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Beastly Buddy Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Posted bysugarandscreamPosted inHorrorTags:, , , , , , , , , , ,

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It’s no secret around here that we’re both rabid fans of werewolves, so a re-watch for John Landis’ iconic An American Werewolf in London was inevitable. With that said, let’s head on over to The Slaughtered Lamb, enjoy a pint, and get this buddy review underway, shall we? 😉

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1. What was your overall opinion of the movie?

SCREAM:

I absolutely love this movie and it had been a hot minute since I last watched it. Totally holds up. I will forever sing and dance to Bad Moon Rising thanks to this movie and CCR.

SUGAR:

Agreed. It’s always a treat when a movie you’ve greatly enjoyed holds up this well. It checks off so many boxes in things I want from a werewolf movie when I watch one. Badass creature design? Check. Painful and graphic transformation sequence? Check. Gore galore? Check. The film does a great job of showing us the monster but also not overdoing it. It knows when to pull back and build tension with even just the beast’s noises and cinematography.

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2. What did you think of the werewolf design itself?

SCREAM:

I think it was great. Sure it’s a little jerky but man, they made that shit! 9/10 rating.

SUGAR:

I love it. This movie is 40 years old and it still has one of the most iconic werewolf looks, and also werewolf transformations ever put on film.

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3. This film is known for having iconic practical effects. Do you prefer to see practical effect werewolves or CGI werewolves in movies?

SCREAM:

100% prefer practical effect werewolves. It somehow makes it all the more real, more plausible. I also really enjoyed how his friend was more and more decomposed every time he saw him. I thought that was great attention to detail. 

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SUGAR:

Practical effects are pretty much always going to be the clear winner for me too. I agree completely with Scream that having something tangible on screen will always make it feel more real, and thus more of an actual threat to the characters on screen. They went hard with the practical effects in this movie and it’s just one of the many reasons I love it. At its core, it’s a werewolf movie, but we get to see so many cool things other than just the titular American werewolf in London on screen.

4. Did you enjoy the blend of horror and comedy in this film?

SCREAM:

I thought the horror and comedy were well blended and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

SUGAR:

I’m a sucker for a good horror comedy, and these two genres blend so effortlessly and seamlessly in this film. It’s really quite impressive.

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5. Does this make your list of top werewolf movies and do you recommend other people watch it too?

SCREAM:

Well I’ve had nothing bad to say about it so that makes it a big fat, YAS QUEEN, from me. It is top 5 favorite werewolf movies for this little wolf girl. 

SUGAR:

Absolutely! It’s a must-see for werewolf fans, and I’d even be willing to bet that it could be a game changer for some of the people who have yet to see a werewolf movie they enjoy.

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By our powers combined we rate this movie a howling good time and highly recommend it! What was the last werewolf movie you’ve seen? Any favorites?

Published by sugarandscream

Welcome to our little blog of horrors, Sugar & Scream! If you're looking for a monstrously good time, rest assured, you've come to the right place. We're two best friends with a sisterhood forged in the Unholy Trinity that is Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction. When we're not busy devouring books, we're cooking up sinisterly scrumptious baked goods and other delights (and sometimes horrors) in our kitchens. Expect the unexpected, because we like to shake things up. Our blog is its own Frankenstein's Monster of our hobbies and passions all stitched together into one glorious abomination that encompasses everything from what we're reading and watching, to the hobbies we're working on, to our adventures in baking and plenty more!

22 thoughts on “Beastly Buddy Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)”

  2. It’s a classic! I think the last one I saw was the Wolfman remake (which I think gets an unjustly bad rap). My personal favourite has to be Dog Soldiers, although the Underworld films and Red Riding Hood are kind of guilty pleasures too. While it’s debatable whether it’s a werewolf film or not, Brotherhood of the Wolf is also cool. The genre could do with a few new additions though!

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    1. LOVE Dog Soldiers. I’ve never heard of Brotherhood of the Wolf so might have to check that out. The Underworld series is a guilty pleasure for me too. At least the first couple movies when they used half animatronics and half CGI werewolves, are. Rise of the Lycans is my favorite of that bunch though. -Scream

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    2. I tried to watch Dog Soldiers on YouTube because everyone on horror Twitter said I had to, but I couldn’t finish it. There’s no closed captioning on the YouTube version, and a combo of my bad ears and several U.K. accents, I couldn’t follow along. I found a DVD just recently and got it in the mail, though!

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  5. I really appreciated what Neal Jordan, director of Interview with the Vampire says about special effects: the art always comes first. The CG should be there to add small, almost unnoticeable touches, or clean up a practical effect. But the art always comes first. If you think about Spielberg’s first three Indiana Jones movies, all that stuff was done for real with stunt doubles and practical effects. You watch the 4th one and it’s trash by comparison. As much as I love An American Werewolf in Paris, the wolves do not look even close to real, and the London wolves blow them out of the water. I agree with Sugar about noises being scary. Have you two seen Willow Creek? I love the whole section that’s just noises and rocks hitting a tent. Got me all nervy.

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    1. That’s such a great way to look at the use of CG! 🙂 I’ve never seen Willow Creek (pretty sure Scream hasn’t seen it either) but I looked up the trailer and it looks like it could be creepy, especially if you watched it right before a camping trip. lol The only Bigfoot horror movie I’ve watched is The Legend of Boggy Creek and it’s been soooo long I barely even remember it at this point. My husband and I just watched the mini anthology spin-off of American Horror Story and the episode Feral also explored the part about all the people who go missing in national parks and what might be the actual cause for it, too.
      – Sugar

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      1. There is so much potential for horror in national parks. I once had a student write a paper about how his family almost died in a national park in I want to say Utah. Even the old Sweet Valley High book about a small group backpacking for gold in Death Valley and nearly dying scared me, and that’s just a silly teen book! A great movie about getting lost in the woods is The Ritual. It’s on Netflix. I thought the ending was a bit bizarre/meh, but enjoyed all the running-around-lost scenes.

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      2. That would be a great setting for horror films. My grandfather and my dad used to take me out in the woods and make me find my own way out. Because of this, I have an excellent sense of direction. -Scream

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      3. I have a friend whose dad sent him off to summer camp and neglected to tell anyone there that my friend is a sleepwalker. OMG, the story that goes with that. Also, his dad would “lose” him in the store and make him find his way to safety.

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      4. OMG! lol Sounds like that friend of yours had an interesting childhood to say the least! 😛
        We used to like to camp out in my backyard (usually in my mom’s minivan) and my mom crept up to the van one night in a very convincing werewolf costume with the full mask and gloves with creepy long claws and everything and proceeded to scare the ever-living crap out of us. lol I guess that’s just one of the perks of having children is that you get to terrorize them for fun. 😛
        – Sugar

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      5. Ha! Your mom sounds like a hoot, but to be honest, if I were a kid staying the night with you, I’d never have come back again. 🤣

        Side note: I hope your book is coming along the way you want it to 🙂

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      6. Haha she really is! 😛
        Yeah, surprisingly, we only ever had one girl who wanted to go home in the middle of the night, and it wasn’t even due to any scary pranks, but because we watched The Exorcist and it freaked her out so bad. I think we would have been in 8th or 9th grade at that point.
        Thank you so much for the support about the book! ❤ That really means a lot. ^_^
        It's coming along really well, I've just had a bunch of curve balls thrown my way over the past week that have made it difficult to write, but I should be in the clear now thankfully. 🙂

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