An American Werewolf In London - Horror Movie Review

Two American friends backpack travelling in the yorkshire moors on the opening scene just having a laugh as friends do, unaware of the horror that awaits them both after they leave the local pub the slaughtered lamb when a wolf attacks them killing one of them and hospitalising our main hero for now David, but the locals come to the rescue and shoot and kill the beast and the last thing David sees is the body of a man naked with shotgun wounds laying dead on the grass.

Most of the next few acts of the film is spent with David seeing his dead friend Jack turn up to warn him that he will turn into a werewolf at the next full moon and he is having bad dreams about killing deer and other freaky nightmares.

This film as a child I watched and it scared me the thought of the werewolf, but lately I re-watched it and although some parts I remembered as scary or dark just wasn't as bad as I first viewed them, but the best part of the film is the werewolf transformation as it still sort of stands up today in recent special effects, although you can tell without the aid of visual computer generated imagery being involved, the ideas of the make up envisioned by Rick Baker still look great, although you are waiting over a full hour for the werewolf to arrive, but it's worth it when it does.

Written and directed by John Landis the film has a few comic elements thrown in which sometimes makes the lead character seem kind of goofy and almost bad for when the transformation happens, but then this is a horror film so who cares?

After the werewolf goes on a killing spree in London the last part of the film is resolving the story which there is a love story in the mix too, but for the main the interesting parts of the film are the horror elements which make the movie, as usual with these types of films there are some gory moments which are good when they happen as you are waiting for them to happen for the first hour of the film.

This is a film that I'll always remember for the werewolf effects and just the whole atmosphere of the movie with it being in that great era of the 80's when films for me were fast becoming something great with many films out in that decade that I became interested with.

So if you're into werewolfs and you can't remember seeing this classic film of the past then go see it.

Also check out The Wolfman as that is a good movie too.