Rating of
4/4
Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.
gideon43 - wrote on 05/20/10
Amazingly, the idea for American Werewolf in London came to director John Landis when he was working as a production assistant on the Clint Eastwood movie Kelly's Heroes (1970).
Easily the best Werewolf movie ever made, AWIL blends outrageous dark humour with gruesome and horrific scenes of carnage. Landis was (at the time) on a roll which showed no signs of abating and his masterful and astute directing delivered a visually impressive masterpiece of Horror cinema.
Taking the American-English culture clash to the max and throwing in a number of whacky and downright unfriendly characters, Landis pitches the tone to perfection.
Complemented by an almost perfect soundtrack and several stand out scares, AWIL induces both laughter and intense shock sometimes in the same scene.
The icing on the cake though is Rick Bakers amazing makeup effect in the wolf transformation scene which is almost certainly the finest ever committed to celluloid.
