The CineFiles

An American Werewolf in London is one of my all time favorite scary movies. In the age of digital, you really cannot beat the practical effects developed by make-up wizard Rick Baker in not on the wolf man and his transformation but also in the ever-rotting reanimated corpse of Griffin Dunne’s Jack. Now can we talk about Jack? Seriously, Griffin Dunne manages to steal the show in a film packed with excellent performances. He’s gloriously deadpan and the absurdist nature of his predicament as a revenant doomed to wander the edges of David’s mind until he can urge his friend to kill himself and break the werewolf’s curse is both deeply tragic and hysterically absurd. And the soundtrack is also spot on, particularly in its wry deployment of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising.” And, a production note, that’s not special effects make-up on David Naughton’s chest. People actually had body hair back in the 1980s. True fact.

This movie is the darkest of comedies and has a real heart at the center of it. It’s inevitable conclusion is genuinely tragic and moving. It’s a truly solid entry in the wolf man genre of horror film. And apparently there is also a BBC radio play of the script that came out in the 1990s. I’ve never heard it but I’m going to try to track it down.