- Director: John Landis
- Writer: John Landis
- Stars: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Joe Belcher
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/2PwriBv
Synopsis
A couple of backpackers are told to “keep off the moors; stick to the road.” They’re hiking across Northern England. They stop in at a pub in a tiny village, and none of the locals seem happy to see them. Jack notices the pentagram painted on the wall, and he says it’s the mark of the werewolf. David would prefer just to shut up and enjoy the warmth. They leave, and once again, they are warned to stay on the road.
The two guy hear something howling, and they figure out that they’re lost… in the moors. Jack is torn apart, and David gets wounded before the villagers from the pub show up and run the monster off with fired guns. Where did that naked dead man come from? Where did the monster go?
Three weeks later, David wakes up in a hospital in London. Jack is dead. The police were told the boys were attacked by a lunatic, but David insists that it was an animal. The police have the body of the perpetrator, and it’s clearly not an animal. David dreams of running through the woods naked. Then there are the dreams with killer Nazi monsters killing his whole family.
When he’s not dreaming, he’s hallucinating seeing Jack, still torn up and covered in blood. Jack explains that they were attacked by a werewolf. David is the last werewolf in that one’s line, and Jack explains that David is going to kill people. Jack can talk to ghosts, since he is one. Jack asks David to kill himself before it’s too late. David then tells Nurse Alex that he’s a werewolf; surprisingly, she doesn’t believe him.
Nurse Alex invites David to stay with her after he gets out of the hospital. She has more in mind than simply being altruistic, and the two have a steamy evening together. Dead Jack returns and warns that David is going to change tomorrow night. Again, he urges David to kill himself.
Meanwhile, Doctor Hirsch returns to East Proctor, the town with the inn from the early part of the movie. He goes to the pub and asks a bunch of questions about what happened. One of the men warns Hirsch about what’s coming.
Hirsch returns and has a talk with Nurse Alex. He seems to believe there may be something to what David has been saying. David might start harming people, even if he’s not a real werewolf he might think he’s one.
The moon comes up, and David tears off his clothes. His hands stretch into claws, his hair grows, and his body changes. Yes, he is a werewolf. He then kills a couple on the street. And then a few homeless. And a guy in the subway.
David wakes up naked the next morning in a wolf habitat at the zoo. Hirsch reads about the killings in the newspaper. David goes back to Alex’s and tells her what he remembers, which is nothing at all. Hirsch calls Alex to get her to bring David to him. David hears about the murders and runs away. Jack returns, along with the ghosts of David’s victims, to once again tell David he needs to die. They can’t rest until he does, and there will be more killings.
Night falls, and David changes again, this time in an adult movie theater. David roars through downtown London, causing dozens of traffic accidents and many, many deaths. The police corner David in a dead-end alley, and Alex and Hirsch run to protect David.
Alex confronts the werewolf hoping she can get through to David, he lunges for her, and the police shoot and kill him.
Commentary
This must have every “Moon” related song ever written in the soundtrack. The transformation scene was the best that had ever been done up to this point, and it was pretty painful-looking. Jack’s makeup looked really good too; each time he made an appearance he looked more rotten and decomposed. I wonder what he’d have looked like if this had gone on for another month?
The acting is good, the buildup and suspense before his first change is good, and everything is well paced. The ending is a little abrupt and rushed. It’s a werewolf classic, and this pretty much revitalized the werwolf genre, along with “The Howling” released the same year.