This review is part of captaind's The Good Movies EpiGuide 2 write-off: http://www.epinions.com/content_5245804676.

Back when he was a 19-year-old gofer on the set of Kelly's Heroes, John Landis witnessed a gypsy funeral in the Yugoslavian countryside. The ritualistic burial involved wrapping the deceased criminal in garlic and a feet-first placement in a deep grave. The intent was to keep the man from coming back to life and raising hell. But what if he did arise? How could Landis or his native friend who was laughing hysterically at the consecration deal with a living dead person? They would be unequipped, as Landis says, because "it's not only out of our experience, it's horses***."

That didn't stop Landis from writing a screenplay wrapped around such an unlikely scenario, inserting the character of David Kessler (David Naughton) into his shoes. Adding further injury to insult, the skeptic himself is as good as dead because what was responsible for one man's departure has indeed cursed him to a violent double life upon the arrival of the full moon. David has come to the realization that he is a werewolf, and yet he can't believe his mutilated best friend's corpse has visited him, in progressive stages of decomposition, to warn him of what will be.

In the early 1980s, the lycanthrope revival was ushered in at first by the tongue-in-cheek cult favorite The Howling, directed by Joe Dante and co-written by John Sayles. If I can remember, the movie spawned a seemingly infinite number of sequels. The first in a pair of concurrent summer releases in 1981 was Woodstock documentarian Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen, a rather disappointing if socially conscious detective story involving shape-shifting Native American lycans in NYC. Landis came on third with his AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, perhaps the most beloved and certainly the more adept of all three movies in its genre-spanning tactics.

Landis was giving his characters ironic if intelligent awareness of the werewolf lore years before Wes Craven's postmodern renaissance was capped off with the dreaded Cursed. David Kessler and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), two backpacking collegiates from NYU traipsing through England on their way to Italy, stop off at the ominously titled pub The Slaughtered Lamb in the Welsh hamlet of East Proctor. The symbol: the bleeding head of a wolf impaled on a pike. Too tired and hungry to make another course, they enter and naturally stop all manner of chess and dart games in their tracks. David and Jack discover a pentagram etched on the wall, and trace that to the pendant Lon Chaney, Jr. received in The Wolf Man, which meant "the sign of the wolf." In the midst of a laughter row, Jack asks about the painted star and find themselves even more out-of-place.

The villagers are aware of something David and Jack don't know, but the boys end up going off the main roads and have even more reason to "beware the moon" even further when a series of howls pierce the night. The attack on the moors is sudden and lethal for Jack, whereas David takes a claw to the face before the wolf is blown away by the villagers. The last thing David sees before his consciousness fades is the reverted-to-man figure of the blood-splattered wolf.

Reports of a human maniac greet David when he awakens in a London hospital, but the wounded survivor reasons that it was more of an animal that struck him and his friend. In the interim between recovery and surreal dreams of Muppets and pug-ugly Nazi storm troopers that Landis admits were inspired by Buñuel's The Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie, David flirts with comely nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter) and is visited by the freshly-slaughtered and now in limbo Jack, who relays some distressing news to Jack after some small talk about his funeral. David feels like he's going insane when he comes across as perfectly rational and collected. David would appear to be full of life, but he foolishly denies the logic of his animalistic, grisly nightmares until they end up coming true.

Nurse Price is sympathetic and oddly attracted to David, whom she invites into her house for what will eventually be his sexual awakening before the inevitable first transformation. Price goes to work and David mocks the notion of becoming a monster, and then it's night. The shape-shifting sequence to this day remains a marvel of practical make-up effects done under visible lighting, replete with stages of transformation and tight, visceral shots of protracting faces and ears. It was because of Rick Baker that the Academy Award implemented a brand new Oscar devoted to this instantly legitimate craft. However, Landis uses a Mickey Mouse figurine and a one-liner to show that David is wishing for Jack to help him out once again.

Sadly, he can't even help himself. Once outside, Landis wisely keeps the creature under the cover of darkness or the obscurity of objects to set up a few expert chills, especially the perspective-driven murder of Gerald Bringlsey (Michael Carter) in the tube station at midnight (I would assume Landis was aware of The Jam at this point).

Dr. J.S. Hirsch (John Woodvine) investigates David's story in South Proctor but, once again, too little and too late. Gerald and five other people have been murdered in one night, and they all come back to haunt David at a porno theater in Piccadilly Circus. The scene is a witty treat for the way in which David and his victims, including poor, rotted-to-the-bone Jack, discuss how David should go about ending his curse by suicide, an act he could not bring himself to do earlier in a turbulent emotional state. Landis builds up David further as a tragic figure through Hirsch's investigative efforts, but also has fun with the notion of having an affluent, professional authority figure tangle the denizens of the Slaughtered Lamb.

Landis' skill at directing and writing comic mischief was tested earlier in the hits National Lampoon's Animal House and The Blues Brothers, but AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON injected horror into its body and thus risked coming off like the walking dead itself. Luckily, horror and comedy seem to both be bound by the same need for proper timing and ingenuity, be it conscious or idiot savant. A movie like this is not afraid to joke, but should remember to get down to grisly business. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON never fails to make me laugh or jump whenever I see it, even if I can admit that the latter effect did diminish somewhat. Landis makes good on his premise about unexpected occult situations in the real world and also proves a stickler for sexuality, romance and tragedy.

The performances are amiable yet not without wit and some conviction. David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are troopers, the former going fully nude for both a bizarre buck-hunting nightmare as well as the aforementioned hangover at the zoo ("A naked American man stole my balloons") and the latter having endured skin-tight prosthetics as Jack's unrested zombie. As cynical as David is, it feels like an honest reaction to his predicament, and Naughton does fine with the wry zingers Landis gives him ("I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf!"). His dramatic moments even have a ring of casual truth to them, but are admittedly more loose than I hoped. Dunne comes off the more adept at the dry humor, having been more of an improviser and graced with much less screen time. The two actors have perfect camaraderie together, and Jenny Agutter is nothing short of solid and straight-up lovely as Nurse Price. Although Landis plays up the affair as much more of the result of sudden sexual attraction, there is a feeling of love that develops between Price and David and has as much to do with David's indecision to end the curse.

John Landis takes great pride in trashing Piccadilly Circus in a multiple car crash finale that adds a childish sense of humor before a final, hurried emotional pay-off that walks the line between heartbreaking and nihilistic (let's not forget that Landis lays on the lambs imagery rather thick during the opening). Landis proves surprisingly adept, however, at mood and tension, especially in the opening scenes along the English countryside and even during the porno theater sequence, where the wolf is further kept out of lingering sight so as to make him more threatening. There are plenty of comic irony and culture clash japes fired off at both sides of the Atlantic (Frank Oz guest stars as not just Miss Piggy, but also as the hysterical American consulate rep Mr. Collins), but the broad-styled ribbing is just as terse as the horror set pieces are tense.

A lot of the movie's elements remain delirious to this day, from the casual and conflicted conversations between Jack and David to the use of songs that feature the word "Moon," including no less than three renditions of "Blue Moon," including the upbeat doo-wop of The Marcels and the soulful Sam Cooke, who croons over David's immortal transformation. The outstanding Dolby Digital 5.1 track presents the songs in appropriately aged and somewhat slower versions which sound great in stereo surround if unlike how you'd remember hearing it on the radio (CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" is the most evident example). The score by Elmer Bernstein, sadly, feels both underutilized and malnourished in comparison. Since the Dolby and DTS tracks were remixed from the original mono, you'll likely notice differences in tone between the older sound effects and the newer ones, particularly in regards to the sounds of gunshots, raindrops and traffic. However, the panning of werewolf growls ("It's circling us") and stormy weather across the front and rear channels is seamless. Dialogue was always audible and remained in the center channel.

The anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer presents a fairly solid if vintage-looking consistency in regards to quality. Opening outdoors sequences were rather hazy and touched by grain, but these issues weren't as problematic as I feared they would be throughout the course of the picture. Sharpness remained strong in spite of these initial reserves. The naturally drab but well-saturated color palette means that reds on jackets, coats and phone booths pop off the screen much better than do skin tones. Mild edge enhancement was evident, and some print blemishes and awkward film splices broke through. Black levels and shadows were reasonably deep and delineated but did falter on occasion. It wasn't the best job that could have been done, but it sure beats the previous Artisan disc as well as all other home video versions I remember. Subtitles in English, Spanish and French are provided.

The tag team of David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are reunited for an audio commentary track which holds together despite a few uncomfortable silences. They share their recollections on how they were cast (in Naughton's case, thanks to being a Pepper, he didn't even need to audition) and the troubling aspects of each other's make-up work (Dunne was often alienated because of his sloppy effects). At one point, the movie would've shifted locations because of issues with British Equity, thus having the werewolf likely run amok near the Arc de Triomphe. It's a shame John Landis and Rick Baker aren't on hand to inject some humor and technical detail into the conversation (it's not like they haven't recorded commentaries before), but Naughton and Dunne's perspective is served on this disc by just their commentary, and it's a very welcome bonus.

Landis and Baker do provide separate interviews looking back on the making of the movie. At 18:05, Landis defends his movie as a straight horror film, a modernized take on an old subgenre represented via interspersed clips from old Universal titles. These snippets often disrupt the flow of anecdotes from the jovial jokester. Landis touches on the script's genesis and goes into the motivations and intentions behind many of the key scenes from the film. Baker's featurette is seven minutes shorter, but thankfully eschews the overused movie clips for unused footage and brief if fascinating comments on the primitive yet believable FX achieved by him and his young, inexperienced staff. There turns out to be a good reason why we don't see much of the wolf in certain shots.

A vintage featurette used to promote AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON lasts a mere 5:16, with some classic on-set footage from the Piccadilly Square shoot as well as Landis' comments on the evolution of the werewolf leading up to his film and shots of Naughton getting his upper body cast and turned into a special effect. An extended bit of make-up footage called "Casting of the Hand" is eleven minutes even in length and self-explanatory, with David Naughton getting his arm cast and at one point fighting to cut it loose, with Landis laughing nearby.

The photograph montage provides about 52 individual production photos, a couple of which are ordered to show off each member of the cast as well as a couple of specific scenes (it concludes with shots from the transformation). Elmer Bernstein's musical score provides accompaniment. The storyboards segment compares hand-drawn sections of the final Piccadilly Circus outburst to the finished film. The soundtrack is missing for the three-minute section of outtakes (instead playing in the background is the running sound of a projector), which finds Landis getting hands-on for a couple of amusing bits, including some "mysterious footage" at the tail end.

The DVD also includes cast and crew biographies (for Landis, Naughton, Agutter, Dunne, and Woodvine) as well as production notes both in a more contemporary booklet format as well as remote-accessed on-screen text version much more specific in regards to the actual production process and likely to have been issued at the time of the film's release (it doesn't mention the Oscar, but instead concerns itself with the hassles of location permits and the specifics in Baker's make-up effects). "Recommendations" only provides a trailer for the Lon Chaney Jr. classic The Wolf Man. DVD-ROM options include web links and script-to-screen comparison.

Movie: 4.5 stars.
Video: 3.5 stars.
Audio: 4 stars.
Extras: 4 stars.
Final grade: 4 stars.

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is rated R for violence, gore, language and sexuality/nudity, including a comical faux porno movie ("See You Next Wednesday"). The movie runs 98 minutes and is a Universal Pictures presentation ("Ask for Babs") that opened in the U.S. on August 21, 1981.