A HOWLING GOOD TIME
When I was in college, rather than saving my money for practical things like groceries or bills, what little I was able to scrimp and save went directly to horror DVDs. I considered it a natural part of my education. Although I had seen some horror here and there in my youth, I was dramatically behind the curve in what was fast becoming my favorite genre and that was something that could not stand.
I had been slowly building a list of recommendations, scrawled on a piece of notebook paper I had unceremoniously ripped out of one of my college notebooks. I kept it folded up in my wallet and, whenever I finally did manage to scrape together 20 or 30 bucks, I would head to a local Circuit City (did I mention this was some years ago..?) with list in hand.
Flipping through the titles, looking for that appealing $9.99 price point, I remember eyeing the image of that snarling face; a monster that looked horrifying but also pained. I grabbed the box and compared it to my list. It was on there. Ten bucks too- looks like I had a winner:
An American Werewolf in London.
I had heard of it, of course, but wasn’t familiar with what it was all about. I watched the film later that same night, lying on the carpet of my small TV room at home. I was immediately taken with the characters. The tone of the movie was completely unique, heartening yet deeply disturbing. There was an urgency to the emotion on screen, a frightening ability for any given scene to flip tonality without warning. A story and emotion which evolved fluidly along with the motivations of the characters.
Although it would be years before I’d pick up the script, even then I recognized that something more than flawless direction and superb performances were driving the film’s altogether unique timbre. The dialogue, the composition, the emotion behind the film- indeed, the very heart of what made the whole production work- was a phenomenally constructed screenplay.
What stood out to me practically, and what stands out to most, is Rick Baker’s construction and perfect execution of a werewolf transformation. But how does such a perfect visualization go from idea to reality? How do things go so right, when they could go so wrong?
That was the question which originally drove me to seek out the words behind the film. Simple and yet intoxicating, it is words like these that when presented in the right manner, to the right talent, can amount to the kind of practical work that the world will be talking about for the rest of time.
An American Werewolf In London accomplishes a great deal but its the transformation sequence, even on a script level, that stands as a microcosm for what makes the picture an enormous success.
THE SCENE
David sits, reading quietly in Alex’s apartment. ‘Blue Moon’ plays. Suddenly, wracked with pain, he grabs his forehead and stands screaming. He rips his shirt off and removes his pants, his body drenched in sweat, and watches in horror as his hand elongates. He falls to the ground, his body sprouting hair and continues to screech painfully. His form quickly alters, his back arching, his bone structure changing, culminating with his skull protruding forward into a snout, displaying his freshly spawned fangs. The creature’s roars fade as the scene dissolves to the full moon set against the night sky.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The scene opens with the camera moving in to a close up on David, smiling benignly as he reads. The camera movement suggests oncoming action and his content demeanor makes the shock of what’s about to happen all the more distressing. ‘Blue Moon’ plays as if to solidify the benign nature of the situation. Suddenly, David’s face contorts and he grabs his head, tugging at his hair.
All of this is window dressing based on the single line in the script: “David sits reading Connecticut Yankee when he suddenly clutches his head in pain.” The line is abrupt, simple and yields a visual sense of false calm which went on to be so apparent on screen. The next line, “He stands in agony, the book falls to the floor,” is also an uncomplicated one, but resonates bluntly, unclouded in how straightforward the actions on screen should be.
The frame shifts from a close up to a medium shot, showing David as he falls to his knees screaming. His body is wet now, water stains visible against his light gray shirt. His pain and confusion are raw and visceral; the performance is so far removed from where the character was merely seconds before that it’s scarcely believable. This motivates the viewer to be as disoriented as David is in regards to his plight.
David shouts lines like “What? God! What?” amidst incomprehensible grunts of pain as a compliment to the physical writhing occurring on screen. The script features this dialogue almost exactly, providing a string of verbal misery designed to create physicality and dreadful realism. In essence, David looks and sounds like a regular guy whose body is being ripped apart from the inside out.
In the script, David has several more lines before the meat of the transition occurs. He calls to his deceased friend Jack, saying, “Jack?! Where are you now, you fucker?!” The line is omitted from the film entirely, one assumes because its an accusatory, hostile notion which seems to represent the antithesis of the scene. David’s pain exists to further extend his guilt and accept his new identity, not begrudge others in light of it.
Cries for help and even a line that appears later in the scene all read as occurring before the primary transition, however in the film David quickly pulls off his pants and almost immediately stands back up. This seems like a small change (as the line “He grabs at his pants, pulling them off as if they are burning him” appears several paragraphs down), but serves to make the sequence of events feel more fluid. On the page, it can sometimes be easier to establish the mood or tone of the events on screen by way of dialogue. On screen, it is often the action surrounding the spoken word that ultimately does the trick.
Moreover, the star of the scene is the practical effects. In the screenplay there is no mention about David’s extending hand. In fact, it is not until he falls onto his hands and knees that the metamorphosis is really described. In the film, the hand effect is featured and lingered on, elongating before the audience’s and David’s eyes (a notion that is eventually referenced in the script). David continues to scream as he watches in disbelief, his body transitioning into something foreign to him.
Intercutting the sequence with close up shots of David’s horrified face and wide eyed stare also serves to help the viewer believe that the marvel being witnessed is happening to someone, is real.
He falls to his knees once more, naked and vulnerable, crying for help. “Help me! Please help me! Please!” He shouts to the empty room, pulling the dialogue from the screenplay through to a more appropriate place in the scene. At this point, the script transitions from straightforward action description to a more poetic interpretation.
“He remains on his hands and knees, trying to master his torment; but it’s no use.” The idea that David is attempting to control what is happening to him, master that which he most fears in a fruitless venture that leads only to defeat is a crucial one. Practical effects aside, if this scene was going to work, it would require a heartbreaking character struggle at the center of it.
In the film, the camera again moves in on David’s face. His eyes are squinting with pain and his mouth is open, gasping for air as he mutters the line “I didn’t mean to call you a meatloaf, Jack.” While not an apology as it appears in the screenplay, by leaving the viewer with this line before the onset of the primary transition, the film confirms David’s acceptance of the supernatural terror he’s been fighting against believing. So too does the line accent the loss of innocence that has occurred between the opening of the film and the bodily shift at hand. The line is a little funny, a little sad and altogether revealing about the stunted childlike nature of who David was before he had to face the horrors of the world and what it is he is about to become.
“The metamorphosis from man into beast is not an easy one.”
From this point forward, the thrust of the scene is the metamorphosis. The sound design accents the impressive visuals, notes of displaced viscera and snapping bone permeate the movement of flesh over David’s grisly shifting form. His screaming is a permanent part of the soundtrack too, the sound growing more monstrous with every new feature of his grotesque new body. The lighting is oddly bright and clear for such a sequence: everything is visible and in the viewer’s face.
The scene is described further with sentences like “We can actually see David’s flesh move, the rearranging tissue.” This notion conjures all sorts of images, angles and shots but does so in a manner befitting the imagination that will be required of both the frames on display and the audience digesting them. The crude, unprocessed nature of David’s suffering is the clear backdrop, but how its brought to life is left largely to the imagination.
While some specifics are mentioned, the extension of his jaw for instance, the general nature of the last few paragraphs allow for the filmmaker and the effects team to generate the content. Genre-altering effects were a must as is clear from the use of words like “literally” and phrases like “before our eyes,” but ultimately Landis knew that the words had to solicit imagination.
In the end, the creature exits the house as the full moon is displayed prominently; this time juxtaposed against David’s “low guttural growls.” The film amplifies this to a resounding howl, accentuating David’s dark evolution into the unfeeling, murderous beast he was so terrified of becoming. The script serves to deliver the all important notion of loss of self, from the fear and the pain present in David to the altogether unfathomable realism of the effects onscreen. Such things can happen quickly and without warning; still as fickle and unfeeling as it may seem, the words here move to show that there are some alterations that can never be undone.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
In the commentary present on the blu-ray release for An American Werewolf In London, David Naughton (who portrayed David Kessler) recalls, “This was no fun.”
| Short and sweet, Mr. Naughton’s assessment of the sequence is in keeping with its conceit. Transforming into a werewolf is no fun. When I first watched this film, I had no idea that I was about to watch something that would change my opinion and impression of the horror genre for the rest of my life. Practical effects can make the impossible possible, yes, but not without the story to back it up. David is a likable guy, someone who does not deserve what is happening to him. Still, it is happening. To him. |
No fun.
Moreover, the rawness of the script, the guiding simplicity of the action description, breeds a constant feeling of believability and weight to the outrageousness of the action before you. In a 2011 interview published on BirthMoviesDeath, conducted by Brian Salisbury (Found here), Rick Baker says simply, “He gave me the script then and we made the movie that he wrote.” Put simply, the script presented a vision the artists involved could rally behind and expertly realize.
An American Werewolf In London traverses the genre gamut, hilariously endearing us to the people in the film while simultaneously breaking our hearts as those characters are decimated. Audiences will remember the film and this specific sequence for a variety of reasons, but chief among them and one not oft sang is the screenplay which spurred the effects we all marvel at any time they appear on screen or in our memory.
A lot can go wrong in the transition from idea to reality, from page to screen, but, as is the case with An American Werewolf In London, a lot can go right too.
All in all, I’d say ten bucks well spent.
An American Werewolf in London (1981): Written & Directed by John Landis
