Prince Charles Cinema introduction for the 35th anniversary screening:
We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate 35 years of terrifying and humouring audiences the world over than by bringing it back for a one-off Saturday Night screening just a few steps away from where the film was made, introduced by An American Werewolf In London expert Paul Davis, an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose first film was the 2009 feature documentary Beware the Moon, on the making of An American Werewolf In London. This coming August he strays off the road and back onto the moors once again with his first book, Beware The Moon – The Story of An American Werewolf in London. This 200 page, hardback book is, in the words of director John Landis, “the most complete and accurate account of the making of American Werewolf”.
We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate 35 years of terrifying and humouring audiences the world over than by bringing it back for a one-off Saturday Night screening just a few steps away from where the film was made, introduced by An American Werewolf In London expert Paul Davis, an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose first film was the 2009 feature documentary Beware the Moon, on the making of An American Werewolf In London. This coming August he strays off the road and back onto the moors once again with his first book, Beware The Moon – The Story of An American Werewolf in London. This 200 page, hardback book is, in the words of director John Landis, “the most complete and accurate account of the making of American Werewolf”.
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 (and above) is the trailer.
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 (and above) is the trailer.