Guilty Pleasures: An American Werewolf in Paris
I have over 1,200 DVDs, 3,000 CDs and a couple hundred books; over half of them the average person would be completely embarrassed to own. I, however, defend my purchases.
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS
For as long as I could remember I always loved werewolves. To be honest it’s not just limited to werewolves. Pretty much anything that involves shapeshifting has a place in my heart. I loved the book series Animorphs as a kid and one of my all-time favorite movies was Monster Squad which has what I still consider to be the best werewolf transformation in film history.
Junior High was when I first started getting into Horror movies, which I explained briefly in Episode 3. One of the original five horror movies I saw was a sequel to a movie I had never seen, An American Werewolf In Paris. I loved this movie! Now granted when I was a kid I also loved Saturday the 14th Strikes Back but that’s another movie for another episode. If I were to say that An American Werewolf in Paris is a realistic, believable and intelligent movie, I’d lose all creditability (or at least as much creditability as a guy who defends shit movies and CDs on the internet can lose). What this movie is though, is fast-paced, funny and enjoyable. And if you disagree with that, we call all agree that this movie has a nice set of titties in it. Titties only made nicer because they’re attached to the hot French chick from Before Sunrise.
American Werewolf in Paris was “written” by Tom Stern. Tom Stern also wrote and directed one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time Freaked. The reason that I write written in quotations is because Tom pitched the movie and wrote the original script and was then fired. Stern claims not a single scene in this movie appeared in his original script and yet he got the writer’s credit. Tom remained in obscurity for awhile until Jimmy Kimmel discovered him and made him a writer for The Man Show. This all has nothing to do really with American Werewolf in Paris really just a fun fact. I will say that as much as I love this movie, I’d have loved to see Tom Stern’s original script which he promised was more of an homage to the original and was much more tongue-in-cheek.
Tongue-in-cheek is definitely a word that doesn’t exist in the world of American Werewolf in Paris. The plot line follows Andy (Thomas Everett Scott) and his friends Brad and Chris. They are on an “extreme sports” tour, which seems to be sponsored and financed strictly by themselves. They go throughout Europe and do “extreme stunts” off different structures illegally. Andy is apparently far behind on “points”, but plans to take a big lead with his stunt of Bungee Jumping off the Effiel Tower. Just as he’s about to jump he meets the suicidal Serafine (Julie Deply). Andy Stops her from committing suicide and makes it his goal to personally help her… not… be… suicidal? According to wikipedia Serafine doesn’t know this but her parents are the main characters from American Werewolf in London but in the 100+ times I’ve watched this movie I don’t recall any moment hinting to that.
Serafine of course turns out to be a Werewolf and after a wolf themed underground rave Andy is now a werewolf, Brad is a ghost and Chris is… perfectly fine. This obviously means that Chris will be the “bait” throughout the next hour. The film basically turns into good werewolves vs. bad werewolves and other ridiculousness.
It’s clear that even in my plot summary I think this movie is outrageous on all accounts, so what do I want to defend it for? I defend it because this film is fun as fuck. It’s something that is perfect when you don’t want to think. If American Werewolf in London is a thinking man’s horror film than American Werewolf in Paris is a thinking man’s horror film after a long night of studying. The highlight of the film is the performance of Vince Vieluf who played Brad. His character is so likeable and fun that when he eventually dies I remember actually being upset, but I was happy to see him return as a ghost.
So shut off your brain, stop trying to pointing out all the outrageous leaps of logic in the film and just have fun!
Matt Kelly is the host of the Saint Mort Show and also writes in his blog Pure Mattitude
