[Film Review] An American Werewolf in London (1981)

American college students David and Jack are on a backpacking tour of Britain, travelling across the Yorkshire moors. They try to seek shelter in the small, closed community of East Proctor but are evicted from the village pub and sent packing across the moor with a warning to ‘beware the moon’ and keep to the path. After getting lost in the eerie silence of the moors, they realise they are being hunted. After a brutal attack, David wakes up in a London hospital and tries to piece together the events of that night. He also finds himself haunted by Jack, who was killed in the attack and warns him that he will soon become a werewolf. When David discovers the truth, he has to find a way to stop his inevitable transformation into a blood thirsty, murderous beast.

An American Werewolf in London (AAWIL) features a lot of the folk horror elements I adore, in the first act, before slashing and swiping across the face of modernity in London for the rest of the film. Pentagrams are scrawled on walls, suspicious locals cast sidelong glances and dripping candles weakly illuminate dusty pubs. The opening scene has a moodily beautiful folk vibe with shots of craggy mountains coated in heather, and mist. We see how barren and desolate the environment is , with one lonely road cutting a path of progress through the rough wild landscape. Here, nature is an indifferent master, and the isolation of the moors threaten to smother us if we stray too far. This lends the film a fairy tale element, echoing the advice given to Little Red Riding Hood, who also encountered a wolf when she strayed from the path. She wasn’t chased by a hulking beast and brutalised in a bloody attack, clawed in a flash of fur and teeth, but David is wearing a red jacket, so maybe there are some parallels that can be drawn.

Nature, wildness and the untamed quality of rural settings are prevalent themes in AAWIL, brilliantly contrasted with the hustle and noise of the city when David makes it to London. In his nightmares we see him naked, powerful and free, running through the woods, as he hunts for prey, felling deer and stalking rabbits. This stands in direct contrast to the hunting grounds he prowls in London, where the bright lights of the city make detection more likely and a werewolf is forced to hunt in some unusual places (you’ll never look at the London Underground in the same way). It is a clash of the old world and the new, of ancient folklore meeting modern life and it is exciting to see the werewolf moved to an urban sprawl, to see how carefully manicured parks can replace woodlands, and how those who live in the city become easy prey for a monster they have forgotten to fear.

---

CRAVING EXCLUSIVE EXTRA CONTENT? CHECK THESE OUT!

---

Nature, wildness and the untamed quality of rural settings are prevalent themes in AAWIL, brilliantly contrasted with the hustle and noise of the city when David makes it to London. In his nightmares we see him naked, powerful and free, running through the woods, as he hunts for prey, felling deer and stalking rabbits. This stands in direct contrast to the hunting grounds he prowls in London, where the bright lights of the city make detection more likely and a werewolf is forced to hunt in some unusual places (you’ll never look at the London Underground in the same way). It is a clash of the old world and the new, of ancient folklore meeting modern life and it is exciting to see the werewolf moved to an urban sprawl, to see how carefully manicured parks can replace woodlands, and how those who live in the city become easy prey for a monster they have forgotten to fear.

There is a sense of tension throughout, a prickling at the neck. First,  the tension is felt for the friends as outsiders in a small, rural place far from home. Then there is the building sense of dread as the full moon approaches and David must face his impending transformation. And what a transformation it is. It remains perhaps the finest werewolf transformation scene committed to film, and the use of incredible practical effects means that it has not remotely dated, even when watching now, years after its release. It’s a visceral, bone crunching transition that is a total shift from human to animal, with hands elongating into paws, fingernails shredding into claws, achilles tendons stretching out and, finally, a screaming face shifting into a muzzle, packed with sharp teeth. David’s awareness and humanity is present throughout, evident in his shock and his shrieks as he shape shifts until finally, he is at the mercy of his animal instincts and his need to hunt. 

AAWIL manages a rare feat in horror, mixing humour with gore and dread. Jack is a hilarious, if ghoulish, Jiminy Cricket, appearing when least expected to warn David about his fate. David’s gradual realisation about his transformation accelerates when he wakes up naked at London Zoo and has to leap from bush to bush, until he can purloin a woman’s coat and get the first bus home. In these moments, we are reminded that monster movies can be a thrilling mix of fun, gore and mythology and no one balances that better than this fantastic tale of a (relatively) modern werewolf.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---