Blu-Ray Review: An American Werewolf in London
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Director: John Landis
Review by: Dustin Hall
Finally, a great oversight in the world of horror has been corrected.
To me, An American Werewolf in London (AWL) is a member of the pantheon of great horror movies. To some it may be blasphemy against the name of Lon Cheney Jr., but AWL is probably the best werewolf movie of all time. I think back on The Wolf Man, The Howling, Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers, Underworld; I love all of these movies for different attributes, but I don’t think that any of them combined the classic werewolf mythos with such unbridled passion and creativity as AWL. If nothing else, Rick Baker used AWL to define what a wolf-transformation could and should be, dwarfing the visual imagination of everything that came before it, and too much of what has come after.
The oversight – the travesty – has been that for years if you go to Best Buy, Hastings, Wal-Mart, or any other major DVD carrier, they don’t have AWL; instead, they carry American Werewolf in Paris, one of the shittiest sequels ever devised by a human being. Lacking the coherence, the laughs, and the genuine love of its characters that AWL had, Paris is a hollow film featuring werewolves constructed with early CG, which gave them less resemblance to wolves, and more to Man-Bear-Pig. If only this movie followed the example of One Night in Paris and had an American werewolf mounting Paris Hilton… sadly the fates conspired against such an awesome conception.
I’ll grant you that AWL has never left print, and at any point you could special order the bare-bones DVD edition from Amazon or another online dealer. But for those new generations of horror fans wandering into a store, for years, their attempts to find a wonderful horror-comedy about werewolves would end in tragedy. The unknowing comments on IMDB suggest that many children of the 90′s believed AWL to be a straight to video sequel to the inferior Paris.
Universal has corrected this critical misstep at last by releasing a high quality edition of the original London horror to fill the shelves of stores and the homes of horror collectors. Despite the likely motivations of Universal, no doubt prompted by a potential cash-grab with the impending release of a Wolf Man remake (going so far as to even include a special feature on the disc about the superficially related title), you can tell that the construction of this collection was a labor of love from the crew.
First of all, the transfer is wonderful. There are still some grainy shots, but with any old analogue film, that’s going to be the case. The print of the film has been restored to the glossy beauty it must have had almost 30 years ago. While interior shots suffer some from the age of the film, all of the exterior shots, especially those of the climactic wolf carnage, look fantastic. It’s so crisp, you can almost taste the bubbly intestines coming from the wolf’s foamed maw. Mmmm.
Audio has also been cleaned up, especially by comparison of my old VHS version. The 5.1 sound mix makes the wolf snarls and Nazi-demon machine gun fire attack you from all around; and the haunting mix of screams and the serene 50′s soundtrack blends together seamlessly, where previous editions would always force one audio track to kill the other.
A slew of special features accompany the feature this outing, some of them already released on old DVD, VHS, and HD DVD versions, now collected in one package. Those include outtakes, ‘Casting of a Hand’ special effects archive, and interviews with Rick Baker and John Landis. Unique to this version are a new outtake featuring a young Landis with the naked cast of ‘See you Next Wednesday’, and D-Box capabilities for anyone who needs a crazy moving chair to enjoy their movies. Best of all, it includes the documentary, Beware the Moon.
Now, its pretty rare to see a making-of documentary produced by a 3rd party that isn’t being financed by the parent company. Its even more rare – perhaps unprecedented – to see that documentary subsequently purchased by the parent studio for release. That’s exactly what’s happened here. Beware the Moon is a fan made chronicle of the creation of AWL, so complete and so well edited, that Universal bought the featurette and put it on the disc. And it is extensive. Beware the Moon covers every aspect of AWL from its initial conception to the business deals, to casting, shooting, post production, reception, and everything else you could imagine. It has interviews with Landis, Baker, stars Naughton, Agutter, and Dunne, and crew and FX men all the way down to the 2nd Key Grip! You’ll never find a more complete feature for this film, so much so that it almost makes the other DVD items superfluous!
If you managed to get the previous DVD version with the features (as opposed to the trailer-only print), you might debate getting this new edition on the merits of the new documentary, and the marvelous transfer. There are a few general flaws, generic menus, and the fact that BR players don’t remember your spot on the disc if you turn the machine off. But its a well crafted collection, assembled with fans in mind. If you don’t own American Werewolf in London yet, this is a must-have that needs to be in your collection.
Brutal as Hell Rating: 5 out of 5
