American Werewolf in Paris VHS DVD

Christy rented this.  Apparently the video store guy recommended it.

They spent too much time showing the werewolf effects.  As usual, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.  I just saw a short bit where Steven Speilberg talks about the filming of Jaws.  The first several days of shooting the mechanical shark didn't work.  So he had to come up with creative ways to hint that the shark was there.  The mystery is what made that movie.  James Cameron in Aliens had a working alien, but he just showed us glimpses.  The werewolves were nice, but not perfect.  As Walt Disney said, you have to change the gimmick or the audience will start spotting the flaws.

In the original, American Werewolf in London, they had several sight gags and other jokes dealing with the undead victims of the werewolves.  In this one, the victims were some sort of spirit that followed the lead character around.  It just didn't work nearly as well.  The jokes were too obviously contrived.  And the spirit characters were discarded without explanation immediately after the jokes.  They just didn't fit with the flow of the story.  In the original, they provided a bit of exposition that wasn't available from any other character.  In this movie, the female lead had all the information.

There was some exposition given by the female lead that one wonders where she got it.   How did she know that eating the heart of the werewolf that created you will change you back?  This is a problem with most supernatural movies.  The little verisimilitude break has always bothered me.

Overall, the movie was just too busy.  The bad guy werewolves were never explained.  We learned that one was an ex-boyfriend of the girl.  But not where the others come from and why the one human helper is involved.  The police tended to just stand and spout lines.  Again, there appeared to be a story about them as a group that didn't come out.  The restaurant scenes dealing with the bimbo (who was really cute, BTW) seemed jarring. They were just excuses to show, "okay, now this guy is an animal."

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, this movie is Cable with Popcorn and Drinks.   Not horrible, but just too busy and lacked cohesion in a few places.

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