Slashing The Seats

Striding into the Soho Curzon, the grubby seats and collections of movie-freaks in the audience suitably transported you back to 1981, as Midnight Movies celebrated the 30th anniversary of a monster hit. And although Director Landis expressed his hope that this was a good print and waxed lyrical about the Blu-Ray’s detail, the terrible print on offer actually adds to the experience, making this an authentic recreation of those godawful 80s visits to the Scala.

Werewolf is a movie that benefits from being BIG. The Yorkshire moors are oppressive in their grimness – brown and seemingly endless – and, speaking as someone who grew up in a rural area, the tiny hamlet standing in for East Proctor successfully conveys the boredom, and isolation inherent in the location. There really is a feeling that anything could go on out there and it adds to the atmosphere immensely.

Something else striking about the movie is how wacky it is. A lot of the dialogue is terrible, and it’s delivered in an overly stagey way, giving the whole a surreal/hyper-real edge, as though we’ve slipped into a parallel England, like a composite of Ealing Comedies and 70s Robin Askwith titillation flicks. The people in it are grim and malnourished, everything bad about the country portrayed as just a step away. Through a mirror grimly, if you will.

Although most traditional movie monsters finally had stakes driven through them at the end of the 70s, the Werewolf experienced something of a renaissance in the 80s, perhaps in line with the transformative cultural and social geist, and of all the movies released this is still the best, although it’s arguably not a great film.

Firstly, there’s the mix of horror and humour. Traditionally the impulse to laugh at horrific scenes is a defence mechanism, but here the jokes and banter are genuinely funny. Landis’ affinity for humour is evident from Animal House and The Blues Brothers, and here it is codified, becoming something of a last hurrah before the downturn in his fortunes throughout the rest of the 80s (not counting this reviewer’s favourite comedy movie – Trading Places).

The storyline itself is straightforward: A couple of naive students get into trouble in a strange land after ignoring the warnings of the locals, a horror tradition that goes back to silent cinema. The difference here is that after their frosty reception the victims are practically driven toward the monster by the locals.

The movie does have a tendency to rely too heavily on crash bang shocks, although the initial werewolf attack on the moors is a superb piece of tension building with a great double bluff. Likewise, the constant stream of jokes makes it hard to judge where the next scare is coming from as the script and mannered performances stray close to camp or farce (the confused policemen being a prime example), but usually it pulls back in time, while our empathy for David Kessler (An excellent and natural David Noughton) allows us to forgive the film its worst sins.

Down in London, Jenny Agutter’s unlikely and straightforward seduction technique is delivered with aplomb, wish-fulfilment dialogue and all, while the increasing visits from David’s zombiefied best friend Jack offer some of the films best shocks and some great banter, ramping up the dread as he warns of the coming transformation. It’s worth remembering that when viewing this for the first time, the audience might be looking for a traditional wolf-out sequence, particularly given its living room setting. You’d be forgiven for expecting lots of falling behind the sofa and cutaway shots.

Not a bit of it. Rick Baker’s still-excellent prosthetics work shines, Noughton suddenly leaping up and tearing off his clothes, screaming for help as bones crack, his skull flattens, and he sprouts fur and nasty great big pointy teeth. The effects won a well deserved Oscar, and while A Company of Wolves comes close, they’ve yet to be beaten.

From this point on, things move up a gear, the Wolf’s initial prowl through London providing a genuinely striking and unsettling image as it stalks towards a hapless commuter on the tube, giving a great impression of the sheer size and… monstrousness of the creature.

There are also a lot of nice touches throughout – a great line up of classic character actors in support – not to mention Frank Oz as a US Embassy official – and the fantastic line up of moon themed songs throughout still amuses. The climax is surprisingly visceral and unrestrained, as people are eaten, crushed between crashing cars and thrown from bus windows, summed up by Dr. Hirsh (John Woodvine) with the classic line “There’s a disturbance in Piccadilly circus..”.

Over the years this has become a cult classic and there’s a tendency to overrate it. It isn’t great, it’s silly. Sometimes the lines are just bad, and the storytelling is disjointed with no real character arcs, while the supporting actors are often stereotypes. Nevertheless, there’s an enduring, kooky charm about the whole thing that Dimension’s planned remake will struggle to live up to. Arguably the best werewolf movie ever made.

All that and a Jenny Agutter shower scene too.

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