Keep Clear Of the Moor. Beware the Moon: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Keep clear of the moor. Beware the moon, lads.

This movie has been referenced in so many books and films that I had been dying to watch it. I wanted to see why everyone loved. So this past Friday the 13th, I decided to watch it and The Wolf Man (1941) as it was a full moon. But when I saw it, I found it was HORRIBLE!!!! One of the worst films ever!! On par with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and The Beast of Yucca Flats. 

The main character, David, is so bland and hardly developed that I don’t even care if he becomes a werewolf or not. He also acts crazy all the freakin’ time. In The Wolf Man (1941), Larry thinks he’s crazy, realizes that he’s not, and then tries to stop turning into a werewolf and hurting others. David on the other hand seems to revel in the crazy, and doesn’t seem sad at all that his friend is dead as he is enjoying Nurse Price, etc. While The Wolf Man  is sad and tragic, this was just boring and…more boring.

It took over an hour to see David turn! Over an hour! This movie is an hour and a half and I don’t want to have to sit through an hour of crazy David and naked David and have no werewolf!

This is like Godzilla (2014)!!!! If I’m watching a monster movie, I want to see that monster mentioned in the title! The Wolf Man (1941), has a wolf right away, as Bela is a werewolf, and then we see Larry turn at the half hour mark. That’s how its done people!!

They really should have changed the title of the film to David Naughton, My Naked Body, as that is really what this film is about. We see more nudity and sex than we do a werewolf, which is super disappointing.

I mean seriously, what were you thinking?

I felt like Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.

I started a M&M eating game. For every time David was naked I would eat an M&M. My stomach started hurting barely in.

 I have to admit I am getting ahead of myself. Lets go back to the beginning and go through some of the issues.

So for those of you who haven’t seen the film, Jack and David are Americans backpacking through Europe after they have just graduated from college. They are lost in the moors and come upon a pub called the Slaughtered Lamb.

I think the name is a message to steer away.

[Side Note: the pub is based on a real one that was destroyed years ago. After the film, they opened one up in New York.]

So as the two are walking towards the pub, David tells Jack knock-knock jokes. And I kid you not, he doesn’t get them.

Like who doesn’t understand knock-knock jokes? I mean three-year old children understand that concept. How did Jack even graduate? And more importantly, why did they even include that in the film?

And why would you ever enter a place called the Slaughtered Lamb? It just doesn’t sound like there will be anything good there. I’m with Jack on that one, you should’ve passed on it David.

Bad things happen when you don’t listen

So they go into the Slaughtered Lamb, Jack sees a pentagram and candles on the wall and he begins telling David all kinds of trivia from The Wolf Man (1941).

The two end up getting kicked out of the pub and start wandering the moor, when a werewolf attacks.

It attacks Jack and David takes off running.

Yep he takes off. You horrible man, you let your friend die! How could you??!! He was trying to help you and when the wolf attacks him you just RUN OFF???!!!

See Hook agrees with me.

So David ends up in the hospital with a “wolf” bite while Jack ends up in the morgue.

Your fault!

And that’s when Nurse Price enters the picture.

Ugh. Hate her.

Nurse Price is crazy and a skank. Now I don’t like to call women that, but she plays with David’s junk to get him to eat! I’m serious!!!

She must have a thing for sick/crazy guys.

Plus she is just annoying in how she acts. Nurse Price calls Mark Twain Samuel Clemens when she is reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court I know that is his real name, but who actually goes around using it? NOBODY! Everyone calls him Mark Twain. And I know the director is trying to draw parallels between the stories, but no movie, no.

The only similarity between the two is an American in Britain. NOTHING ELSE!

David doesn’t have the most fun in the hospital. He sees dead Jack and actually talk to him (weird scene). Jack tells David he is going to be a werewolf and he believes it. David is eventually allowed to check out as his bite is not serious. Nurse Price invites David back to her place and tells him she wants to be with him. She says “I don’t really bring strange men home…I’ve only been with seven men, of which three were one-night stands”

Sounds like you do bring strange men home since that is about half the men you’ve slept with, and David will make that four out of eight.

All I can think is how many were people presumed to be crazy (as at this point she thinks David is just imbalanced as he says he is a werewolf)? I mean she’s like Sam Winchester over here. (She actually is as he slept with a werewolf. And a demon. Dated another demon, and was involved with some other monsters.)

So as Nurse Price and David head back to her flat (apartment) they comment on how high the price of all food is. I’m like,

You paid like £5 for a bag of groceries. I wish food was that cheap.

Why? Why!

Anyways so we have a second visit from Jack and to be honest, this film is more about the Leprechaun (1993)/Rumpelstiltskin from Once Upon a Time Zombie Ghost Jack, than it is about a werewolf.

The next day after Jack and Nurse Price had sex, she leaves for work and twin girls with a dog come upon Jack. The girls’ dog barks at him and they both laugh like crazy and walk off.

What? I know they are trying to reference The Wolf Man (1941) how the dog can sense he is a wolf (Gwen’s fiance Frank, his dog does this). But what was up with the twin girls? Did they think after The Shinning (1980) that the only way to do a creepy film was to have weird twin girls?

And are they honestly going to included every song that uses the word moon? We’ve already had Blue Moon and Bad Moon Rising, I am now half-expecting Moon River to be played next.

And we get the cliche #56,  “person pretends in the mirror to be the monster they later turn into”.

Ugh

So we switch to the hospital and get a second round of this bratty little boy who says no all the time (he was in the first hospital scene). He’s even more annoying the second time around that I am actually hoping he does get eaten.

Die, die, die!

The transformation scene was okay.

So the next day David wakes up in the zoo naked with the wolves. Now that doesn’t make much sense to me, if you are a wild werewolf, why would you go put yourself in a cage? You’re free! It would make way more sense if he woke up in the park instead.

So David tries to get arrested, “to protect others”, and that was kind of funny because the bobby (cop) won’t consider it until he starts insulting the Queen, Winston Churchill, and Shakespeare. But he is so rude to nurse Price. Telling her to shut up and leave him alone:

He then tells Nurse Price he loves her, and she’s like woah Ted Moseby, slow down. I Love You? Really after one night? Woah, you don’t even know her. Besides she’s crazy. You don’t want to date crazy.

David then runs off to call his family and tell them he cares about them before he kills himself, but can only reach his 10-year old sister as everyone else is out. All I can think is, 1) David was attacked by a werewolf  or “wolf” as the doctors are calling it and 2) his best friend has been killed! How are his parents not in London right now trying to see if he’s okay? Their son could have been killed!!

See Hook agrees with me.

So David tries to kill himself but can’t go through with it. Now all I can think is, haven’t you seen The Wolf Man (1941), I mean I assume you did as you were telling the nurse about it. Well don’t you remember, a werewolf can only be killed by silver? Slitting your wrists doesn’t work.

So stupid

So after that David sees Jack outside a porno film movie house and goes in after him. All I can think is, you’re worried about killing people and you go see a porno? Really?

And don’t give me, that’s where zombie Jack was at and he needed to speak to him. Before that we saw that Jack came to David wherever he went (hospital, Nurse Price’s flat, etc); he could find himself a quiet place and Jack would totally follow him there.

Plus what us up with the film they are watching? A guy and girl are getting it on and a second guy comes marching in the room yelling “You promised you wouldn’t do this again!” The first guy says “No, I didn’t.” The second guy answers, “I’m talking to her.” The women replies, “I don’t know you.” The second guy gets really embarrassed, says “Oh”, and leaves.

What the heck was the point of that? And immediately after, Jack says “great movie”. I know you are super horny Jack, but no, no, no, no ,no, no, no, no. That is horrible, horrible, horrible.

After this I couldn’t stomach anymore. It wasn’t scary. There was barely an werewolf. It was pretty much a huge mess. I’ll take The Wolf Man (1941) any day.

No no no no no

And here I will leave with more werewolf than we see in the film.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For the previous post, go to You Will Die in Seven Days

For more on An American Werewolf in London, go to Pink Elephants

For more on werewolves, go to Unleash the Savage Instincts That Lie Within

For more on Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, go to A Monster Race

For more modern remakes, go to Let Them Fight

For more on monsters, go to What Is This Thing?

For more on Supernatural, go to Happily Ever Aftermath

For more on How I Met Your Mother, go to I’ll Be Back

On the 12th Day ’til Christmas: The 12 Men of Christmas (2009)

On the 12 Day ’til Christmas my blogger gave to me

The 12 Men of Christmas (2009)

Now this is a film that is very pleasing to any woman out there. E.J. Baxter is a genius New York publicist that after being betrayed by her fiance, leaves that life to move out to Montana. When she gets there she clashes heads with good-looking bad boy, Will Albrecht. She hears the plight of the volunteer search-and-rescue team, as their lack of funds are causing them to use out-of-date equipment. E.J. comes up with the idea of creating a “naked” calendar (nothing is shown but bare chest) to raise the money.

The calendar is a success and both Will and E.J. realize that there is more to each other than meets the eye and they fall in love. After some misunderstandings the two break up, and E.J. returns to the big apple.  When she gets there, she realizes how dissatisfied she is and goes back reuniting with Will; the end!

However, when I was watching it I realized that a lot of the storyline was just like Pride and Prejudice

1) Their Names

• Their names are
• (Main Guy) Will = Fitzwilliam Darcy
• (Main Girl) E.J. = Elizabeth Jane
• (Main Girl’s BFF) Jan:  Jane -E = Jan

2) Comment Trama

• Will Albrecht says something to E.J. and it causes them to hate each other. Just like how Darcy makes that comment about Elizabeth. In this film Will was the one who was prejudiced while E.J. was the one who was prideful.

3) Water Scene

• They also do a water scene [copying Pride & Prejudice (1995)]. E.J. visits a fancy manor house and happens across Will who is swimming in the pool. Of course this scene is taken much further than P&P. In this version Will is in his birthday suit, but because it is on TV, we don’t see anything.

4) Wickham Surfaces

• E.J. starts dating this guy Mike who hates Will. He tells her that Will is a horrible guy as he dumped his fianceé on their wedding night, leaving her stranded at the altar. He also goes on about there was this perfect modeling job that Will had for his store, but Will kept Mike from getting it because he was jealous of him. This is just like when Wickham goes on and on about Darcy being awful and taking away his inheritance and chance to become a minister.

5) Persuasive Person

• E.J.’s friend, Jan, has been in love with Will’s best friend Eric forever and has been waiting ever patiently for him to ask her out. He is about to, but Will convinces Eric that Jan doesn’t really care for him. Eric listens to his friend and drops all of his attentions to Jan, completely breaking her heart. Just like Bingley was easily swayed by Darcy; Eric is swayed by Will.

6) Terrible Proposal

• One random day Will decides to go to E.J’s office and tells her that even though he fought it and is disgusted with himself, he is in love with her. He goes on and on about how displeased he is, just like Darcy does to Elizabeth when he asked her to marry him. And just like Elizabeth Bennet, E.J. turns him down cold; claiming that he was the last person in the world she would ever get with.

7) Disgrace Be Gone

• So the calendar is going well and they have finished the first 11 months and ready to start on the 12th when the last guy drops out. They can’t find anyone to replace him and don’t know what to do when Will steps forward and fills in their empty slot. Not only does Will save the day, but E.J. realizes that she loves Will. Just like when Darcy saved Elizabeth’s family from disgrace over the Lydia scenario, E.J. too was saved from disgrace.

8) Miss King-ed Out of My Mind

• Mike stops paying attention to E.J., eventually breaking up with her. This is fine as she realizes Will is the one she wants to be with. Later we find out that just like Wickham tried to go higher than the Bennets by attempting to get with Miss King, Mike traded up. He gets with a rich, recently divorced woman. Unlike Wickham, he ends up with her.

9) Wickham’s Wicked Reveal

• At the end we find out that Will wouldn’t give Mike the job because he stole his fiancee. His fianceé cheated on him with Mike, and left Will stranded at the altar, not the other way around. Just like in P&P as we find out that the lies spread about by Wickham to the whole town are untrue, we find out the lie spread by Mike about Will dumping his fiancé is also false.

10) Reunited Couples

• In the end Jan and Eric have finally gotten together; along with Will and E.J. working through their pride and prejudices. Just like P&P, we have a very happy ending.

It’s a great film and you should watch it. You definitely should check out the calendar. Mr. May is my favorite, I’d keep him up all year long.

If you’re wondering Mr. December, as I said earlier, is Will and  Mr. July is the very uncute Mike (I don’t see how anyone would find him attractive).

I think it is a great movie and I highly recommend you watching it! To find out when it will be playing on Lifetime go here.

 

For more modern works based on Pride and Prejudice, go to Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

For more Pride & Prejudice posts go to Let’s Hear it For the Boys

For more of my fav quotes, go to It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year