An American Werewolf in London

Review

As far as this list goes I’m pretty sure this is the first classic monster movie I’ve ever seen and I feel like I started off on a good note. Actually scratch that I did watch The Thing (1982) first but either way both great notes to start off on. I had a really fun time with this movie and it ended up being a nice palette cleanse before watching Hostel. I honestly expected this movie to be a lot scarier than it was but there were still some spooky parts in it’s own right.

This movie is about two friends who are planning to backpack through Europe and on the first night they get attacked by a werewolf. One of the friends is killed but the other,David, makes it out thanks to the villagers killing the werewolf, which leads to David being the last werewolf alive. David begins a romance with the nurse taking care of him, Alex, but all the while David’s dead best friend, Jack, is warning him about his new werewolf nature and is encouraging him to kill himself before he hurts others. The movie ends with David rampaging as a werewolf and just as Alex gets to him to try and calm him down the police open fire and kill David and so the movie ends.

I thought this movie was really sweet. The romance between David and Alex was nice and simple, all that you really need for a horror movie and they seemed to genuinely care about each other. Even though I thought they fell in love a little quickly, for the purposes of this movie I totally understand it. I never really felt weird about their relationship which is always a plus. Since their relationship is so good it means that the ending packs so much more of a punch.

Speaking of the ending, I absolutely loved the ending even if I’m emotionally wrecked from it. You know that by the end David is probably going to die by his own hand but the way that it’s done in the film is so shocking and so heartbreaking and the film barely gives you a moment to process what just happened before cutting to credits. It’s amazing and I’ll never forget the way I felt first seeing that. Also it lowkey makes the movie itself become a wolf amongst the sheep as it really seems like a typical light-hearted movie only for that to change on a dime right at the end.

I loved Jack’s presence throughout the film and I thought that his makeup was done especially well up until his final appearance which looks pretty cheap but this is an 80s movie and I assume that it’s supposed to be funny so it’s excused.

I thought that the transformation scene was really cool and really grotesque to watch which was a plus. Also, while his werewolf form doesn’t look the best it still looks pretty intimidating and I didn’t really mind.

I also thought the inclusion of all those moon songs was a nice touch and the soundtrack overall was pretty good for a non-rock based soundtrack.

Probably the only issue I have with the film is the insignificance of some things, for example that kid in the hospital never has any purpose and that one dream sequence is just weird to be weird and I feel like if those two plots/scenes were left out then nobody would notice so I personally wasn’t a big fan of their inclusion

Overall, I thought this movie was really good really cute, not super scary but very sad at the end. I had a good time and I’ll definitely have a good time watching it again with other people.