I'd Love to Turn You On At the Movies #125 - An American Werewolf In London (1981, dir. John Landis)

I love horror movies. To me, there is nothing better than the original Universal version of Frankenstein. It combines the best elements of storytelling, make-up, acting, music, shadow and light to create an unexpected, synergistic element of the unknown. It gives flesh to the promise of cinema in the first place. Unfortunately, when we moved into the color age, and the expectation for ever-more explicit thrills advanced, the art of fear became the act of shock, and much of the appeal of horror went away – at least for me. The modern era has exchanged fright for torture. Watching one human inflict carnage upon others is a different thing than jumping at shadows. It loses the element of fun. While An American Werewolf In London director John Landis does succumb to modern bloodlust, he also manages to make a classic horror film that is hilarious and both honors and advances the genre.

The story begins with two American college students starting a hitchhiking trip of Europe on the moors of Scotland. The action begins almost immediately as they get lost, attacked by a wolf, and one of them is killed. The other, unknown TV actor David Naughton, wakes up in a hospital in London. He is being attended to by a suspicious doctor (John Woodvine) and a gorgeous nurse (Jenny Agutter). He is tortured by horrifying dreams and then he is repeatedly haunted by his decaying dead companion (Griffin Dunne), who warns David that he was bitten by a werewolf and that he would now turn into one himself when the moon is full. This is all in the first 20 minutes of the film. Landis does not screw around. He gets right to the heart of the matter. Before you can say lycanthropy our hero has entered into a love affair with the nurse, is staying at her house, and finds himself alone as the full moon rises. And then comes “the scene.” There are some moments in film history that are so completely new and groundbreaking that they not only define that particular film, they actually come to represent an entire genre. In full, clear, neon light, David strips his clothes off and the camera does not flinch or look away as his body starts to stretch and change in front of our eyes. Hair sprouts from his torso, his limbs morph from arms and legs to haunches and paws, and in a final horror, his face stretches into a muzzle as he becomes a howling hellhound. It is an absolutely amazing scene, and even though 35 years of filmmaking has passed since this film was made, this scene has not been bested. It is a testament to make-up genius Rick Baker’s lasting impact on the genre. Baker represents the last great make-up innovator (the DVD comes with several excellent featurettes about Rick Baker and the special effects processes he pioneered). Shortly after this film, computer generated effects became the de facto method of showing the impossible and something very special about the art of film was lost. But that was AFTER this movie.

For the remainder of An American Werewolf In London however, we are treated to one thrill after another as our hero runs amok in London, killing people, and letting us see exactly what it would look like to have a real monster, fully lit, in a modern city. It is a true thrill. A scene in a deserted tube station is as genuinely chilling as any I can think of. The movie leads to its climax as David finds himself back in human form, sitting in a pornographic movie theatre, once again talking to a now skeletal Griffin Dunne, while a ridiculous porno plays. It is truly one of the more uproariously funny and surreal scenes in the horror genre. The scene ends with the inevitable, however, as David, once again goes through the transition, and wreaks havoc in the movie theatre and then moves out into a mobbed Piccadilly Square for the film’s climax.

All the boxes get checked with this film. It is fabulously entertaining, provides real shocks, breaks new ground and simultaneously pays tribute to the horror tradition. Director John Landis strikes the perfect balance between star-struck fan boy and seasoned insider, making the monster movie he – and we – always wanted to see.

- Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On At the Movies #86 - The Three Amigos! (1986, dir. John Landis)

The Three Amigos! Is like comfort food to me. I first saw it when it first came out, when I was in high school, when I was going through a particularly tough stretch, and I went back to see it two more times. Since then it’s been one of the most reliable go-tos on my DVD shelf during times of frustration, anger, whatever. For me, it’s the simple, uplifting, melodramatic plot, the endearing dumbness of the three main characters, played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase, and the music. It’s a quality comedy from the mid-80s, a feel-good time.

            So what sets it apart from other such films? Historical significance, at least to fans of Randy Newman. The Three Amigos! Is the only screenplay Newman ever wrote (co-wrote, actually, with Martin and SNL creator Lorne Michaels), so the humor carries some of the biting wit of his his funnier songs, those sung in the voices of hapless, lowlife characters, who do and say things that are at once absurd and brilliant. The best examples in this film come from the bad guys – a hideously surly bandito named El Guapo (trans: The Handsome) and his yes-man sidekick, Jefe (Boss). At one point El Guapo asks Jefe, “Would you say that I have a plethora?” Jefe immediately and wholeheartedly agrees, “Yes, El Guapo, I believe that you have a plethora”. Of course, Jefe doesn’t know what plethora means. (Neither did I at the time.) In another scene at El Guapo’s birthday party, in the middle of the scorching northern Mexico desert, Jefe and his crew give their boss a sweater of the hideous late-80s variety, and El Guapo is most pleased. It’s silly, yes, but weird in a kind of smart way.

Newman also wrote three songs for the film, "The Ballad of the Three Amigos", "My Little Buttercup", and "Blue Shadows,” all of which are great songs that suit the story and characters well. The first provides one of the best gags in the film, an improbably long, sustained note sung by the three main characters as they ride their horses across the horizon. During “Blue Shadows,” adorable creatures come out of desert darkness to sing along. And Newman even plays a role, the voice of a singing bush the Amigos find in an arroyo. The idea is taken from the Bible, of course, but the songs the bush sings are old 19^th Century ditties, and it’s voice is nasally and hilarious.

            This film was the first I knew of Newman doing film work. His songs had appeared in earlier films, but almost all of those were ones he’d already recorded on an album. So this marks one of his first significant forays into Hollywood, for better or worse, the beginning of a shift in his career, coming between Trouble in Paradise and Land of Dreams, the last record he would release for another seven years, and arguably one of his darkest and most personal. He’s said to have been going through a divorce at the time, and his mother died, so I like to think this project became like comfort food for him, too and in this way maybe I share something in common with one of the great singer songwriters. 

- Joe Miller