Classic Movie Review Duo: Rec (2007) & Rec 2 (2009)

[Rec] (2007)
Directed by: Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza.
Written by: Jaume Balagueró & Luiso Berdejo & Paco Plaza.
Starring: Manuela Velasco (Ángela Vidal), Ferran Terraza (Manu), Jorge-Yamam Serrano (Policía Joven), Pablo Rosso (Pablo), David Vert (Álex), Vicente Gil (Policía Adulto), Martha Carbonell (Sra. Izquierdo), Carlos Vicente (Guillem Marimon), María Teresa Ortega (Abuela), Manuel Bronchud (Abuelo), Akemi Goto (Japonesa), Chen Min Kao (Japonés), Maria Lanau (Madre histérica), Claudia Silva (Jennifer).

[Rec] 2 (2009)

Directed by: Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza.
Written by: Jaume Balagueró & Manu Díez & Paco Plaza.
Starring: Jonathan D. Mellor (Dr. Owen), Óscar Zafra (Jefe), Ariel Casas (Larra), Alejandro Casaseca (Martos), Pablo Rosso (Rosso), Pep Molina (Padre Jennifer), Andrea Ros (Mire), Àlex Batllori (Ori), Pau Poch (Tito), Juli Fàbregas (Bombero), Ferran Terraza (Manu), Claudia Silva (Jennifer), Anna García (Mari Carmen), Manuela Velasco (Angela Vidal).

Back in 2008, I made the mistake of seeing Quarantine – the then new horror film, starring Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter – before seeing [Rec], the film Quarantine was a remake of. Typically, I do try and see the original before watching the remake – but that’s doesn’t always happen. I didn’t much like Quarantine, and that dislike has kept me away from the [Rec] series as a whole ever since. I always meant to go back and see them – a desire that was renewed every time a new [Rec] film opened (there have now been four – and according to Wikipedia anyway, that’s it). Seeing as how I saw Quarantine seven years ago, I didn’t really remember why I didn’t like the film, so I went back and read my review – in which I basically said I liked the idea, and didn’t like the execution. Well, I finally – at least partially - rectified my over, watching the first two [Rec] films back to back – which works remarkably well, since although made two years apart, the story in 2 picks up almost precisely where the original leaves off. Together, they two films are all take place on one long night.

 

The first films follows Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), an intrepid, beautiful young reporter filming a show called “While You’re Asleep” – which is seemingly about things that happen at night. This night, she is spending her time with the local fire department – going through their mundane, nightly routines if they don’t have a call, and praying for something interesting to happen. Finally, they do in fact get a call – and the firefighters head into the building, with Angela and her cameraman right behind her. The woman they have come to help goes insane pretty quickly – and attacks the men, biting one before she can be subdued. And before anyone knows anything, the entire building has been sealed with all the residents, the firefighters and Angels stuck inside. Just a precaution they are told – but they don’t believe it. It appears something bad is going on here – and the one crazy lady isn’t the last one we’ll meet.

The film is in the “found footage” genre, and it’s better than most of the films that the genre has produced. The entire movie is from the POV of Angela’s unseen cameraman – and the film figures its way out of a problem that many found footage horror films never do – why it’s all being filmed. At first, it’s a new story – and an exclusive at that, as no one else is in the building. This is a way to document everything that is happening – and Angela wants it all captured. As the movie progresses, the power goes out – the camera has a light on it, when no one else does, thusly pointing the camera at the action makes sense. And finally, in the climax, when the light is no broken, the camera’s night vision capabilities work wonders as well.

The second film picks up right where the first one leaves off – but with a different POV. A SWAT team is being sent

to the apartment building – where they will enter and follow the orders of whoever is in charge. This is Owen (Jonathan D. Mellor), who tells them there has been an outbreak in the building, and they need to find something and then get out. This part of the movie is told from the POV of the various cameras the SWAT team is wearing – mainly sticking to one, but will switch if need be. Later on in the film, the POV will change to group of teenagers with a camera –who sneak into the building, making the biggest mistake of their lives.

The primary benefit of the first two [Rec] movies is the speed at which the action takes place. Both have a few minutes to setup their basic premise, and then dive headlong into the action, and do not let up for the rest of their running time. Directors Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza are smart enough to keep the running time low – neither movies hits 85 minutes in length – and they never wear out their welcome. From the moment the horror starts in both films, you get the sense that anything can happen – anyone can die, and something is always lurking around every corner. Escape is impossible – and survival seemingly is as well.

The films are zombie films to be sure – and follow the tropes of those films in many respects. Yes, these are “fast” zombies – or at least not slow, Romero-like zombies which are clearly far superior in every respect (deal with it) – but for a movie like this, that is the right choice. The first movie doesn’t give many indications of why all of this is happening until the end of the movie – when the religious undertones take center stage for a few minutes. This is much foregrounded in the sequel, and the [Rec] films become films about the waning influence of religion – and the mistakes made by the church. At least they are when they’re not trying to scare you, which is roughly 95% of the time.

And they work. I don’t think either film is a masterwork by any means – but both films build suspense rapidly, and keep you in their grip for 85 minutes or so, giving you all the scares and blood and viscera you could possibly want. Unlike truly great horror movies, I don’t think the movies really get under your skin – or haunt your nightmares (they didn’t with me anyway) – but they are effective when they’re playing. I know I won’t wait 7 years before I watch the third and fourth installments.

Movie Review: Carol

Carol
Directed by: Todd Haynes.
Written by: Phyllis Nagy based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Starring: Cate Blanchett (Carol Aird), Rooney Mara (Therese Belivet), Kyle Chandler (Harge Aird), Jake Lacy (Richard Semco), Sarah Paulson (Abby Gerhard), John Magaro (Dannie McElroy), Cory Michael Smith (Tommy Tucker), Kevin Crowley (Fred Haymes), Nik Pajic (Phil McElroy), Carrie Brownstein (Genevieve Cantrell), Trent Rowland (Jack Taft).

You will not see a better looking film this year than Todd Haynes Carol. Like pretty much all of Haynes work, this is a period piece – in this case 1952 New York, which Haynes and company have brilliantly, meticulously re-created. The cinematography by Ed Lachman is wondrous – harkening back to the films of the era – a little of the Douglas Sirk melodramas (which Haynes re-created, more faithfully in Far From Heaven), crossed with film noir (again, which Haynes did with the TV miniseries Mildred Pierce). But Carol is even better than both of those films – which were great – as it delves even deeper into the love affair at its center – one where much is left unsaid, and yet couldn’t be clearer. The sexual attraction and chemistry is there between modest shop girl Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) and rich housewife Carol Aird (Cate Blanchatt) from their first charged interaction – about baby dolls and toy trains of all things, where the pair oh-so quietly flirt. The film is also the most erotic of the year – although it takes a long time to get to anything approaching explicit, at which point the relief of tension is great.

The movie, based on a novel by master-of-suspense Patricia Highsmith (writing under an assumed name), is about Therese, who is an aspiring photographer, with a boyfriend, and a circle of mainly male friends. She keeps everyone at a distance however, as if she herself is not quite sure what she feels towards any of them. It’s Christmastime, and she’s working in a toy department when she first meets Carol – a rich housewife, dressed to the nines, who wants a doll for her four-year daughter, but ends up with a train instead. This first interaction leads to others – and we gradually get to know the two women. Carol’s marriage to harge (Kyle Chandler) is approaching divorce – an affair of Carol’s with a female friend (Sarah Paulson) being a factor. Both Carol and Harge love their daughter Rindy – and Harge wants Carol back, but he may not be above destroying her if he cannot have her. It’s after this threat has been made to Carol, that she and Therese head out on a cross country road trip – one that throbs with danger and desire, that could destroy them.

There is, to be fair, not much plot to Carol – it isn’t a thriller, like most of Highsmith’s novels (and, if I’ being honest it is perhaps my least favorite of her work as a novelist that I have read). Yet, as written by Phyllis Nagy and directed by Haynes, Carol becomes something much greater on the screen than it was on the page. This is a movie about erotic attraction – about that charge that is sent through people when they see each other. But it’s also about love – as cheesy as that sounds. Highsmith’s novel has been well loved for years, because it’s one of the only examples – certainly the only one of its era – to depict a homosexual relationship and not have it end in tragedy. The ending, in both the book and the film, is ambiguous – but also glorious. It’s a moment that brought me to tears in the theater, with its seemingly effortless emotion notes.

The performances in the movie by Blanchatt and Mara are both brilliant. Blanchatt has found another role that uses her theatricality well – all the world is a stage for Carol, who has to always dress the part, and play the picture of wifely and motherly perfection, even if that is about the last thing she feels on the inside. She is wonderful in the scenes in public with Mara – where so much is said with body language that remains invisible to everyone around them in the movie, but not to those of us watching in the audience. Mara is even better as Therese – she is quiet, perhaps a little timid, unsure of herself and her feelings. Yet as the movie progresses, it becomes clear she isn’t quite as innocent as she first appears – she chases Carol as much as she is chased – is also part of the aggressor when their relationship is taken to the next level.

The greatness of Carol is difficult to explain – it’s all in small gestures, and the brilliant cinematography and feel of the film. It’s a sexually charged love story – and one of the best of its kind that I have ever seen. A brilliant, devastating movie – perhaps the best film yet from Haynes, who is almost always great. In short, a masterwork.

Movie Review: The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl
Directed by: Tom Hooper.
Written by: Lucinda Coxon based on the novel by David Ebershoff.
Starring: Eddie Redmayne (Einar Wegener / Lili Elbe), Alicia Vikander (Gerda Wegener), Matthias Schoenaerts (Hans Axgil), Ben Whishaw (Henrik), Sebastian Koch (Warnekros), Amber Heard (Ulla), Adrian Schiller (Rasmussen).

There is a giant hole in the center of Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, which really sinks the entire movie. Hooper is a fine surface director – which is why he’s a good choice for a film like Les Miserables, where characters literally sing their feelings for three hours, yet he struggles somewhat with interior pain and struggle. Unfortunately, that is what The Danish Girl is about – a Danish painter named Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), who apparently lived a happy, and fulfilled life as a heterosexual man until he’s in his 30s, before he “discovers” that he is transgender – and decides that he wants to become a woman renaming herself Lili Elbe. This causes, obviously, problems with his marriage to Gerda (Alicia Vickander) – who nevertheless loves her husband enough to support her decision to become a woman, and therefore no longer be her husband. This is a movie about both of them – and the internal pain they both struggle with. Redmayne and Vickander try – valiantly – to make these characters believable, but never quite manage it. The film looks beautiful – Hooper is clearly going for a painterly quality to the look of the film, and while he doesn’t come close to the genius level work done by Mike Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope on last year’s Mr. Turner – it’s not bad either. But the film remains only skin deep – which is its fatal misstep.

The film takes place in Denmark in the 1920s – with Einar being one of the most celebrated landscape painters in the country (the fact that he paints variations on the same landscape again and again doesn’t seem to bother anyone). Gerda makes her living painting portraits –and hasn’t found the same level of success – but not for lack of talent, but for lack of the right subject. Einar’s transition into Lili starts innocently enough – when Gerda asks him to model a ballet ensemble for him for a portrait of their friend, Ulla (Amber Heard), that she is work on. You can see in Einar’s face when he feels the material, that he enjoys it more than he thought. Then, Einar and Gerda take the joke farther and farther – dressing Einar up as a woman and going to a party – where they introduce him as Lili, Einar’s cousin. For Gerda, this is only a game, for Einar, it is the start of something deeper – a change that has always been inside him (as the movie, eventually, makes clear) although he’s kept it buried. But now, he cannot do that any longer. She is Lili now, and she will do anything to make her change permanent – including risking her life to do dangerous, untested surgery.

The real problem with The Danish Girl is that we never truly understand Einar/Lili – how she feels, why she’s willing to risk her life in order to completely become Lili. The early scenes are strange, the film gives no hint that Einar struggles at all in his life as a heterosexual man (in fact, his sexual relationship with his wife seems rather robust), which all of sudden stops on a dime when he puts on a dress. The movie will double back, and make it clear that this is something Einar has experiences since he was a child – but it’s not something the movie ever really shows us –just tells us. Lili makes several speeches to Gerda about why she must do this – but they don’t amount to much more than “I must”. Redmayne gives it his all, but there’s little to work with here. Vikander fares much better, because the screenplay understands her feelings more – how she is willing to sacrifice what she wants, for the man she loves – even if that means giving him up completely. It’s odd that we have a movie about a transgender woman whose main character his her suffering wife (and yes, Vikander is the lead in the film, no matter what the Oscar campaign around her says).

The Danish Girl ends up playing everything far too safely – it never really wants to delve into any areas that may make anyone in the audience uncomfortable – so it’s a rather chaste, dull affair. Compare this to Tangerine from earlier this year – which starred two real trans women in a story about their life in the seedier areas of L.A., which is about their lives, the good and bad, and it’s a stark contrast. Tangerine understands its main characters, and that comes across throughout the film. The Danish Girl doesn’t – which is why it’s a highly polished, but dull bore of a film.

Movie Review: I Smile Back

I Smile Back
Directed by: Adam Salky.
Written by: Paige Dylan based on the novel by Amy Koppelman.
Starring: Sarah Silverman (Laney Brooks), Josh Charles (Bruce Brooks), Thomas Sadoski (Donny), Skylar Gaertner (Eli Brooks), Shayne Coleman (Janey Brooks), Terry Kinney (Dr. Page), Chris Sarandon (Roger).

The “housewife is depressed and goes crazy” film is practically a genre unto itself at this point – and stretches back decades in the movies at least. In old school Hollywood terms, they we usually melodramas, which allowed great actresses a chance to wildly over the top for their descent into madness – although by the end, things were usually alright again, and they had recovered from their tailspin. The new film I Smile Back doesn’t really add much different to the genre – once again, it is a movie about a woman who seemingly has it all – a nice husband, who works a good job, a nice house in the suburbs, two adorable kids she adores – and yet Laney Brooks is miserable. She does drugs, she sleeps around with men who don’t respect her (the last thing she wants is respect) and basically tries (and succeeds) to push everyone around her away. As with many of these movies, a long lost parent re-enters their life, which provides some answers (or at least clues to answers). Other than the rather graphic (and purposefully degrading) sex scenes in I Smile Back, this could well have been a movie made in old school Hollywood. That is, except for one thing – and that’s Sarah Silverman’s performance as Laney.

As mentioned above, these types of movies often give great actress a chance to emote – to play to the back row, with wild, loud gestures to signal how far gone they are. What Silverman, who has been very public with her own struggles with depression, does quite differently in I Smile Back is make Laney very quiet and still – flat and emotionless in many way. She is spiraling downwards to be sure, but she’s really slowly, quietly imploding. She cannot feel anything – which is why she does the drugs, and has the degrading sex – it’s an attempt to feel something, anything other than a flat nothing. This is much more believable than the typical way it has been done in the past – with those crazy performances, because it’s hard to believe anyone who acted that crazy would be allowed to continue in society. But with Laney, you know why – no one really notices just how gone she is. Silverman has delivered a few dramatic performances before – like as Michelle Williams’ friend in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz – but she’s never had to carry one like this before, and she pulls it off wonderfully.

The rest of the movie is nowhere near as good as Silverman. As I said, in many ways this movie could have come out of Hollywood decades ago – there’s a sympathetic doctor (Terry Kinney) who helps her, her husband (Josh Charles) who tries hard with her, but eventually gets exasperated, there’s the so-called friend who really uses her (Thomas Sadoski), the long lost father (Chris Sarandon) who offers some answers, and of course the scene where Laney masturbates using a teddy bear (okay, that last one is new). We’ve seen these scenes and characters before, and I Smile Back doesn’t really do anything new, or all that enlightening with them.

Yet, Silverman’s performance is good enough that the movie is worth seeing – and the fact that the movie doesn’t cop out at the end, and actually follows the story to its logical conclusion (even if it takes a few illogical detours on the way) is to its credit. I Smile Back is not a great movie – but it contains an excellent performance – a portrait of depression that stands out amongst the clichés that surround it.

Movie Review: Legend

Legend
Directed by: Brian Helgeland.
Written by: Brian Helgeland based on the book by John Pearson.
Starring: Tom Hardy (Ronald Kray / Reggie Kray), Emily Browning (Frances Shea), Christopher Eccleston (Nipper Read), Colin Morgan (Frank Shea), Tara Fitzgerald (Mrs. Shea), Shane Attwooll (George Cornell), David Thewlis (Leslie Payne), Frankie Fitzgerald (Jack Dickson), Chazz Palminteri (Angelo Bruno), John Sessions (Lord Boothby).

Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas is one of the greatest films ever made – a viscerally exciting, violent film about the rise and fall of a gangster that starts out seducing the audience with its dangerous bravado, and then upends that in the final stretch. It is a film that is beloved by critics, audiences and filmmakers alike – the last of which you can tell because of just how often it is imitated. The most recent imitation is Brian Helgeland’s Legend which desperately wants to be GoodFellas. It copies the films style – you can say it either pays loving homage to Scorsese’s film, or say it rips it off if you prefer – in many scenes – like a scene of a gangster walking his girl into a club, done in a long tracking shot, or in the voiceover narration that is pervasive, and in many other little details. Legend is, of course, not as good as GoodFellas – few films are really, and so it ends up being a rather pale imitation. Yet, there is still a reason to see the film – and that’s Tom Hardy’s dual performance as Ronald and Reggie Kray – twin brother, who rose up in the London underworld throughout the 1960s, and were responsible for all sorts of death, crime and general mayhem.

Hardy seems to delight in coming up with a different, almost unintelligible way to speak in every movie he does – the clearest his voice has ever been is probably Locke, where he donned an almost prissy English accent. Most of the time though, he grunts and grumbles in a different accent, trying hard to be a new Brando – and dammit all, if sometimes he doesn’t succeed. In Legend, although he plays twins, the vocal inflections of both of them are wholly unique to each character. Reggie is the smarter of the two – violent in a controlled way, and its he who runs the business and makes it a success – he who everyone wants to work with. His brother Ronald is a paranoid schizophrenic, who is likely to explode at any moment, whether or not he’s on his medication. Everything Reggie builds, Ronald is apt to destroy at some point.

The other major character is Frances (Emily Browning), the young woman who eventually becomes Reggie’s wife – and acts as the narrator to the story for some reason (I think it’s to pull a third act twist on the audience, but no matter). Poor Browning isn’t really given much to work with here – her character is conceived as a stereotype, and never gets to rise above that for the entire length of the movie.

The movie kind of meanders, never really settling down into any sort of plot. I was rolling with the movie, having quite a bit of fun in the first hour, but as it dragged on, the film becomes less fun – part of that is by design (again, it really wants to be GoodFellas, who did this masterfully), and part of it is because it becomes clear Helgeland doesn’t really have anywhere to go with the film- he’s just dining out on one cliché after another.

This isn’t to say that Legend isn’t a fun movie – it is, for the most part, and it’s always interesting to see Tom Hardy work – and he certainly does that. But everything around him seems rather poorly conceived and repetitive.

Movie Review: Timbuktu

Timbuktu
Directed by: Abderrahmane Sissako.
Written by: Abderrahmane Sissako & Kessen Tall.
Starring: Ibrahim Ahmed (Kidane), Abel Jafri (Abdelkerim), Toulou Kiki (Satima), Layla Walet Mohamed (Toya), Mehdi A.G. Mohamed (Issan), Hichem Yacoubi (Djihadiste), Kettly Noël (Zabou), Fatoumata Diawara (La chanteuse), Adel Mahmoud Cherif (L'Imam), Salem Dendou (Le chef djihadiste), Mamby Kamissoko (Djihadiste), Yoro Diakité (Djihadiste), Cheik A.G. Emakni (Omar), Zikra Oualet Moussa (Tina), Weli Cleib (Juge), Djié Sidi (Juge), Damien Ndjie (Abu Jaafar).

Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu is a film of gradually building power – a portrait of life in a small town outside the title city, in which jihadists have recently taken over. At first, their presence is annoying, and almost comical – they tell a man to roll up his pants, because it’s the new law, and when he’s unable to, he eventually just takes off the pants. They tell a woman she needs to wear gloves when she handles the fish she sells – and she yells at them that she cannot do her job with them on. The jihadists drive around the town on motorcycles, using a megaphone to announce the new laws to a populace who largely ignores them, and goes about their day-to-day lives as best they can. As the film progresses however, these jihadists will not seem quite so funny – especially as the film builds to its tragic climax.

The main action in the film involves Kidane – a young cattle farmer, who lives a sweetly idyllic life a little outside of town, with his wife and daughter, and his small herd (it has 8) of cattle. He has hired a young boy to help with the cattle – and one day, as the boy is out with the herd, one of them breaks free in the watering hole and ends up smashing the nets of a local fisherman – who in anger kills the cow. When Kidane finds out, he goes to confront the fisherman – stupidly bringing his pistol along. A fight ensues, and Kidane ends up killing the other man. It’s no mystery who did it, and Kidane is brought in for interrogation. The interrogation scene is the best, and most tense, in the movie – as it is simultaneously comic, tragic and intense – as it gradually becomes clear just how screwed Kidane is. His interrogators are not bad men – but even they are powerless to stop what is coming.

Some of the other jihadists however are bad men. One in particular comes to the house of a young woman who caught his eye and wants to marry her – she doesn’t want to, her parents don’t want her to, but he is insistent. How can they possibly say no to him, when he came to their house and asked so politely? Next time he comes, he will not be so polite – and so, of course, he isn’t – as the young woman is taken at night, and married to him against her will. Her parents complain – but the other jihadists have his back – he’s a good man, they say, how can they possibly object?

What’s striking about Timbuktu is just how quiet a movie it is. Everyone in the movie is respectful in the tone of voice they use, and conversations seem to be between rational adults. It’s only when you listen to them closely it becomes clear how absurd they are. The townspeople are scared – rightly so, as anything from playing music to playing soccer will get you lashed – so even when they have a legitimate complaint with the jihadist, they approach them with respect. For their part, the jihadist want to project of authority and holiness – so even though they are really violent, misogynistic bullies – they are respectful about things, and insist that what they are doing is the right thing – the thing Allah would want them to do. How can the townspeople argue with that?

The film premiered at Cannes in 2014 – and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar last year, but in many ways I’m glad I waited a little time to see it (waited is the wrong word – I missed it in theaters, and then eventually broke down and bought the DVD when it became clear it wasn’t coming to iTunes any time soon). With the anti-Muslim bullshit being spouted by Donald Trump in America (and by Stephen Harper in Canada not too many months ago), it’s important to realize that most Muslims – and everyone in this film is Muslim – are victims of the jihadists, not ones themselves. Sissako’s humane film shows that, and shows the humanity of everyone involved – and the tragic consequences. It is quietly devastating film.

Classic Movie Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Directed by: John Landis.
Written by: John Landis.
Starring: David Naughton (David Kessler), Jenny Agutter (Nurse Alex Price), Griffin Dunne (Jack Goodman), John Woodvine (Dr. J. S. Hirsch), Frank Oz (Mr. Collins / Miss Piggy), Don McKillop (Inspector Villiers), Paul Kember (Sergeant McManus), Colin Fernandes (Benjamin).

There is a very simple problem with werewolf movies – they are all basically the same. An innocent man (and it’s almost always a man) is attacked by a werewolf early in the film, but somehow survives the horrific attack, and everything seems to be fine. And then, on the next full moon, he discovers that he has changed – he’s become a werewolf, and cannot control his thirst for murder and mayhem. He then spends the rest of the movie trying to control that, trying to cure himself, until he finally realizes he cannot – and either kills himself or is killed. End of story. No one has ever really figured out anything different to do with this very basic story (okay, Ginger Snaps did, but that’s basically it), all they really do is add their own flavor to it. John Landis’ 1981 film, An American Werewolf in London, is often at the top (or near it) of any list of the greatest werewolf movies of all time. And yes, it basically tells the same story as they rest. There are a few twists along the way- but mainly they just add flavor, and don’t really change the film that much. But the formula, in this case, still mainly works.

The film stars David Naughton and Griffin Dunne as David and Jack, two American tourists backpacking around Northern England, even though Jack would rather be in Rome (good call Jack). They are hitchhiking, and get let off pretty much in the middle of nowhere. They come across a small pub – The Slaughtered Lamb – and go in to warm up, maybe get something to eat or drink. The locals don’t seem overly happy to see them – and soon the pair is on their way again, with some ominous sounding words still ringing in their ears. They head out into the fog covered moors – where they are, of course, attacked by a wolf. Jack is killed, by David is just mauled. He wakes up in a London hospital three weeks later. He quickly falls for a posh nurse (Jenny Agutter), while he tries to figure out what happened to him – as does his doctor (John Woodvine), who heads back up North to try and figure it out – as all he was told was that an escaped mental patient attacked them, and that doesn’t make sense. Meanwhile, the full moon is coming – oh, and David still sees Jack everywhere – who gives him warnings, and progressively decomposes with each passing appearance.

The film’s most famous sequence has justly become iconic. The first time David turns into a werewolf, director John Landis, makeup artist Rick Baker, and the visual effects department, does a terrific job of turning him into a werewolf, one step at a time. This type of things could be done easily today with CGI – but for those of us who love practical effects, this is a landmark, and one of the best scenes of its kind in film history. Baker’s makeup work also has to be commended on Griffin Dunne’s Jack – who like I said earlier, is a little more decomposed each time we see him, but still allows Dunne’s comedic performance to shine through in each scene. Dunne is far and away the best performance in the movie – although that’s not saying much. Naughton, as the lead, is a little bit bland, and although Agutter does what she can with the role, it’s another of those “supportive female” roles that are a dime a dozen.

The film takes its time getting everything setup. Naughton doesn’t turn into werewolf for more than an hour into a 97 minute film – with only the brief attack sequence at the beginning being the only action until then. The opening and closing are certainly the best parts of the movie – the visit to the pub is creepy, the foggy moors creepier in act one, and the violence in the third act works quite well. Landis doesn’t have much to do in between however, and the film sags in the middle section of the film, concentrating on Naughton’s recovery, his relationship with Agutter, and the doctor’s investigation – none of which is all that interesting.

I don’t really see An American Werewolf in London as a great movie. It does what it does quite well – but it’s the same damn werewolf movie as every other werewolf movie –with only Dunne’s decomposing sidekick and terrific makeup work – to make it different. It’s a must for werewolf fans, of course, and it’s an entertaining little movie. But it never quite reaches the next level for me. It’s never that scary, never gets under your skin. It’s fun – but not much else.