An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.30pm
A special evening for BFI members and guests as the cinema welcomes writer and director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot
Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) to introduce An American Werewolf in
London as the film that inspired him.
Time Out review:
It’d be interesting to see polling data on how many Brits recall John Landis’s
hysterical gore-spattered masterpiece as that all-important rite of
passage: their first 18. Well, the folks at the BBFC have ruined all
that: in reclassifying the film 15, they’ve made all our childhoods seem
that little bit less dangerous. Which is no reflection on the film:
horror-comedy is overfamiliar nowadays, with diminishing returns, but
this only makes Landis’s achievement more impressive. Not just gory but
actually frightening, not just funny but clever, ‘American Werewolf…’
has its flaws, but these are outweighed by the film’s many, mighty
strengths: the soundtrack is astounding, the characterisation is
marvellous and the one-liners are endlessly memorable (‘a naked American
man stole my balloons!’). A classic, no less.
Tom Huddleston
Here is the trailer.
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