the self-help movement that became prevalent in the late 1970's and which was also explored in Philip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's an interesting concept that a man who is werewolf has found a way to control and channel his other side and actually has created a place where other people afflicted with this condition can learn to do the same. This kind of makes the age-old idea of the werewolf as a metaphor for the id, the primitive, animalistic side of people, concrete. For one, these werewolves can transform whenever they want to, day or night. Their animal side is not unleashed by an outside force as in most werewolf movies. And yet, in spite of that, they live in a world where we're taught to be civilized, to repress our primal emotions, and be upstanding members of society. This is what they're doing at the Colony. Dr. Waggner himself even says, "We need this shelter to plan, to catch up with society. Times have changed and we haven't. Not enough." That's why he's trying to teach them how to control their much more pronounced animal sides. While he doesn't think that the wolf shouldn't be completely ignored or denied, he, like any civilized person, thinks that it should have some limitations. However, a good majority of the werewolves have grown tired of trying to deny their wolf-sides, feeling that Waggner is, as Eddie Quist puts it, the one who's truly repressed. Therefore, they decide to let it out, to just accept what they are and go with it. The best scene that examplifies this is the infamous sex scene between Bill and Marsha by the campfire. It starts out as a typical sex scene that you would see in movies but then, the sound of howling absolutely fills the woods. And it's not long after that that Bill and Marsha transform into werewolves while still continuing to have sex. Obviously, sex is a big part of the id and to that end, it's feasible that as Bill and Marsha get closer and closer to orgasm, their respective ids come out and they start to become werewolves. Therefore, I think it's safe to surmise that the moment that finally reach the orgasm is when they become full-blown werewolves. Eddie is another good example of this concept in that he just goes with his werewolf side and does whatever he feels, preying on people in Los Angeles, no doubt raping women as well as slaughtering them and so on. And at the Colony, the other werewolves to decide to follow his lead as well as that of Marsha, to prey on humans instead of cattle as Waggner has had them do, gettin rid of Karen, the only one who knows about them, and so on. In the end, it all comes down to what Erle tells Waggner: "You can't tame what's meant to be wild, doc. It ain't natural." I don't see how you can make a metaphor more concrete than that!

The other subject that's parodied is the media, most specifically a local news station. As I said earlier, the scene that is the best example of this is the scene where station manager Fred Francis is talking on a telephone while a sincere-sounding pre-recorded tape of him is playing on the monitors behind him and is what is being seen by the viewers at home. It shows the two faces of Francis, and, to a larger extent, the station, right there. On the one hand, you have the public face where they come across as genuinely concerned about the viewers and are doing a public service, giving people information about horrific events that are going on in the city and so forth. However, you have the face behind the news camera, where all they care in actuality are the ratings. When Karen is about to go on the air to give her first-hand account of what happened when she encountered Eddie Quist, Francis tells her that they're going to, "make ratings history tonight." But, when she freezes up and is unable to give her report, Francis is angrily shaking his head and, with his attempt to make ratings history blow, calls in a replacement story for Karen's, while people who really care about her well-being are helping her leave the studio and tell her she can take all the time she needs in recovering. Heck, you get a feeling that Francis would have made her go on the air right after her encounter with Eddie had Christopher not talked him out of it. It's not limited to just Francis. Lew Landers may work with and even possibly like Karen as a person but her report where she's putting her life on the line is just another job that he's obligated to participate in and do a news voice-over for, as seen when he's memorizing his lines in the bathroom, including a line such as, "Tonight, in an act of bravery we here at KDBH are all very proud of..." Life on the line or not, it's either all about the ratings to the studio or just another job to the other newscasters. It's also interesting to see how the age of rampant media affects something as monumental as the discovery of real werewolves in the eyes of the public. When Karen transforms into a werewolf at the end of the movie in the news studio, the viewing public reacts in a variety of ways. Some are genuinely shocked, while others are blase and think it's either just special effects or some bizarre program that they have no interest in watching, in the case of the guy whose reaction is, "What is this?" and still others are genuinely entertained by it, as earth-shattering and frightening a revelation as it should be. I think we can also assume that the program immediately switching to a dog food commercial in the middle of it didn't help its credibility. Speaking of which, it's ironic that Fred Francis, who wanted to make ratings history, orders the station to switch away from something that is sure to generate ratings. Even for this money-hungry guy, it was a little too much, showing that the media can have some odd limits in regards to what it will and won't allow the public to see to ensure their attention.

One of my favorite aspects of The Howling is its very look. First of all, it's not a dull movie visually.  Joe Dante says that he feels if you're not going to use color, then you should just make a movie in black and white and you can clearly say that thinking here. This movie is very, very colorful. The colors are bright and vibrant that it almost looks the way Technicolor did when it was just getting popular and becoming the norm. In short, it's very pleasing to the eye. Also, the movie goes through different emotional tones and even genres due to its settings. The beginning of the movie where Karen is walking through downtown Los Angeles makes it feel like an urban crime movie, as Dante himself has even said. The city just looks very seedy and tacky, with bright red and blue neon lights illuminating everything, graffiti on the walls, dirty-looking streets and back-alleys, and so forth. The pornography store that Karen meets Eddie in just breathes sleaze, with the tacky red lights, the red beads separating the back room from the rest of the store, and, of course, the actual pornography, since the place was a real porno store. It just radiates the feeling of a scummy place that makes you want to take a shower once you come out of it. We also get to see the apartment that Eddie Quist lived in, with drawings of animal-like people covering the walls, other drawings like that of the landscape that turns out to be of the Colony, and just a genuine feeling of squalor. That, coupled with the looks at the inside of the news studio, Dr. Waggner's office, Karen and Bill's home, and the occult bookstore would make you think you were watching anything but a werewolf film. Once the action shifts to the Colony, the film begins to have an air of what it really is. The dense Californian woods of the Colony (which, if I'm not mistaken were shot at Mendocino) give a real fairy tale feel to it. The place looks beautiful at day but at night, the enormous amount of fog combined with cinematographer John Hora's creepy lighting gives an eerie sense of foreboding, like there really is something lurking in those woods. Those shots of the woods backlit with streams of light coming from behind the trees mixed with the mist spells dark, creepy fairy tale to me. Finally, there's my favorite setting in the entire film, which is Marsha's cabin. That place is so damn eerie, with the animal skins and bones used for decoration as well and the inside of it just has an uncomfortable atmosphere to it. It's no doubt due to the work of art director Bob Burns, who had worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and brought a lot of that same queasiness here. As a result, the cabin does have a similar look and feel to the house of the chainsaw family. (I've read trivia that the mummified corpse of Grandma Sawyer from that film is supposed to be in the bookstore but I've never noticed it before.)

As I've said, it takes so long to get the very idea of werewolves in this movie let alone the actual creatures that it really threw me the first time I watched it. Looking at that first twenty minutes alone, would you ever think it was from a werewolf movie? I sincerely doubt it and neither did many people when the film was first released because the marketing downplayed the werewolf aspect (although I think the actual title The Howling should have tipped at least some people off). It's not until quite a ways into the film that you get your first look at one of the werewolves after their presence has been suggested by the slaughtered cow, the howling in the woods, T.C. lurking in the woods outside of Karen and Bill's cabin, growling softly while doing so, and the gradual reveal of what was happening to Eddie in the shadows in Karen's dream sequences (which is very freaky, I might add). Heck, the word "werewolf" itself isn't even uttered until a few scenes before that. I must say that I find the first shot of one of the werewolves as it watches Bill walk from Marsha's cabin to be creepy as hell, with the closeup of its yellow eye gradually moving as it watches Bill. You don't get that good of a look at it when it attacks Bill as it's shot in the dark with very quick editing but you get a sense of what it looks like. The bit of werewolf action in the film (no pun intended) is Bill and Marsha transforming during the sex scene. Besides making the metaphor concrete, this scene is just surreal to say the least, starting out with them having sex like two normal human beings accompanied by the loud howling of wolves filling the woods and then before you know it, they're growing fangs and fur and growling and roaring as their sex continues. I find their respective second stages during this scene to be very freaky looking, especially Marsha's. Unfortunately, as Joe Dante himself admits, the film's budgetary limitations become apparent as their final transformations are done in silhouette with animation. It doesn't ruin the scene, mind you, but it is painfully obvious.

My absolute favorite section of the entire film is after the sex scene when Terry investigates Marsha's cabin up to when she's ultimately killed in Dr. Waggner's office. The scene at the cabin is just so eerie with the absolute silence save for the sounds of the woods for the most part and as she enters the cabin, we see that she's being stalked (I find that brief shot of a werewolf's legs to be quite creepy). When Terry is attacked inside the cabin, what makes it so freaky for me is that all you get are quick glimpses of the werewolf as it tears down the door but you hear it snarling and growling like crazy. And then, Terry is attacked in the wood shed by another werewolf, chops his arm off with a hatchet, and then watches in horror as the severed limb turns into that of a human. While I do have some misgivings about the bladder effect when it's used during the epic transformation, I think it's effectively eerie here when you see the arm convulse, deflate, and then inflate again in the form of a human arm. That is just so creepy. And this is all happening in the daytime. Can you think of another movie where you get glimpses of werewolves in broad daylight? There ma be some obscure ones but right now, I can't think of any. Finally, when Terry runs into Waggner's office, we get to see one of the werewolves in all his glory. I must say that while I think An American Werewolf in London did better in the actual transformation effects, I think The Howling succeeded more in the actual look of the werewolves. These are some bad-ass monsters right here, with how they basically are just big, bipedal wolves, although very demonic looking with their snarling, expressive faces, big ears, and front paws that are more like clawed hands. This particular werewolf that attacks Terry, which I think I'm safe in assuming is Eddie Quist, is especially frightening to me just because of the faces he makes and how he actually stalks Terry around the room before attacking her. The way he actually kills her is one of the creepiest damn things I've ever seen period. He holds her up by her neck, snarling at her while she smacks at him, and after doing so for quite a while, kills her by biting her neck. But he doesn't violently tear it out. No, instead there's a long moment where you can hear him quietly biting and munching on her neck. That image, coupled with the lighting and music, is so damn eerie that it's unreal. I think this entire scene brings to light something all the more troubling: these werewolves are completely aware of what they're doing. Unlike most werewolf movies where the person turning into the wolf has no control over his or her actions, these people, since they can change at will, still have control over themselves when they become werewolves, know what they're doing, and they love it. That werewolf could have just killed Terry right then and there but nope, he drew it out and even when he finally caught her, he still let her fight back a little bit before finally killing her. But what's creepiest of all is that you saw the werewolf turn on a tape recorder to record Terry's death. That should send shivers down your spine right there.

The main reason why The Howling and An American Werewolf in London are compared so much is because of their big transformations that serve as the centerpiece of the films. Not only that but both transformations have very similar aspects to them and there's a good reason for that. Rick Baker was originally supposed to do the effects work for The Howling but right when he was about to start, John Landis called and told him that he finally had the money to make An American Werewolf in London. So, Baker served as just a consultant on the makeup effects while his protege Rob Bottin, who is an awesome effects artist in his own right, actually did them. As a result, both films used basically the same techniques to accomplish their transformations and, as I said, while I do think Rick Baker and his crew did a much more impressive job with the transformation of David Kessler, Eddie Quist's big transformation here is still awesome. His claws coming up through his fingers (causing them to bleed, which makes me wince), his clothes ripping to reveal his fur-covered body, those wolf-ears pushing up through his head, and, of course, his face contorting and ultimately stretching outward into the snout of a wolf are all still spectacular to behold. The popping and cracking sounds that you hear as he changes make your skin crawl as well (although I think a good deal of that may have just been the latex). Some people complain that after a certain point, you can tell it's a fake head and no longer actually Robert Picardo but I think the fake head has a creepy, inhuman quality about it that adds even more to the scene. But the aspect of the transformation that I don't get is the bubbling skin on Eddie's face or why his throat blows up like a bullfrog. Exactly what does that have to do with turning into a werewolf? It just looks silly to me, especially when Eddie starts to change again after half his face has been melted off by acid. He really does look like a bullfrog in that moment because his throat inflates to such a large extent. Speaking of which, the makeup of his melted face is really well done, with great details like being able to see a little bit of his skull in spots.

I think the sounds the werewolves make are very frightening too, with their snarling and growling as well as when you're able to hear them roaring and howling at the same time in some instances, mainly when you hear them in the woods at night. The way T.C. as a werewolf howls in pain after his arm is hacked off is really disturbing in just how loud he's screaming and it almost makes you feel bad for him. Speaking of T.C. the brief shot you see if his face stretching into the snout of a wolf later on is a nice visual as well. Going back to the actual design of the werewolves, while they look good for the most part, I think their half-changed appearances when they're all trapped inside the barn that Christopher sets on fire are really bad. While some of them are typically just people with fangs, some of them look just plain silly, like this woman with a bloated face and this other one that looks more like an ape-man than a werewolf. There's also this other guy who keeps looking around wildly, making sounds like, "Eeraah!" That's unintentionally funny to me. The good thing is after that, we get some more full-blown werewolves and, for a movie with limited resources, they did a good job of making it seem as if there are a bunch of werewolves attacking the car while Karen and Christopher try to escape the Colony and they even managed to make them look different from each other with different faces and so on. There's a brief shot of stop-motion werewolves in the middle of a dissolve as Karen and Christopher finally escape and, as brief as it is, I thought it looked cool as did the other stop-motion effects that were created but weren't used in the final film. I can see why they didn't use it, though, because it doesn't look nearly as realistic as the other effects do (although I think that deleted scene of a stop-motion werewolf stalking Karen in the woods is eerie). Finally, I have to talk about Karen's transformation into a werewolf at the end of the film. I'm just going to come out and say it: she looks laughable. I know why they made her that way, because she had been resisting it the whole time but you know, resistance or not, I think you would probably still look the same as those who are willing. The shot of her in mid-transformation looks okay but in the shot of her fully changed, she looks more like an overgrown lapdog than a werewolf (even Joe Dante says that she looks like a Pekingese). Again, I know why they did it but that doesn't mean I have to like it and in this case, I don't.

As one of the first movies depicting werewolves in the modern day, this film takes on the idea that, thanks to old movies and such, everybody knows what a werewolf is but, at the same time, a lot of the accepted werewolf "lore" and rules are purely products of the movies, namely from the writing of Curt Siodmark, the screenwriter of The Wolf Man. To that end, the film uses that aspect to establish its own rules, with Walter Paisley explaining to Christopher and Terry when he hears them talking about trying to find out whether Eddie Quist's crimes took place on a full moon, "That's a lot of Hollywood baloney. Your classic werewolf can change shape whenever it wants, day or night, whenever it takes a notion to. That's why they call them shape-shifters." The film mentions nothing about wolfbane but it does keep the old adage that silver bullets are the only things that can kill werewolves. Paisley also mentions fire but, as the ending teaches us, that's not a sure way of killing them. So, basically, this film throws out some of the accepted rules of werewolves while mixing others with its own. Thinking about it, it was an interesting way to bring the werewolf legend into contemporary times.

As he usually does, Joe Dante put a lot of clever in-jokes about werewolf movies as well as horror movies in general into the film. The most notable one is that a lot of characters named after people who directed werewolf movies: George Waggner, the director of The Wolf Man (I like how the character who is more or less the leader of the werewolves is named after the man who directed the most well-known werewolf movie; Bill is named after Roy William Neill, who directed Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (they were going to have him be called Roy originally but I think they decided not to in order to avoid confusion with another person named Roy Neill); Terry is named after Terence Fisher, who directed The Curse of the Werewolf for Hammer Films; Fred Francis is named after Freddie Francis, director of the obscure Legend of the Werewolf; the John Carradine character is named after Erle Kenton, who directed House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, both of which feature the Wolf Man (Carradine also played Count Dracula in both of those films); Sam Newfield is named after the director of The Mad Monster; Charlie Barton is named after the director of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which features the Wolf Man; and Lew Landers is named after the director of Return of the Vampire, which had a werewolf in it. (Apparently, there's also a character named Jack Molina, named after Jacinto Molina, one of Paul Naschy's alternate names but I don't remember that character.) There are plenty of other references including a quick glimpse of a picture of Lon Chaney Jr. in Dr. Waggner's office, a cartoon featuring the Big Bad Wolf is seen playing on a TV, there's a quick glimpse of the book Howl at one point, Wolfman Jack is mentioned at one point, and, of course, there are a few scenes featuring pictures of wolves in the background. There's even really obscure references like Wolf Brand chilli and such. A really strange one is the last thing you see in the movie. Not only are Christopher and Terry watching The Wolf Man at one point but right after the ending credits, there is a brief shot of a TV playing the scene in the film where Maleva says to Larry Talbott, "Go now and heaven help you." I don't know if it's meant to have some bigger meaning, like that's a warning for anybody watching the movie, or if it was just meant purely as a joke. Finally, there are some cameos, like Roger Corman appearing outside of a phone booth that Karen uses at the beginning of the film, Forrest J. Ackerman showing up as a custome in Walter Paisley's bookstore (carrying some copies of his own magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland), Bob Burns has a brief appearance in the porno store at the beginning, and, most notably, writer John Sayles appears as a morgue technician. I can't help but like the stuff that Dante does in his movies. You can truly tell that he makes them for fans of the genre, since he's one himself.

Besides the slow build-up to the actual werewolves, another thing I wasn't expecting when I first watched the movie was the music score by Pino Donaggio. While I didn't think it was bad music in the slightest, it wasn't the type of music I was expecting. It has a very old-fashioned sound to it, like something you'd hear in horror films in the 40's, which I didn't anticipate to hear in a film from 1981. But, after watching the film a few more times and getting over that initial surprise, I grew to appreciate what a good score this film has. It's very memorable, with a lot of distinct cues and themes. There's a really eerie, haunting theme that plays whenever Karen is having nightmares about what happened to her in the projection booth, which has something that sounds like either voices chanting or even a sound akin to howling in the background. There's some great horror music for the truly frightening scenes, like when Terry is attacked in Marsha's cabin and when Eddie transforms in front of Karen. My personal favorite piece of music is the frantic theme that plays when Terry escapes from Marsha's cabin and runs through the forest to Dr. Waggner's office. It's a really awesome bit of music and fits the scene well. The soft music that plays when Terry is slowly bitten to death by the one werewolf is very creepy and makes that moment all the more nightmarish. There's also some sad music that plays in the film, most notably when Karen is hysterical after having her first nightmare about Eddie and in the climax when she becomes a werewolf in the news studio. The music that plays during the sex scene between Bill and Marsha starts out very pretty and dreamlike but then becomes absolutely horrific when they begin turning into werewolves. Finally, there's some really beautiful music that plays when Karen and Bill are driving up to the Colony, a bit of which plays at the start of the ending credits but then that becomes more country-sounding as the credits go on (can you think of another movie whose ending credits play over footage of a hamburger being cooked because I can't). While I wouldn't say it's one of my favorite film scores ever, I still do enjoy the music to this film.

Before we end, I feel must touch on the myriad of sequels to this film, if you can even call them that. Now, I have not seen any of those movies and I don't know if I ever will considering how bad I hear they are but from what I can tell, only the second film is a true sequel whereas the others don't have anything to do with this film or each other for that matter. Reading about them and watching other people's reviews on them, they seem like some of the dumbest werewolf movies ever put to celluloid, with incredibly bad acting, shoddy effects work, and some of them barely even have any werewolf action. I just have to wonder how these films came to be. Did somebody ask for all of these in-name only sequels to a werewolf movie that, while quite successful for its budget, wasn't exactly a huge blockbuster? Somebody needs to make a documentary about these movies. I'm dead-serious. I would love to know how these movies got made and what the thinking was behind them. In any case, you've got The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, which stars Christopher Lee (who, when he worked with Joe Dante on Gremlins 2, actually apologized to him for being in this movie) and, despite trying to actually be a sequel to this film, seems to have werewolves confused with vampires in terms of their rules and the action being in Transylvania; The Howling III: The Marsupials, which takes place in Australia and involves kangaroo werewolves; The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, which is actually a more faithful adaptation of the original Gary Brandner novel but, judging from how boring this movie supposedly is, that doesn't seem to have been a good idea; The Howling V: The Rebirth, a story about a group of people staying in an old castle and one of them turns out to be a werewolf; The Howling VI: The Freaks, about a werewolf at a circus; The Howling: New Moon Rising, which sounds like absolute bottom of the barrel dreck; and, most recently, The Howling: Reborn, which just feels like a poorly disguised attempt to cash in on the Twilight craze. Basically, I just wanted to mention these movies here since it's doubtful I'll ever review them but even without seeing a single one of those sequels, I can safely say that Joe Dante's werewolf flick certainly has one of the most unusual legacies of any horror film (I don't know what's more pointless, these movies or the endless amount of Children of the Corn sequels).

Bad, in-name only sequels and my initial feelings aside, I think The Howling is an awesome werewolf movie. It's well-acted, has memorable characters, lots of familiar faces, some nice satire and in-jokes, some very impressive special effects, the werewolves are quite frightening, and it's clearly made by someone who has a lot of love and enthusiasm for the genre he's working in. If you're going to check it out for the first time, though, you have to be aware that it's quite a slow build and doesn't really feel like a werewolf movie for the first half hour or so. But if you can stick with it and appreciate everything else the movie has to offer in the meantime, it's well worth it. It may have taken myself a while to appreciate it but now, I can safely say that I recommend it as highly as I possibly can. It's simply a classy, smart, and fun werewolf romp.