REVIEW: “An American Werewolf in Paris” (1997)

DEFINITELY should have taken the bus.

SYNOPSIS: The daughter of the werewolf from John Landis’ (far superior) 1981 film “An American Werewolf in London” is alive and living in Paris where her mother (Isabelle Constantini here; played by Jenny Agutter in the first film) and stepfather are trying to overcome her lycanthropic disease. A trio of American tourists on a thrill seeking trip around Europe manage to stop her from plunging to her death from the top of the Eiffel tower. They’re then embroiled in a horrific but ostensibly hilarious plot involving a secret society of werewolves based in the city, and a drug which allows werewolves to change at any time.

EFFECTS (1-5): 1
SCORE (1-5): 3
OVERALL (1-5): 2

YEAR OF RELEASE: 1997
STUDIO: Buena Vista
MPAA RATING: R
LENGTH: 97 mins.
DVD? (Y/N): Y
BLU-RAY? (Y/N):  Y
NETFLIX? (Y/N): Y (DVD only)
WIDESCREEN? (Y/N): Y
STREAMING DIGITAL? (Y/N): N

DIRECTOR: Anthony Waller
PRODUCER: Klaus Bauschulte (associate producer, Berlin); Alexander Buchman (co-producer); Richard Claus (producer); Anthony Waller (executive producer); Patricia McMahon (line producer); Jacques-Eric Strauss (co-associate producer, Paris); Jimmy de Brabant (associate producer, Luxembourg)
SCREENPLAY: John Landis (created the original premise in An American Werewolf in London); Tim Burns, Tom Stern, Anthony Waller (co-writers)
MUSIC: Robin Goodridge (song); Wilbert Hirsch; Gavin McGregor Rossdale (song); Dave Parsons (song); Nigel Pulsford (song)
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Egon Werdin

MAIN CAST:
Tom Everett Scott: Andy McDermott
Julie Delpy: Serafine Pigot
Vince Vieluf: Brad
Phil Buckman: Chris
Julie Bowen: Amy Finch

(Full cast and crew at IMDB)

BEST SCENE: A scene where the Wolf Girl bites off the face of the pretty but bitchy town girl has a degree of horror to it.

BLUNDERS/GAFFS: In the original “American Werewolf,” Rick Baker’s then state-of-the-art monster effects were truly terrifying – you could almost feel the joints crack and pop in the transformation scenes.  Here they are replaced with computer animated werewolves that are not only far from state-of-the-art (even for 1997), they simply…suck. It reminds me of a Scooby Doo haunted house cartoon – you almost expect the backdrops to repeat as the monsters chase the good guys.

Delpy turns in a preposterously written nude scene that seems spackled onto the plotline.

And then we see Delpy jumping the heavy equipment operator and commandeering a bulldozer to tear open a way-fake cathedral – wow, this movie is working too hard, slowly spiraling downward into total incoherence.

EVALUATION: There are precious few well-made werewolf scenes. The genre degenerated into self-parody far faster than most other horror conventions. What is needed is a truly new, well-written angle – and this movie does not offer it. Delpy is appealing but wasted here, Scott is convincing as a total clod, the epitome of the boorish American. The movie has its moments, but fails to catch fire. Worth a look as a rental, but I’m glad I didn’t waste money seeing this in a theater. Even the leap and fall from the Eiffel Tower is poorly executed and unconvincing… and they put that in the trailer.