AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS, AN

SYNOPSIS:
Three wise cracking, 20-something American college kids Andy (Tom Everett-Scott), Brad (Vince Vieluf) and Chris (Phil Buckman) arrive in Paris intent on serious fun. Like bungee jumping off the Eifel Tower; but Serafine (Julie Delpy), a Parisian girl, is also intent on jumping, only she has no bungee. Andy’s impulsive bravado sends him after her, rescuing her mid-air. On the ground, she rushes off and he is concussed by a beam on the rebound. In hospital he awakes with a vision of her from the previous night. He must find her. With a discarded suicide note their only clue, the three guys set out to find this mystery woman, the woman of his dream – and on every full moon, the stuff of his worst nightmares, as it turns out. The search for Serafine leads them into the ancient catacombs beneath Paris, tunnels that criss cross the foundations of the city. Foreigners, itinerants and those whom nodoby shall miss are suspicioulsy disappearing at the time of every full moon. Inspector Leduc (Tom Novembre) is on the case, but it’s not an easy job, even for one with a Sherlock Holmes complex. The terror is unstoppable.

"A clever mixture of comedy and horror which succeeds in being both funny and scary, An American Werewolf . . . possesses an overriding eagerness to please that prevents it from becoming off putting, and special effects freaks get more than their money’s worth.’ That’s a quote from Variety’s review of John Landis’ 1981 film, An American Werewolf in London, the near-classic precursor to this late-but-worth-the-wait sequel. Written and directed by a man (Anthony Waller) whose biggest body of work is in tv commercials, this new adventure shifts from London to Paris, but the plot points and eagerness to entertain are the same. The SFX are not: this is 15 years and a whole digital shift later, and some of the effects work in this film (from animation to visual to digital FX) is quite extraordinary. Maybe a trifle unsettling before mealtime, but extraordinary. The undead, for example, who spring a blood leek from their cheeks when attempting a whistle (and worse, but I’ll spare you that); the transmutation sequences; the opening eye-popper involving a life saving jump from the top of the Eifel Tower - echoed in the new, ‘up’ ending achieved with a downward movement (I’m being obtuse to preserve the surprise for you); and the inventive lighting camera work when we see things from a werewolf’s point of view. There are several nice touches in both the casting and the gory-humour, while the suspense never lets up. By the movie’s end, you can feel you’ve seen something; your stomach muscles can relax."
Andrew L. Urban