Products You May Like
Grab your pentagrams, stay off the moors, and let’s make a reservation at The Slaughtered Lamb— because we’re celebrating 45 years of John Landis’ 1981 masterpiece, An American Werewolf in London! Revolutionizing the horror genre, Landis and effects master Rick Baker created the blueprint for modern horror-comedy and introduced special effects that permanently changed Hollywood’s creature designs.
The film follows two American backpackers, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), who wander off the road in the English moors—and immediately learn why creepy pub locals should be taken seriously. A werewolf attack leaves Jack dead and David hospitalized in London, where he falls for nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter). Soon, David must juggle his undead best friend’s advice, a new romance, plus one of horror’s greatest werewolf transformations. Brutal and hilarious, An American Werewolf in London is horror-comedy perfection.
As a young assistant director on the war comedy Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia in 1969, Landis was inspired to write an original screenplay after witnessing an unusual burial ritual– locals took precautions to keep the recently deceased from returning from the grave. Fascinated with this concept, he thought, ‘How would a regular person react if something supernatural happened to them?’ He sat on the idea as his star rose with major successes Animal House and The Blues Brothers. Landis was finally in a position to make his wild, and perhaps most personal, passion project.
Dread spoke to writer/ director John Landis: “With An American Werewolf in London, I attempted to make a ‘realistic’ portrayal of the supernatural. A sane person knows that transforming into a monstrous wolf is not real. So, what do you do when the unreal becomes reality? I am delighted and amazed the movie still entertains 45 years later.”
Landis manages to show the anatomical reality and agonizing pain of a human body physically warping into a beast in full bright light, rather than hiding him in the shadows. He told special effects master Rick Baker that it makes no sense to sit perfectly still in a chair while transforming via the traditional camera “lap dissolve” techniques, as Lon Chaney Jr. did in The Wolf Man.
Baker and his crew, including a young effects master, Steve Johnson (The Howling, Ghostbusters), created mechanical extensions, prosthetics, and elaborate makeup appliances to stretch David Naughton’s body into increasingly inhuman shapes. Rather than making lycanthropy glamorous and relaxed, this transformation is tormented—enhanced with a killer score and chilling sound design; bones seemingly crack and lengthen, his facial bone structure pushes outward, fangs and claws burst through. David screams his way through the entire ordeal, remorseful that he didn’t believe his departed friend Jack.
Baker’s work became so groundbreaking that the Academy finally created a category to honor makeup effects, with Baker receiving the very first Academy Award. Forty-five years later, the effects still bite. Rick Baker didn’t just make a werewolf—he made cinematic history. Dread spoke to master effects artist Steve Johnson, who heavily contributed, about working with Baker: “With American Werewolf, Landis and Baker didn’t just create the art of special makeup effects – they changed the entire film industry. Suddenly writers could write anything they imagined. Directors could shoot anything they could dream up. Movies changed forever…“
Essentially, An American Werewolf in London is a buddy story that spirals viciously out of control. David’s friendship with Jack feels authentic and relatable, from the juvenile goofing around to the accusatory nitpicking. Landis’s choice to cast relatively unknown actors as his leads was a gamble, but it paid off swimmingly. Co-star Griffin Dunne talks to Dread about the film’s lasting legacy and his hyper-realistic makeup as corpse Jack: “I was at the beginning of my career, being flown to London on the Concorde—too young to even know how to spell ‘legacy.’ The crew and David wanted to take me to pubs in full makeup to freak people out, but I never let them because I thought someone would really have a heart attack if they saw me.”
Dread also spoke to horror master Mick Garris, who in 1981 was a young, up-and-coming publicist working with John Landis: “An American Werewolf in London broke the mold of the werewolf movie, as well as the horror comedy. Here, for one of the first times, the Horror was scary, and the comedy was funny. Landis deftly juggled different genres that don’t normally go together. Not to mention Rick Baker’s groundbreaking makeup effects.”
As a young Monster Kid and cinephile myself– who never quite fit in with the “normal kids,” experiencing An American Werewolf in London was a quintessential turning point, inspiring me down the path of performance and practical effects. I don’t know who I would be without it. The film not only shows graphic violence and brilliant odes to horror classics, but also captures nuances of the human condition between right, wrong, and a descent into madness.
Make sure to follow Dread Central and Anastasia Elfman across social media, and check out my companion video for more fun film tidbits and behind-the-scenes footage!
Categorized:Exclusive Interviews