An American Werewolf In London (1981)

A favorite of mine.

On Letterboxd it’s one of the few comedies I have ranked 5 stars. To me it’s an absolutely perfect horror-comedy…and the Griffin Dunne appearances become increasingly more hilarious.

The scene in which David Naughton wakes up nude in the zoo and then has to streak through London did things to me.

The lead actor was so cute in this.

I've always found his type appealing.

I love the American gaze on early 80s London and British culture. That alone is hilarious.

I love a hot Jew.

There was some issue with David's dong, right? Was he uncut but had to play a Jewish character, or something?

Yes the actor had a foreskin but the character is Jewish so that meant they had to cut his dick (scenes).

The Howling is better.

^ I've never seen it. Is it funny?

Went to this test screening on Long Island and got to meet John Landis for the first time. After the screening he met with audience members to get opinions and an elderly lady was VERY upset about the violence. Don't remember any trims when I saw it again later when it was released. Got to meet Landis and David Naughton years later at a convention and have the DVD signed by them.

I hope they gave the old lady a Valium. Funny she stuck around until the end!

^ Maybe for the nudity?

Werewolf?

I want to see "See You Next Wednesday"

A naked American man stole my balloon.

Naughty Nina

Agree with R9.

The Howling is better. Much better.

In the bluray, you can see his hairy anus.

The Howling was very scary, but it's not funny.

[quote]The Howling is better. Much better.

Don't be silly.

The first film to earn the Academy Award for Best Make-up, the other nominee was "Heartbeeps". No nomination for "The Howling".

I remember this well. I was a 14 year old gayling when this came out in Europe and I fell in love with the protagonist. I have a thing for nude Americans ever since.

Love the Dr. Pepper guy! Yum

I’m a Pepper..🎶

R19, I disagree - but it's a different kind of funny.

I find the movie to be sly and self-aware, which isn't surprising given director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles previously collaborated on Piranha.

Plus there are goofy little in-jokes. A character named Walter Paisley (a name from Bucket of Blood), another named Thomas Wolf, and some named after Hammer movie directors.

Plus it's set at an encounter group community for people with sexual issues - and it turns out basically everyone is a werewolf.

Meant that for R20, not R19.

R19 Where is the anus?

[quote]Where is the anus?

This question should require instant banning for LIFE from the Datalounge.

Prince Harry was great as the kid at the zoo.

The Howling pales in comparison to AAWIL. The effects aren’t even nearly as good, and London also has that great soundtrack.

The 1981 trailer at OP credits Rick Baker as an Academy Award winner. But he won his first for this film in 1982.

AAWIL strikes me as the more effective as it puts you squarely on the wide of the werewolf and then manages to make the encounters people have with him as terrifying as if we knew nothing about his plight.

The sequence in the tube station is perhaps the best of its kind filmed. At least I can't think of another that raises the stakes as rapidly yet as convincingly and exploits a mundane location for such evil atmosphere.

Too bad Naughton didn’t go on to have a career.

Someone pointed out in the comments to this clip that in this scene (when he first appears in public) the werewolf only actually attacks one person. Most of the gruesome deaths are people trying to avoid it. Absolutely brilliant and subtle way to compound the horror using panic.

It is such a great film. Too bad Landis is a piece of shit and unleashed his piece of shit spawn onto the world as well.

Landis and I think his then wife have a cameo as the driver and passenger of a car who crash through a bank window.

It's Matt Damon's favorite horror film.

"Prince Charles is a faggot!"

Naughton looks like he could be the young RDJ's older, saner brother. RDJ would have been 15 in 1980 - too bad he wasn't able to take the Michael J. Fox role in Midnight Madness as Naughton's little brother - they would have matched up perfectly.

The scenes inside the porn theater are hysterical. Creepiness, gore, comedy, drama all happening at once with cheesy fucking sounds in the background.

As a gayling, the transformation scene made me tingle in my bathing suit area

R39, me too. It's enough to make you wonder if Landis doesn't swing both ways.

The scene in the pub could have taken place yesterday.

“Arghhh… we don’t serve none o’ your kind around ‘ere”

MJ was inspired by AAWIL to hire Landis to direct Thriller, which is arguably the best music video of all time. When Landis was good, he was GOOD.

WHET to David Naughton?

[quote]The 1981 trailer at OP credits Rick Baker as an Academy Award winner. But he won his first for this film in 1982.

That wasn't the original theatrical trailer. That was for the Lionsgate DVD/Blu ray release a few years ago. The movie was released by Universal pictures. Here's the original movie theater version.

^ Terrible trailer for a great movie.

Thanks, R44. I figured the video at R44 was improperly labeled as opposed to the original trailer had incorrect info.

^ Oops, meant the video at OP was improperly labeled.

Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.

The Michel Jackson intersection was just life showing us that monsters are very real.

Apparently there was no full frontal shot of the lead, because the character is supposed to be Jewish, but the actor isn't.

You see his penis in the film but not close enough to divine his Jewishness.

What was the point of making the lead Jewish?

John Landis wrote the script and he is from a Jewish family, So I assume he was writing a character he 'knew' to make it authentic.

Isn't John Landis Jewish? Maybe that's why he made his lead character Jewish.

Without the lead being Jewish, the Nazi Werwolves scene would make even less sense.

The lead is Jewish because the director was; it also makes David even more of an outsider.

The opening scenes in the pub then onto the moors are as great as any horror film ever gets.

Then there's that moony soundtrack. Perfectly done.

Shame we never saw much more of Naughton. Hope he got paid well by Dr. Pepper. Not a good career move in retrospect.

David Naughton was a Pepper before he was a Werewolf, I had a gay boy crush on him when I was about 10, those Dr Pepper commercials really showed off his physical assets and goofy cute dancing skills... I like him in the Movie too. :-)

But didn't the ads continue later? Anyway, as you mention, he made an indelible impression as the Pepper and those ads gave him enormous over-exposure, far more than the film.

For those too young to have seen the young Pepper.

Naughton has worked consistently in a ton of TV and movie roles all the way to the present, but mostly one-episode appearances or small parts. The few starring film roles he got after AAWIL were all terrible flops and he seemed to settle into a working actor career after that.

He was one of the leads on My Sister Sam

David went from werewolves to vampires as the star of the uber-cheesy, so-bad-it's-good TV movie of the week "Desire The Vampire" (aka "I, Desire"). It's worth watching for the camp factor alone (and, of course, his bubble butt).

David's brother James was totally hot back in the day too.

American shock at British television, circa 1981. Darts, test patterns and low rent whores in tabloid tell alls.

Both An American Werewolf in London and The Howling were released on 4K this year. Both great films, and over 40 years later, we're still talking about them. Great special effects. So much better than the cheesy CGI of today.

I think I prefer AAWIL more though. The opening sequence is terrifying, it has a better balance of humour, sexiness and horror and I prefer the characters in this film to the ones in the Howling.

Naughton was so sexy in this. It's a shame he didn't have a bigger career, but he will always be known for this film and his hit song "Makin' It". He was also in the series My Sister Sam with Pam Dawber and the late Rebecca Schaeffer. He was very funny in it.

I haven’t seen it in ages but didn’t realize David’s character was Jewish. When the nurses peeked & said he was Jewish, I assumed it’s because, as Brits they’d seen only uncut dicks, & assumed the only people who circumcise are Jews (or Muslims). Other than that scene, was his Jewishness ever mentioned?

His Jewishness is assumed because of the Nazi imagery in the nightmare sequences and his name and the names of his family and friends all seem to be Jewish.

Overrated.

Recent photo upthread David kinda looks like Joe Scarborough...

Should have been a much bigger star after that film. Must have been unlucky with script choices.

Or sucked the wrong dicks.

Rick Baker is a genius. But deep down I prefer the Howling, with make up by Baker’s protege Rob Bottin.

Notice in the tube station scene, the victim stops in front of an ad for the porn film, "See You Next Wednesday" ("A non-stop orgy!") which is later shown in the sex cinema sequence.

"See you next Wednesday" is a Landis catch phrase that was in all of his films back then, including "Animal House" and "Thriller."

I know they’re just commercials and not real life, but those happy Dr. Pepper ads seem so long ago now as society has US degenerated to the angry and violent place it is now. I’m starting to think that 1979 was as good as it ever got here.

Tried to watch last night and couldn’t get past the first few scenes. Did not enjoy Dunne or the other guy.

Weird, because I loved it as a young teen in the early 80s.

I remember a few years after it was released, a hot and horny straight friend told me he still fantasized about having Jenny Agutter as a nurse. I guess it had strong gay and straight sex appeal.

[quote]Rick Baker is a genius. But deep down I prefer the Howling, with make up by Baker’s protege Rob Bottin.

I enjoy both films, but much prefer the werewolf design in [bold]The Howling[/bold]. Although the transformation scene in [bold]American Werewolf[/bold] is terrific, the final result is... not. Looks more like a bear than a wolf, whereas [bold]The Howling's[/bold] werewolves are extremely lupine.

1981 was the cinematic Year of the Wolf. In addition to these 2 movies, a third, [bold]Wolfen[/bold], was also released. It's not a werewolf film -- the wolfen are their own species -- but good acting (Albert Finney, Gregory Hines), some effective kills, and the infrared wolfen vision POV makes it worth checking out. The scene at the beginning, where the NYC real estate tycoon and his blonde trophy wife get slaughtered in the park, is particularly satisfying these days.

I like that the London werewolf was bear-like on four legs. Made him look like a hell hound. Totally scary. If you look closely in the tube scene when the guy is on the escalator, you can see it creep into the top of the screen briefly.

Max M. Brown (whoever he is) was so hot in his tuxedo as the husband-victim in that first scene in "Wolfen".

[quote]Notice in the tube station scene, the victim stops in front of an ad for the porn film, "See You Next Wednesday" ("A non-stop orgy!") which is later shown in the sex cinema sequence.

Saw it many times and never noticed that. Perv.

R78, that werewolf looked like a pissed off poodle, as most poodles are. And I'm not even talking about the finale that actually got laughed at.

Wolfen is a good movie as well. Great snapshot of NYC late 70's/early 80's.

1981 had so many great horror films. The special effects were good, but the films had ATMOSPHERE, which is lacking in current horror. There was humour and there were scares. They were sexy, too.

I love Cat People with Nastassja Kinski which came out the next year and was about a woman who turns into a panther.

R82. Yes I like sex.

Ebert sure didn't care for this one, or The Howling, for that matter.

^ He's probably right about the ending, which is very abrupt. The rest of his criticisms of this classic film are bullshit.

Rik Mayall plays one of the villagers in the pub.

R89 Good eye. My partner and I watched this DVD many times before we spotted him.

I always loved that whole sequence with the couple expecting guests for drinks who go around back to give their hosts a “scare.”

“I think those hooligans are in the park again. You’d better go down there.”

Despite all the carnage and creepiness, AAWIL also makes London and the surrounding countryside look so lovely and livable. Similar in my mind to WITHNAIL AND I.

R91 What if George, Martha, Nick and Honey had all been slayed by a werewolf instead?

I wonder what happened to the punks in the tube scene. Grand dads now.

I love this movie and The Howling too. I think the transformation scene in the The Howling is pretty epic and I could swear critics were raving about it back in the day. Plus the actor who played the character Eddie was so good. My biggest issue with the movie is that after the reporter transforms, she looks like a Pomeranian.

Rick Baker, you lucky lil scamp.

Anyone remember American Werewolf in Paris?

^Yes, and it sucked harder than a Hoover.

I liked Landis used actors, (Lila Kaye, John Woodvine), who were doing Nicholas Nickleby at the same time.

I'm surprised this has never been remade.

Why on earth would they remake it? It is a great film as it is.

Because Hollywood only cares about money, and most young moviegoers today have likely never seen the original.

It HAS, of course. And it was completely lame, of course.

Always liked this movie since it's original release when I was a teenager, but even then I thought the end was too abrupt.

LOL!

American Werewolf >>>>> Blues Brothers

I always liked Paris more than London

I remember Ed Begley Jr. getting killed in Cat People. And a naked John Heard

R105 Cheesy as hell but impressively elaborate. I’m impressed!

R105 Now do one for ALL ABOUT EVE.

[quote]John Landis wrote the script and he is from a Jewish family, So I assume he was writing a character he 'knew' to make it authentic.

You're probably right, but I always think there's something ironic or funny about having to make a movie about mythical creatures "authentic".

I want to go through that AAWIL maze.

Question for anyone who knows - at the point when David has just woke up in the hospital and is reacting badly, the doctor calls for the nurse to administer a sedative:

305

00:20:37,662 --> 00:20:39,448

Twenty milligrams [--------], IV, please.

What's the word used here? Some subtitle sets give the word exactly as its pronunciation sounds - "sagittal." But that definitely isn't a sedative, but a particular view of the body, or otherwise pertaining to the skull.

Other subtitle sets 'correct' the word to "Seconal" which, since it's a common sedative, it makes sense that the doctor would call for it. But it doesn't sound like the word that was used.

The published script avoids the issue by not transcribing the actual dialogue for that exchange:

"DR. HIRSCH: Prepare a hypodermic, please, Miss Price.

The shot is administered and David is held down by Dr. Hirsch and Alex until his breathing becomes more normal."

Script-o-rama avoids it, thus:

"Twenty milligrams... IV, please."

Does anyone know?

Is his brother THE James Naughton?

[quote]Is his brother THE James Naughton?

Yes. See R64.

Does anyone know if James and David Naughton are related?

They are brothers. Both very good looking. I remember James played Judith Light's ex-husband on Who's The Boss? and Meryl's husband #7 in Devil Wears Prada.

Anyone who doesn’t know at this point that they’re brothers is retarded.