Customer Reviews

An American Werewolf in London (Full Moon Edition) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(201)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

1981 was The Year of the Werewolves...the furry fiends leaped onto movie screens in three major films: "The Howling," "Wolfen," and the classic of the genre, "An American Werewolf in London." There has never been a greater werewolf film, there has never been a better transformation scene, and few horror movies can match the entertaining mixture of humor and scares that writer/direction John Landis ("Animal House," "The Blues Brothers") achieved here.

Although there had been humor in horror films before this movie, "An American Werewolf in London" showed once and for all that having comedy in a horror film didn't mean that the film would lose out in the scare department. Landis makes it clear that the film is NOT a comedy -- the horror scenes are carried with dead-seriousness and shocking impact -- but there is so much quirky humor surrounding these scenes that the film becomes incredibly likable and buoyant. Most of the laughs come from seeing the old movie werewolf premise dropped into the modern day and watching the characters try to deal with it.

Actors Griffin Dunne and David Naughton, neither of whom had been in a movie before, create a wonderful 'ordinary guy' feeling to their characters of two young American boys backpacking through Europe. In rural England, they have a nasty encounter with a legendary monster, and Naughton faces the consequences of being bitten when he returns to London and takes up living with a pretty nurse (Jenny Agutter).

The transformation scene is justly famous and a milestone in visual effects. Make-up wizard Rick Baker lets the viewers watch a real-time twisting of a human body into a wolf shape: limbs stretch, snouts pop, hair grows, the body contorts...it's amazing to watch. (And on DVD, you can watch it over and over and over again). Even computer graphics can't achieve an effect as startling as this one.

This DVD offers some nice extras. The image is good, and the 5.1 Surround Sound is decent (although there's not a lot of back speaker sound). Actors Naughton and Dunne do feature commentary on the film, and provide some interesting information and sound as if they were having a great time reliving the experience. I wish that Landis had been on the commentary as well, but you can hear his thoughts on the film in an 18-minute interview. Landis is an absolute hoot to listen to; the guy is as funny as his movie, and he absolutely bursts with ideas and observations. To go along with the Landis interview is an 11-minute interview with make-up maestro Rick Baker. He provides a fascinating look at crafting what he calls "the coolest werewolf film ever made." Also included is a vintage featurette on the making of the film, although it's only about five minutes long (but you get more of wise-cracking John Landis), ten minutes of archival footage of Baker making a cast of David Naughton's hand, and an assortment of storyboards, outtakes, and production photos.

"An American Werewolf in London" is a major turning point in horror films and visual effects -- and even over twenty years later, it is still one of the most entertaining movies of its decade. It hasn't aged at all, and this DVD lets you experience it the way it should be seen (and in the company of wild-man John Landis!)

An American Werewolf in London is probably the best Werewolf flick since Lon Chaney Jr originally transformed under the full moon. Sure, the film is almost 30 years old, but with the new high def transfer it's hard to tell.

As an avid DVD buyer my transition to the Blu-ray media has been a little slow to say the least. I'm generally only buying new titles and am very stubborn when it comes to double dipping on titles I already own. Some companies take the cheap route and just slap an upscaled transfer onto a Blu-ray in order to make some fast cash. This however, is completely worth re buying.

I'll be honest, the first time I saw this film was when it was originally released on DVD back in the late 90's . I instantly fell in love with the movie. Everything about it was perfect, the humor, the scares, the sfx, the amazing soundtrack. It's very rare to find a movie that so perfectly combines horror and comedy, a film with characters you truly care for. This is a movie that sticks with you, one of the better horror comedies, one of the best werewolf films.

The transfer is great, crystal clear. It's as if it was filmed a few years ago. The audio has great as well, the film has never looked or sounded this good.

The extras for the most part were transfered over from the original 2001 DVD, but the best extra comes in the form of a feature length documentary called "Beware the Moon." The documentary covers everything from conception, to filming, to the somewhat negative reception it got when it was originally released.

It's a pity more movies don't get the kind of treatment.

Buy this disc immediately!

This is one of the few movies that have consistently given me nightmares since I was a child. It is at least a decade ahead of its time. Most of the negative criticisms that I have read use the word "uneven" a lot. Even Roger Ebert, whom I admire, claimed that the humor and the horror were an uneasy mix. This was years before he gave the movie Scream a positive review. Now I LIKE the movie Scream, but there is no way that one can claim that it gets the balance right whereas Werewolf gets it wrong. Scream simply benefits from occurring in the cynical nineties - Werewolf suffers from being avant guard. .

The new DVD has a few good extras on it - especially a new interview with Landis. Even after all these years, the film still holds up. Unlike most films, I see more things in it the more I look. What, for instance, is up with the townsfolk of East Proctor and what is their relationship with the original werewolf? My guess - they brought it on themselves somehow. Maybe one of their own ran over a gypsy and was cursed. Instead of killing the bloke, they all decide to hide beneath the pentangle in The Slaughtered Lamb every full moon.

I am recently returned from England and this movie is listed in Fodor's as one of the films that best showcases London. I heartily agree. I visited the infamous tube stop at Tottenham Court Road and it still looks much the same as when the David made his kill there. And as I walked, alone in the countryside, beneath the light of the full moon, I had to ask myself, "Am I crazy?" Fortunately, I made it to the pub. There I waited, beneath the pentangle, for my friends to walk me home.

With all due respect to some of the other reviewers, they are obviously not writing about the Full Moon Edition BD, which was issued in 2009. I'm writing about this specific BD version.

I also own the HD-DVD version and it is quite good. In fact, several of the extras that are on this BD issue were also on the HD-DVD version. But with the BD you also get an additional interview with Rick Baker as he talks about his experiences from the making of the movie, plus a documentary titled "Beware the Moon". This latter feature is worth the price of the BD by itself.

So, how's the quality of the transfer? Pretty darned good, I'd say. Certainly the best that's ever been available. It is noticeably better than the HD-DVD transfer and the sound has either been remixed or improved in some way. The DTS 5.1 sound is perhaps not as good as some films, but it's a lot better than it was on the HD-DVD or standard DVD.

As for the film itself...what can I say? This continues to be one heck of a ride for the viewer. Everytime I mention this film to someone, they describe an experience they had when they first viewed it. (When I received this BD edition from Amazon, I showed it to one of my younger co-workers. Without any prompting he said, "I couldn't sleep for two weeks after I saw that on TV.")

What it will probably boil down to is, should you go ahead and buy this Full Moon Edition BD to replace your old HD-DVD or DVD? Heck, yeah! What are you waiting for? It's worth every penny.

That's the way this film was advertised when it came out in 1981, in the classic Universal monster sense "a monster movie." As a child of divorce, I had a weekend Dad that would take my sister and me to any movie regardless of rating (well, within limits) and this one scared us silly. I remember sitting in the theater and watching the transformation (having seen Lon Chaney Jr.'s transformation in "The Wolf Man" I was familiar with the lineage of the genre and the example this film had to live up to... having seen "The Howling" later (not much later, as the films nearly competed with each other theatrically) I was a huge fan of Rob Bottin and his mentor, Rick Baker (not to mention the late, great Dick Smith and the master of splatter, Tom Savini), I was just glued to the screen during one of the coolest effects of all time, just awed by what was happening, and just freaked at the believability of it all when compared to the stop-motion transformation of the Chaney makeup) not to mention the scene with David Naughton ("be a Pepper! Drink Dr. Pepper!) and Jenny Agutter in bed (not to mention the shower)... yowza! (Well, I was 11).
The only thing that's ever bugged me about this film is the lack of what's supposed to be a supremely gory scene that Landis cut out because it overwhelmed the scene that came after it (supposedly, audiences were so grossed out and shocked that they babbled through the entire dialogue scene that followed David waking up in the wolf's pen at the zoo): the scene was the expanded murders of the bums by the dock, and I don't think it makes it to this new DVD version of the film (which is a bummer, because the expanded gore in Verhoven's Robocop (Criterion edition) actually plays better than the MPAA approved version).
In any case, this is a truly great "monster movie" in every sense of the word... it's gross, funny, sexy, exploitative in many ways (the book "Splatter Movies" calls it gore porn), truly a Landis film by dint of it's "in" jokes and orgy of automotive mayhem, and it offers great acting and casting (even in small roles like the Pakistani shift worker at the hospital and the punks on the London Underground). Just an all-around fun movie, with truly amazing, and Oscar-winning effects (still looking awesome and believable... nothing digital comes close!! I'll say it again: digital just ain't there yet... the transformation looks bone crunching, painful, horrific, and stretches the imagination in more ways than one). Bottom line, I've waited for this damn DVD forever... the first edition DVD was slop and went out of print so fast, I was lucky to find a video store copy to rent. No extras on that one... but this one is the one to own.

This is the only 5 star Blu I have given that is not a reference quality picture, but they put so much on here I could not avoid it.

The picture quality and clarity were underwhelming, but it still looks better than any of the prior versions. Plenty of artifact, hair, grain and fade throughout but the colors turned out nice, especially the reds (plenty of red in this film). I would have to say it preserves nicely (in a nostalgic way) how we all remember seeing this back in the 80s scaring the something out of us. The DTS rears actually get used but only in the howling sequences, otherwise everything is funneled into the front three channels. But what makes this so worthwhile are the supplements.

The new features with Rick Baker and John Landis are worth the two hours and have TONS of great material (personal favorites include the ratings board clashes, how the screenings went and Baker being interviewed in front of his favorite prop - the whole wolf, still looks so real). The additional features are from the prior releases and include the interviews, making of, outtakes, photos and more. The subs and menu listings are in 18 languages and the film is dubbed into four others. This also has the D-Box Motion Code, BD Live and is laid out in the typical left-feeding Universal menus.

Like I said, not a reference picture or sound, but overall this makes for a great deal at this price. If you only have a couple hours for a rental, at least watch the Beware the Moon (new) feature as each location is visited recently with some great Landis material spliced in appropriately.

American Werewolf is one of THE seminal werewolf films. Period. It is certainly in the top 3 along with Universal Studios brilliant "The Wolfman". Even after 20+ years, it holds up exceptionally well. Rick Baker's effects, particularly the transformation and the werewolf in Picadilly, still amaze. And in HD they look even better.

The HD DVD version has a nice picture. Nice, not great. The stock itself was mediocore and the HD conversion shows the flaws of the original film stock. The picture is a little softer though not as grainy as some other 80s films blown up to HD. The sound quality is very nice and is definitely an improvement over the SD DVD.

The extras are nice, particularly the effects feature.

Overall, a really nice job done on a terrific film. Definitely recommended for horror fans!

David Kessler and Jack Goodman are two Americans taking a break from school and family by taking a three month trek across the English countryside. Wet and hungry they venture into a small country village where they stop in at the Slaughtered Lamb hoping to eat and warm up. They come across some eccentric residents who are anything but warm and are encouraged to leave even though it's late and the full moon is out. Shortly after leaving they venture off the main road onto the moors where they are attacked by a creature of the night.

David (played by David Naughton) is the only one who survives the attack but he's having horribly gory dreams and his mutilated dead friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) keeps coming to him, in various degrees of decay, and telling him he should kill himself before the next full moon. One of the ways David remains sane is hooking up with his nurse, Alex Price (Jenny Agutter / Logun's Run).

An American Werewolf in London was written and directed by John Landis who also directed the movie Animal House and Michael Jackson's Thriller video. It was filmed entirely in Wales, London and Middlesex, England. This is one of the best horror movies of all time with incredibly detailed make-up effects by Rick Baker that still hold up for today's viewers. Baker set the standards for future monster movies.

I love the music too. It's addictive. Probably because there are only three songs throughout: Bad Moon Rising (Creedance Clearwater Revival), Moondance (Van Morrison) and three renditions of Blue Moon (Sam Cooke, The Marcels and Bobby Vinton).

This is one of my favorite all-time movies. There's comedy (a bit campy at times), there's blood and guts, there's wolf lore and there's a white guy running around in his birthday suit in the middle of the London. I've seen this film dozens of times and enjoy it every time. It's a must see film for horror buffs and werewolf fans. Reviewed by M. E. Wood.

This was one of the first 'horror' films I ever saw, and it is by far one of the most memorable films of the genre I have ever seen. From the cold, bleak beginnings with the two young American back-packers wandering into The Slaughtered Lamb, there is a certain ominous and effectivly eirey quality from the word go. The comical naivety and the even-more comically sombre attitude that the locals at the pub engage in is movie entertainment at it's best. It sets the scene for the true rollercoaster of a movie that is yet to come. The gore is gorey, the scares are scarey, the comedy is spot on and the surrealism is baffling and highly disturbing. It has to be said that the setting for the film in London is inspired. Of course, the tolken well-mannered coppers and the ever-so nice doctors and nurses seem to be plucked straight out of the nearest Britsih book of cut-out stereotypes, but I don't think the film could have worked any other way. A lot of people claim that Scream (1996) is the best horror-comedy since this little masterpiece, but how they can even be compared is beyond me. Scream mocks (respectivley) an entire genre of slasher movies that died way before Freddy even hung up his old slasher-glove. An American Werewolf was the only, and still is, the only film in it's 'genre'. Original, profound, desperately enteratining and memorable in every aspect. The soundtrack's great (fantastically ominous title music clashing with hilariously cheesy covers and classics). The acting is also spot-on. Buy this film. Buy this film and then wonder why Michael Jackson's Thriller video isn't shown as often as it should be too....

I saw this movie in the theaters back in 1981 and was so happy to see Rick Baker win the first Oscar for best special effects make up! That whole transformation scene is classic and very impressive. It is both amusing and painful to watch. The wolf in this movie makes me feel real terror and fear. There are several scenes in London that make me grimace and tense up, even though I have seen this before. I bought this on BluRay disc because this movie needs to be seen in HD. I have always been a fan of all types of horror. There are very few movies that can mix humor with horror well for me to recommend but London does. It will always be on my list of best horror films. This is a much, much, much, better film than An American Werewolf in Paris. Get this movie either on DVD or BluRay, you won't be sorry!! ( I just have to ask myself, the ones that gave it one or two stars, are they even old enough to appreciate this movie?)