Second Chances: An American Werewolf in London

SECOND CHANCES

john cribbs

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

Despite their reputations, some films and filmmakers just don't do it for Funderburg and Cribbs. This series, Second Chances, follows their attempts to find greatness where they've previously failed to see it; to actively make an effort to appreciate esteemed artworks for which they currently have a distaste (or feel indifference). They'll give cult favorites like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 another shot and dig deep in the filmographies of beloved auteurs whose appeal baffles them (like Luchino Visconti) - and with a little luck, maybe they'll even end up as newly-minted fans...

Happy Halloween, everybody! I trust everyone has finalized their late night horror movie marathon picks. Mine include the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the Tobe Hooper-directed pilot of "Freddy's Nightmares" - it was on the Chiller network so I taped it - and the black & white version of The Mist, the blu-ray of which my brother was forced to pony up after the Raiders bested the Rams by a mere 2 points back in Week Two (should have asked for the spread), to compliment Darabont's debut episode of "The Walking Dead" on AMC. But first I'm taking my daughter Mall-o-ween trick 'r treating at the already kinda-spooky Poughkeepsie Galleria. However before I exploit my child in order to collect free Kit Kats and Crunch bars, I figured I'd knock out this entry in the 'smoke's on-going Second Chances series. I had planned on re-watching Let the Right One In for this one, but after seeing the virtually identical-plus-crappy-CG American remake I realized that I'm never going to like that film any more than I did the first time out. Which wasn't very much. It really doesn't deserve a second chance because I have no desire to force myself into believing that it's as good as many people say it is. Whereas today's entry is a movie I've struggled with for the last 15 years of my life, a film that - to borrow a line from Sam Cooke's sorrowful rendition of Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon" - seems to beg "please adore me." And I desperately want to! So let's see if I can't convince myself of its greatness and turn this moon to gold.

The subject: An American Werewolf in London

Initial Resistance:

Attending the Horror Makeup Show at Orlando's Universal Studios theme park back in 1991 was an experience I'm tempted to call "life-changing." But I guess since I didn't go on to become an iconic Creature Creator like Stan Winston or Rob Bottin, I should just call it "awesome." Besides being a great live act, the Makeup Show (one of only three attractions to have remained at the park since its opening, along with Jaws popping out of the water and the shitty E.T. ride) featured a montage of gory scenes from the past decade of Universal productions. At an ingenuous 12 years old, I caught my first glimpse of several movies that had yet to cross my impressionable radar field with their infamous splatter scenes: Brian DePalma's Scarface (chainsaw in the bathtub), John Carpenter's The Thing (sled dog mutilation), David Cronenberg's The Fly (Brundlefly evolution). And the highlight of these clips was the classic transformation scene from John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, the one for which the Academy Awards had to create a special category to recognize Rick Baker's innovative and groundbreaking effects. I'm pretty sure they screened the entire 2 1/2 minute sequence (which always feels so painfully longer) and by the end of it I sat in my damp seat knowing that this movie had just jumped to the top of my Must See List.

But for some reason I didn't actually catch the complete film for another four or five years, when I was well into high school. Largely as a result of reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre, other horror films had popped into my cultural awareness and the "must see" slot was appropriated by such alternating discoveries as the Alien and Evil Dead movies, and even more obscure titles like Let's Scare Jessica to Death. Of these new favorites, none got spun more than Joe Dante's The Howling. Since both films were released in 1981, Howling and American Werewolf have become unavoidably comparable (people try to include Wolfen in this set of "classic 1981 werewolf movies," but come on, nobody cares about fucking Wolfen.) It's sort of become the modern horror movie version of the "Beatles or Stones" debate: you can like both of them but you'll inevitably prefer one over the other (or is it Beatles vs Elvis? Whatever.) For me there's no doubt about it - I'm a Howling man. And I'm not just saying that because Joe Dante is clearly a superior filmmaker and storyteller, in fact probably the best American director of the last 30 years (come on - who are you stacking him up against? PT Anderson? David Fincher? Sam Mendes? He's not even American, he just thinks he is.) I've certainly got nothing against John Landis personally. He put slovely John Belushi in a toga, homicidal Dan Aykroyd in a Santa Suit and gorgeous Vanessa Angel in snow bra and panties. On the other hand, he also put Vic Morrow and two children in a needlessly dangerous situation that got them killed. He also directed unnecessary sequels to The Blues Brothers and Beverly Hills Cop. And The Stupids.

It's fair enough to stack the two movies against each other. Both have a macabre sense of humor and feature sly references to werewolf movie directors and characters. They've both spawned horrible, vaguely-related sequels (the last direct-to-video Howling movie didn't even have any werwolves in it, just lots of poorly-shot country line dancing.) And each features a revolutionary transformation scene from up-and-coming makeup artists; Rick Baker almost left American Werewolf to do The Howling when it looked like Landis' film wasn't coming together, ultimately consulting eventual Howling makeup artist Rob Bottin. But a problem I've always had with the comparisons is that The Howling is almost always considered second fiddle to Landis' bigger, more popular film, an "also ran." Maybe it's because Howling is more of a classic, straight-forward horror movie. Maybe it's because Landis was at that time a crowd-pleasing hitmaker and The Howling was made by a bunch of Roger Corman guys. Maybe it's just because Werewolf's transformation scene is more of a centerpiece than the shadowy mutation of Robert Picardo's Eddie Quist in Dante's movie. But I'm here to tell you: the opening scene of The Howling is better than even Rick Baker's signature sequence. The writing and direction are better, the jokes are funnier. the scary scenes are more effective. Simply put, The Howling is a better movie. And the fact that the world disagrees (one of my college professors went so far as to call Dante "the poor man's John Landis"!!) has always been an immediate strike against American Werewolf for me. People love it. Even with The Howling out of the equation, I'd say it rivals The Exorcist as the most overrated modern horror film.

Reason for reassessment:

v.s.

Of course it's not exactly fair to use a film's positive reception against it, so part of the reason I decided to give it another shot was to go into it with an impartial mind. Another was to remind myself what I didn't like about it. From memory, I found it difficult to think of specific reasons to hate the movie. All I could focus on were the things I remember being good: Griffin Dunne, the Baker effects, the warped dream sequences. The girl in the movie's good-looking enough, right? Is it possible that I just found this darling of horror fan circles underwhelming? Was the film actually a victim of its reputation? Or have I just been subliminally discrediting Landis all these years for not being an actual horror filmmaker, not wanting to put the director of Three Amigos! on the same level as David Cronenberg or Frank Henenlotter? If I didn't like the movie, I at least have to figure out why I can't dismiss it entirely. It has at least one iconic scene, which is a hook other overrated horror flicks like Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project and The Ring certainly don't have. But I can't think of anyone praising anything about the film specifically other than the transformation scene. And personally, I think the 80's produced a more effective transformation scene (Rob Bottin's in The Howling), one I thought was scarier (Stan Winston's in The Monster Squad) and one I found more inventive (the non-Rush Hour Chris Tucker's work in The Company of Wolves). Not that I'm disparaging any of the worthy praise that's been heaped on what is so clearly a visually and conceptually amazing scene - I'm just pointing out that there are other options out there for werewolf transformation scene fetishists. Furthermore, does American Werewolf even have merit beyond that famous sequence? Something else I wanted to find out.

Honestly, I can't decide what's weirder: that I, a card-carrying horror movie fan, refuse to follow suit and heap praise on this movie, or that it continues to have so many defenders when its director has not done anything else worth seeing that couldn't be credited to the talent of young Eddie Murphy (and Kentucky Fried Movie, which can easily be attributed to golden era Jim Abrahams & Zuckers.) Considering that Landis returned to London recently to helm a (so far, badly reviewed) movie version of the Burke and Hare story and Rick Baker recently revisited the werewolf subgenre with Joe Johnston's disappointing update of The Wolfman, these guys are obviously still living in the shadow of this film. It's an important movie, but I'm not sure I can tell you why. Will I be able to by the end of this? One thing's for sure: I was not expecting to like this movie any better.

The Second Chance:

The print screened at the AFI Theater in Silver Springs was first rate: from the opening shots of the mist rising above the sloping Northern England hills I was really impressed by the photography from the usually-bland Robert Paynter (Superman II, European Vacation.) It made me realize that these rural British locations have a lot to do with the film's singularity; its foggy, overcast atmosphere gives the movie an ominous gothic feel that out-Baskervilles the best of Hammer Studios. The visual of David Naughton and Griffin Dunne walking the moors is so memorable - the contrast of those dark green slopes against the American tourists' bright coats, especially Naughton's red padded jacket. Never has a movie opened with characters so nakedly out of their element: these two aren't just Americans lost in Northern England, they're two modern regular joes who've walked into an old monster movie complete with the distant braying of some unseen beast. It's a great introduction to the characters, having them exiting the back of a truck transporting a herd of sheep, themselves soon to be proverbial lambs to the slaughter. I also like that Landis has his own signature title font like Woody Allen and John Carpenter, whether he's doing a movie like this or Coming to America. And the haunting melody of "Blue Moon" sets the tone. (Has any singer had his songs used more ironically in movies than Bobby Vinton? Between this, "Blue Velvet," and "Mr. Lonely," anyone meeting him today could very well expect Vinton to be some kind of weird ringleader to a band of renegade perverts.)

It says a lot going into the movie this time that I remembered Griffin Dunne's character was named Jack, but had no idea what David Naughton's name was (it's, uh, David.) Jack Goodman is a great supporting character: endearing but not obnoxious, funny but not a smart ass, self-effacing without seeming pitiful. He's the ideal American buddy, and the camaraderie between Naughton and Dunne is so natural it doesn't matter that they're not saying anything important. Naughton's relationship with Dunne is the best thing in the movie, and I honestly feel that the film's greatest strengths and most glaring weaknesses come from that fact. Every scene with Dunne, from his "living" sequences to his three returns as a gradually decaying corpse, are fully fleshed out (heh) with amusing dialogue undermining the sad fate of both young men. Every time Dunne appears the film's energy gets refreshed by his presence alone. When he's killed after less than 15 minutes of screen time it's slightly devastating, and Dunne's performance really helps sell the brutality of the largely unseen werewolf attack. He's perfect in the role, touchingly sweet when relating his feelings for Debbie Klein, the girl he pined over who found solace after his funeral in the bed of some asshole. That seems to me an even greater tragedy than David's transformation into a monster, the fact that Jack dies without getting into Debbie's pants: "Life mocks me even in death."

It's in the Slaughtered Lamb pub where the film's first problems arise. Landis is simply too aware of the campiness of a scene where two strangers walk into an archaic setting filled with imposing foreigners. There's little difference between this and the part in Animal House were the white college boys stumble into the all-black roadhouse: there's even that LP-scratching-to-a-halt moment of awkward silence when they enter the pub. Just compare this to the opening of The Howling, with Dee Wallace finding herself in some nightmare area of Los Angeles leading to a seedy porn shop where her growing discomfort at the ogling eyes of patrons builds steadily to her encounter with the serial killer who traumatizes her by literally changing into a beast before her eyes. Dante immediately establishes a world that the characters can inhabit and within which humor can exist; by setting up the joke at the beginning, Landis is establishing a funny world where horrific things are just going to seem out of place in the narrative. That's the biggest difference between Landis and Dante as storytellers: Dante isn't afraid to make the kind of monster movie he grew up with, whereas Landis seems to feel like he needs to let the audience in on his own appreciation of classic horror films (this is why Dante's inclusion of B-movie snippets in his films always seems natural, whereas Landis' using them in Innocent Blood seems so damned forced, like his aggressive use of horror filmmaker cameos which, fortunately, American Werewolf does not share with his other work.) When faced with the decision to play it straight or ham it up, Landis will ultimately choose to go tongue-in-cheek, which becomes hugely frustrating when there are a number of moments that are naturally eerie, like the great shot where David and Jack unwittingly lose the path.

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