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realy scarey people :O but a great film, MUST WATCH!!!

Here's my 1997 review of An American Werewolf in Paris. Looking back, I think I liked this movie a little more than I should have and, yes, my love for this movie has cooled greatly over the last six years. Still, I consider An American Werewolf in Paris one of my guilty pleasures.

So, here's my old review. It's a bit embarassing because I really didn't take my reviews too seriously back then, but what the hell... it's also an indication of how far I've come and at least I'm not bullshitting you about what I like and don't like!



AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS


Sixteen years after An American Werewolf in London, we learn that werewolves are alive and well in Paris as well as the resulting daughter from the rendezvous in An American Werewolf in London, Sarafine, who tries to commit suicide by leaping off of the Eiffel Tower. Enter the "American" in American Werewolf, Andy, a young daredevil on a European tour who rescues Sarafine and falls hopelessly in love with her.

Despite several attempts to ward Andy and his buddies off, Sarafine finally agrees to go out on a date which is cut short by Sarafine kicking the snot out of a guy three times her size. Sarfine disappears and Andy and his friends race back to her house and are greeted by a man named Claude who invites them to a party saying that Sarafine will be there. Upon getting to the party, Sarafine whisks Andy away telling him to run for his life... just as the full moon rises and she begins to transform.

To make a long story short (too late!), Andy is bitten, his friends are torn to pieces, and hilarity and hijinks ensue.

I really don't know what it was about An American Werewolf in Paris that I liked so much. Probably the mixing of dark humor and horror... maybe the continuation of the American Werewolf story... maybe just because of the werewolves. It's just gloriously sick and gory and I loved just about every minute of it!

Not to say that the movie didn't have a few problems! In all honesty, it did fizzle out a bit near the end (but did redeem itself), and the ending had a plot hole you could drive a Mac Truck through. But these two problems aside, An American Werewolf in Paris was a great movie - one of the better horror movies this year! The duel of the battling corpses is great!

As I sit here at home with a rather nasty bit of food poisoning (fever, throwing up, diahrea, etc.), which I assume is from the Salmon I had last night, I watched a video to get my mind off of the discomfort.

In order to decide which movie to watch I looked at our shelves o' entertainment and decided to just start at the top left and work my way across. So, from Pat's VHS tape collection comes An American Warewolf in Paris, the long-awaited sequel to An American Warewolf in London, which was quite the cult classic among horror movie buffs.

All-in-all the movie wasn't bad, and I give it merits just for being one of the first movies to try and have such a large amount of CG characters interracting (or rather, eating) live human actors. Now-a-days this is a pretty common occurance (i.e. Van Helsing or Matrix) but when this movie came out CG characters were still a relatively new phenomena.

Having said this, when I first saw the movie, it was one of the reasons I was initially against having CG characters in a movie at all. I didn't mind them for effects such as a space ship or some trans-dimensional portal thingee, but as far as characters go I was originally very disappointed with this film. Why? Well, honestly, the technology wasn't up to the ambitions of the film makers. Granted, they did a pretty good job, but it just wasn't convincing. I knew that those weren't real warewolves (yeah .. I know .. there are no such things ... but you know what I mean) ... they didn't mesh well-enough with their environment. The coloring was off, the shading, even the contrast and hue/saturation was a bit off. As a result I was really turned off from the whole creating-characters-with-a-computer.

Even when watching films like Blade 2 or Matrix 2, which had much superior CG characters, I still wasn't sold. There was just something about them that looked fake. It wasn't because the characters were doing things that weren't humanly possible. If that were true then I would have a problem with Jet's no-shadow kick from Once Upon a Time in China or Neo and Trinity's lobby gun-fu-kick-butt scene from the first Matrix movie. Those, while being inhuman moves, at least felt real.

I suppose I'm a bit picky and since I know nothing about the CG industry or how they make these effects I don't really have that much reason to complain. Kai can probably explain why it's so friggin' hard to make a CG character and real-life character interact. And y'know ... sometimes they make it happen. Like Golum in Lord of the Rings or even (God Forbid) Jar Jar Binks from Episode 1. Some of those interractions were really well done.

Anyway, you get the idea. This movie kinda soured me on the whole idea of CG characters for a long time.

The other thing that I didn't like about this movie was the constant attempts at being a comedy. To be honest one of the only movies to pull this off well for me was the Scream trilogy. They had a great blending of scariness and humor. But in An American Warewolf in Paris, the humor and tongue-in-cheek jokes just didn't add to the experience for me. The jokes might have been funny in a romantic comedy, but in a movie about warewolves slaughtering humans by the dozen, it just didn't come across well.

Tom Everett Scott wasn't that bad (did you know he was in Cruel Intentions 3? I didn't even know there was a Cruel Intentions 2!). There's something about him that I like, even though he is only a so-so actor. Maybe it's his resemblence to Tom Hanks. Julie Delphy (of Europa Euopa and Before Sunrise fame. (Did you know they're making a Before Sunset?)) did a decent job and I didn't really mind seeing her topless, although it seemed rather gratuitous. There was no reason for her to take her shirt off. Well, I suppose the large young-guys-who-like-to-see-breasts-in-a-scary-movie demographic was probably the main reason.

Some of the things I did like about the movie were that it moved at a good pace. I can't stand movies that drag with excessive exposition or dramatic, poorly-done cinematography. That's probably why I prefer action or science fiction over dramas. I don't mind dramas, but it had better be a pretty darn good one. And even then sometimes I get bored.

I also liked the basic premise of the movie. I like warewolf/vampire type movies. Anything supernatural or science fiction oriented gets an automatic point boost from me. If not for that this movie would probably have gotten 2 points lower.

Oh, and I think they did a good job with the makeup. Some of the undead makeup effects were pretty good. Made me glad I hadn't been sliced and diced.

And one last thing. There is a line in this movie that, for some reason, I always remembered. Every time someone mentions a stairmaster I remember this line and I don't really know why. Just stuck in my head, I guess.

In the morgue, the undead girl played by Julie Bowen (Happy Gilmore, Joe Somebody) is complaining about being sliced up into a bloody corpse and she says "I spent 4 years on a stairmaster to get a package like this.". I don't know why that line left an impression on me, but I always remember it, even to this day. Maybe it's because I would think to myself spending 4 years on a stairmaster wouldn't make you look like that. It would make your thighs rediculously huge. But I think it's interesting since I only saw the movie once in the theaters when it first came out and yet I still have that line in my head.

Anyway, I'll give this movie 5 out of 10. Not a horrendous movie, but not something I'm going to rush to put back in the ol' VCR. It missed being fresh by just one point, but I guess that point made all the difference.

I'm giving this film a rating of 1 only because light was exposed onto 35mm film and then it was developed. After just recently having watched the original American Werewolf in London, I can say that this remake is one of the biggest loads of crap I've ever seen. The script was pure drivel and to devote anymore time to it is utterly useless. Actually, I'm going to give it a 2 rating. One point for Julie Delpy and one point for Julie Bowen. Every man has a vice, right? :D Goodnight, I'm going to go admire the inside of my eyelids.

.....

An American Werewolf in London/Paris



Review:

An American Werewolf In London is a great and entertaing 80's movie. An American Werewolf In Paris surrenders itself to lame comedy and a fuckawful storyline. So, In London is a classic and I recommend it, it's very enjoyable. If you enjoy In Paris you are probably a fat aging white guy who sits on a marketing panel trying to think of ideas that are clever and appeal to pop culture.

ummm...yeah

Not up to it's predecessor. So-so special effects. The cast does well enough. Some funny scenes help, but on the whole it doesn't really work. It's not awful, just not really good.

Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Julie Delpy, Vince Vieluf, Phil Buckman, and Julie Bowen.
Directed by Anthony Waller.
Written by Tim Burns, Tom Stern, and Anthony Waller.
Rated R (for werewolf violence and gore, and for some sexuality/nudity).
Running time approximately 1 hour 37 minutes.


She's so pretty...

An American Werewolf in Paris is, essentially, a remake of the original film in a different European setting. It is a failure on almost every level. The special effects are anything but, the comedy doesn't work, the story is lame and the characters as thin as watered-down skim milk. Bleh. * (out of ****) D

Andy, Brad, and Chris are heading to Paris for a European excursion. Upon arriving in Paris the three friends seek out the biggest adventure and the most happening parties. Their thrill seeking ways lead them to a mysterious woman, a wild party, and an unusual crowd. After one night out on the town, Andy has been bitten and transformed into a werewolf, Brad has been eaten and turned into the undead, and Chris has been taken as a slave in the mysterious woman's house. Andy will have to utilize his new skill set to save them all

"Open the door, quick!"
"I'm not sure I can do that."
"You'd rather I stay out here with you?"
"No. Of course not."

Anthony Waller, director of Mute Whiteness, The Guilty, and the upcoming Singularity is Near, delivers An American Werewolf in Paris. The storyline for this film is right inline with the original picture with modernized CGI and an updated soundtrack. The acting was mediocre and the CGI was overdone for the most part; however, the kill scenes were entertaining.

"Eat my heart, Andy, let me go!"

Overall, despite seeing all the egregious errors of this film, I somehow enjoy watching this movie every holiday season. I honestly enjoy it as much as the original; although, the original is an obvious better picture. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend watching this picture if you are a fan of the werewolf genre. This film relies entirely too much on CGI, and most of the lines are cheesy, but I still like this film (I said it).

"I love Americans."

Grade: B-