Review of An American Werewolf in London (1981) by Barbara D — 14 Jan 2010

There are very few films that shock, scare and make you laugh out loud all in one. An American Werewolf in London is one of these rare gems. This film was written and directed by John Landis, who is also responsible for films such as Trading Places and even worked with Michael Jackson on Thriller, which leads to one of the things that I loved so much about the film; the makeup.

The makeup in this film was apparently so outstanding that it inspired the creation for the Best Makeup category at the Oscars. Usually, special effects and makeup in modern films annoy me because most of the time they rely heavily on CGI. This film was made in the early 80s when they didn't have CGI, so it was all done with prostetics and even robotic parts.

I mentioned earlier that John Landis worked on Thriller, and it shows. The werewolf's transformation sequence in this film clearly inspired the transformation scene in Thriller. Both of them were outstanding, and I watched it wondering how the hell they did it without CGI!

The makeup that was done on the main character's best friend actually freaked me out at times, which is really hard to do because I'm hardly scared of anything in films! The film in general also had the right amount of gore to the point that it wasn't just bad taste. They also relied on suspense, which few movies do nowadays.

As a whole, the film had a couple of faults every now and then but they were all forgiven by the rest of the film's brilliance. Apparently (and I am not joking when I say this), there is going to be a remake. So, for anyone considering seeing this film, watch it before the remake, because it's definitely going to suck!