An American Werewolf in London

It birthed a new genre of horror comedy – though its director would disagree – on the way to becoming a roaring success. We get moony over the legendary lycanthrope pic…

The law of sod dictates you must wait ages for a decent werewolf flick to arrive, only for two to come along in the same year. That year was 1981, and the lycanthropic delicacies in question were Joe Dante’s The Howling (Dee Wallace, irreverent, bloody) and John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London (Jenny Agutter, irreverent, bloodier). But where Dante’s derisive romp served its humour with a generous helping of ham, Landis was adamant his dark beast would have bite.

“My intention was not to make a comedy, and I still don’t consider it a comedy, not at all,” reflects the director. “It’s a horror flick; it’s not a happy story.”

The idea for American Werewolf struck Landis in 1969. Working in Yugoslavia as production assistant on Kelly’s Heroes, the 18-year-old stumbled upon a gypsy ritual in which a man was being buried upright in a deep grave, festooned in garlic to stop him rising from the dead. Ever the thinker, Landis wondered what it would be like to have to confront the undead...

From this eerie encounter, Landis drafted the story of David, a backpacker who’s savaged one night by a vicious creature. The assault leaves his friend Jack dead — but not for long, as Jack’s gored spirit returns to warn David that he’ll probably find himself howling at the next full moon.

Though the full-blooded horror that he dreamt up was very much the stuff of nightmares, Landis didn’t swerve humour entirely, splicing his treatment with comedic scenes that would become integral to the film’s success.

“The humour was deliberate to make it more realistic, because I was trying to think of a way to deal with the supernatural,” he explains. “You’re dealing with what’s called suspension of disbelief. If you’re making a horror film where you’re dealing with serial killers — Michael Myers or Texas Chainsaw — that’s real! People do that shit all the time! There’s no such thing as werewolves.”

Landis’ odd little horror movie concept gathered dust for a decade, though, unable to gather support. Then Landis hit the big time with National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers. Armed with a modest $10m budget, he finally began to crank the cogs. Studio execs suggested Dan Aykroyd for the role of David, but Landis had his eye on a relatively unknown talent for his leading man — David Naughton, the face of the Dr Pepper TV commercials. Such was Landis’ belief in Naughton — whose only other notable appearance was in an episode of TV’s Planet Of The Apes — that he didn’t even ask the actor to audition.

“My agent sent me to meet with John Landis and that’s really all it took,” Naughton remembers. “Normally you have to go through screen tests and so on to win a role but it was really won just by an interview. The next day he said, ‘D’you want to be a werewolf?’ And that was it.”

Work for Naughton began almost immediately. The film’s most ambitious scene would end up being its defining moment — David’s graphic transformation from man to wolf. With special effects guru Rick Baker recruited to bring Landis’ feverish conjurations to life, Naughton went in to have body casts taken a full five months before shooting began.

“I went along to Rick’s place,” says Naughton. “At the time he was working out of a garage with his group of apprentice make-up artists and big tubs of fast drying cement.” Naughton had casts taken of his head, arms and legs, while the chillingly realistic puppet used for the werewolf was based on Baker’s dog Bosko.

“We didn’t know what the hell we were doing,” Baker laughs. “We were just making this stuff up as we went along!”

Baker was afforded more time to work on his gory creations thanks to American Werewolf’s 10-week shoot which, unusually, was filmed in sequence, beginning with Wales standing in for Yorkshire. Filming took place both around London and in the Twickenham Studios, while the elaborate climax set in a chaotic Piccadilly Circus was also staged on location, with Landis’ film crew remaining one of the very few permitted to work at the busy London location.

“I put on a free screening of The Blues Brothers in the Empire Leicester Square and invited 300 members of the Metropolitan police,” the director reveals. “They loved it. And, whaddaya know, suddenly I had permission to shoot in Piccadilly Circus.”

Shooting the sequence over two nights between one and four in the morning, Landis and stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong worked the vehicular bust-ups like a military operation — so much so that the ambitious bus crash could be re-set and re-shot in mere minutes if needed.

Baker’s groundbreaking special effects so astounded the Academy that they created a new awards category – Best Make-Up – just so they could reward Baker for his pioneering work.

Now, Landis’ horror story is considered a staple of the genre.

“People didn’t know how to handle the humour aspect of it [at the time],” says Naughton. “John Landis’ reputation was one of comedy director. People were expecting a spoof or a lighter film. This isn’t a spoof guys, this is John’s attempt at scaring you — and he did.”

“People were expecting a spoof or a lighter film. This isn’t a spoof, guys, this is John’s attempt at scaring you...”