Seeing 'An American Werewolf in London' in 35mm in Tokyo!

The National Film Archive of Japan. Photo by Brett Homenick.

The National Film Archive of Japan hosted a screening of the horror classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) as part of its program highlighting Academy Award-winning films (Film Treasures from the Academy Film Archive). Suffice it to say, American Werewolf was one of the few horror movies featured -- in fact, it was probably the only one. (I guess I should have checked to see if it was!)

A 35mm film print was screened, and I was a bit surprised to find that it was a film print from the time it screened in Japan back in the day. The actual movie is preceded by the movie's Japanese title card (with the katakana spelling of "American" in Old Glory-style red, white, and blue with stars, almost making it seem like a straight-up comedy). This version also blurs out David Naughton's naughty bits, although the female nudity was left largely intact.

Despite the print's age, it was in good shape. There were scratches and splotches all over the place, but few jumps or other flaws that would have been too distracting. 

The theater was almost sold out, and the audience laughed heartily at the movie's humor. They also laughed in a couple of inappropriate places during which the film was clearly going in a scarier direction. Not sure if they figured the whole flick was supposed to be a joke, or if they found Rick Baker's makeup effects a bit too dated, but it did surprise me, especially for a Japanese audience.

This is my favorite werewolf movie of all time, though I have to say that I don't dig a whole lot of other ones, even the Lon Chaney, Jr., ones from Universal Pictures. I do think The Howling (1981) has superior werewolf transformations and designs -- seriously, Rob Bottin was the best at what he did -- but American Werewolf simply works much better as an overall film. 

I actually watched American Werewolf about a year and a half ago on DVD -- yes, I said DVD, not Blu-ray -- but, had I known I'd get to see John Landis' horror classic on the big screen in 35mm in the near future, I would have just waited for today's screening. It was still a lot of fun to see, as it was my first time to see it this way. 

January continues to be a heck of a busy month for film screenings. And there's still one more to go!