an american werewolf in london Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It looks like wolves won't be sharing the spotlight with vampires much longer. While our moon-led friends pop up in the likes of Underworld and the upcoming New Moon, a werewolf frenzy has taken over Hollywood, and there are no signs of it stopping, and no corner it won't touch. Less than two weeks after Teen Wolf was set to get the remake treatment, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Dimension Films is looking to remake John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. (Confirming a tip from Bloody Disgusting on Sunday.) Because apparently, no one is interested in making a new wolfy story.

This whole plan is still in the early stages, but per usual remake plans, Dimension wants "to make an elevated genre picture that will keep the fun comedy elements of the original as it seeks to be relevant to contemporary audiences." Relevant how? The wolf loves a girl in love with a vamp, and then finds an uber-creepy way to stay in her life?

Most remakes bring, at best, apprehension, but I really wish companies would stop with the cult classics. Or, at the very least, not all foam at the mouth to remake them. Dramas, action, horror -- these genres can often get remade well, because most of the success relies on quality and craft. But comedy and cult? It's as much about the time and place as it is about the talent involved.

Fine. Take our excellent Landis wolves and remake them. Make them "relevant." But whatever is done, I bet it won't be a cult classic, nor worthy of the name An American Werewolf in London.

NSFW: Foul language.

Recently, I mentioned my neverending plan to see The Goddess of 1967. There are others on the list as well, like Stalag 17, a laserdisc which still sits at the foot of my bed, waiting to be watched. But, luckily, I can be happy with my cinematic to-do list without much guilt. Maybe there's a shocked face here or there from a friend, but that's it.

The same cannot be said for Diablo Cody, who just blogged about one of her to-watch movies, and how she got one of the most embarrassing, yet truly cool reasons to stop putting it off. She's never seen An American Werewolf in London, and Edgar Wright gave her a copy for her birthday with this written on the front: "Diablo, please watch my movie. John Landis." It was written by the man himself, and not Edgar pretending. That's the ultimate motivation.

So, in honor of embarrassment in the face of classic filmmakers, here's a Stars in Rewind for Landis' classic.

My friend Paul never looked at me the same way after I convinced him to see Wolfen rather than the latest James Bond adventure in the summer of 1981. I was planning my first trip to New York that fall and was utterly enthralled by the apocalyptic views of a burned-out South Bronx, looking like an exotic urban wilderness -- or Dresden after the fire bombings. I gloried in the long, gliding, low-angle Steadicam shots, enjoyed the tension generated, and tolerated the blood and guts on display. My soon to be ex-pal hunkered down in his seat, hating every second and throwing daggers at me with his eyes.

As the years have passed, I have nursed an untoward affection for Wolfen. Many horror fans have concluded that it is, at best, the weak cousin to the two other superior entries in the unofficial and unrelated "wolf vs. man" trilogy of 1981. Admittedly, An American Werewolf in London and The Howling rip Wolfen to shreds as far as style, pacing and dark entertainment value are concerned. Yet buried within the often lugubrious storytelling of Wolfen lies a gem of an idea and a radical approach to the traditional Hollywood fantasy of werewolves.

How did Michael Wadleigh, the director of 1969's landmark documentary Woodstock, come to direct his first fiction feature more than a decade later? And why adapt a novel by the notorious Whitley Strieber? One must first be disabused of the misconception that Wolfen is actually about werewolves or is a horror thriller; in a literal sense, it is more an environmental tract, a plea for man to live in harmony in nature, than it is any kind of supernatural fable.

"A naked American man stole my balloons."

1981 was the year of the werewolf. April saw the release of Joe Dante's The Howling, a dark, tense thriller laced with cynical humor, followed by an environmental call for action, Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen in July. (I'll be writing more about both next week.) An American Werewolf in London was the last of the unrelated modern "wolf meets man" trilogy to be released that August, but is probably the best loved and most remembered of the three.

In part that's because John Landis was at the top of his game. Just 31 at the time of the film's release, the writer/director had demonstrated his skill with low-budget comedies (Schlock, 1973; The Kentucky Fried Movie, 1977) and moved with great success into the studio system (Animal House, 1978; The Blues Brothers, 1980), capturing the zeitgeist of a movie-loving generation eager for irreverent, frat boy humor that was still deeply rooted in conservative, Middle American values.

Indeed, David Kessler, the hero of American Werewolf, is a cheery, jocular, modest, responsible everyman. As played by David Naughton, who had achieved a degree of fame by singing the theme song to a failed sitcom ("Makin' It") and starring in a series of soft-drink commercials ("Wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?"), David always strives to do the right thing, no matter how stereotypical it may be.

He and his best friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) set off on a three-month backpacking tour of Europe. For some unexplained reason, David wants to start their trip in Northern England, and the film begins with the two exiting a sheep truck to hike across a beautiful, completely barren landscape as the sun sets. The joking banter between the two is light and mocking, and continues as they seek refuge from the weather in The Slaughtered Lamb, a typical British pub with atypically unfriendly locals and a pentagram painted on the wall. Hurried out into the night with odd warnings ("Beware the moon!" "Stay off the moors!"), the two soon find themselves bathed in the light of a full moon, smack dab in the middle of the moors, and listening with increasing disbelief to the howling of a wild animal in the night.