31 Days of Horror Redux: An American Werewolf in Paris

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.

Day 6: An American Werewolf in Paris, directed by Anthony Waller

There is really only one place to begin here: the CGI monsters. This is a cardinal sin. It is unforgivable. Frankly, a lot of the CGI in this movie is bad, but I understand a mid-budget fright flick faking a scene on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. I even understand some of the silly ghost effects. This is, after all, in a lineage of horror comedies, so some silliness is fair enough.

But, what I don’t understand is taking the defining feature of the original film – indeed, the defining feature of all great werewolf movies – and tossing it right in the trash. We speak, of course, of the practical makeup effects used since the beginning of cinema to transform actors into monsters. I don’t want to ignore the great time-lapse effect in 1941’s The Wolf Man, but really, when we talk about this, we are talking about Rick Baker’s industry-altering work on An American Werewolf in London.

If you have not seen that film, stop reading this, and go watch it. I wrote about it in my initial 31 Days of Horror 10 years ago, which is why it felt fitting to do the followup this time around. I remember the ad campaign for this movie when I was 9 years old. I remember wanting to see it, and you know, I might have enjoyed it as a child. I might not have noticed just how atrocious the effects are, and I would have had no historical context for the great practical effects that came before. Now, however, I do.

One imagines excitement from the filmmakers at the possibilities of CGI, possibly similar to the calling Baker felt to the original film to summon up all of his talent and skill as an artist in service of something grand. Perhaps they even thought this film would do for CGI what London did for makeup effects. But, the result just isn’t up to snuff. It’s not just the fact of using CGI, though that would be bad enough; it’s how bad the CGI looks. The werewolf is the most important part of a werewolf movie, and they blew it.

I don’t want to harp on it. Plenty have written about it before me. It’s jarring and unfortunate. Two words that could also be used to describe the soundtrack. As someone who owned a number of late ‘90s movie soundtracks on CD, trust me when I say this is the most late ‘90s soundtrack of all time. It’s not just that it features songs by Bush, Fastball, and Better Than Ezra, as well as a lengthy montage set to Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun.” It’s the whole sound and vibe of it. A techno-goth rave atmosphere that would come back into vogue with The Matrix two years later but somehow feels horribly dated here.

Speaking of techno-goth rave atmosphere, that’s as fine a transition as any to talk about the story of this film, which I actually didn’t mind. It follows the Alien to Aliens rule, which is: If one werewolf is good, surely more must be better. In this case, the villains are a cult of Parisian werewolf supremacists who see their curse as a gift and take it upon themselves to cleanse the human race. In the middle of all of this are Tom Everett Scott, the titular American, and Julie Delpy, the tragic werewolf girl he falls in love with.

By this time in her career, Delpy had already become queen of the arthouse with movies like Europa Europa, Before Sunrise, and the Three Colors trilogy. She had also made a stab at crossover popcorn fare already with Stephen Herek’s The Three Musketeers. So, I’m not sure what would have compelled her to make this movie. I hope the answer is: a big check.

No one in this movie does the things a real person would do, even when confronted by unreal circumstances, so it’s hard to get too invested in anyone’s story. Scott is likable and Delpy is wounded, and since they are both very winning actors, we root for them. But, that’s not by virtue of anything going on with the plot. Things happen because they need to happen, people always have just enough information to get from point A to point B, and rules are made up and discarded pretty much on the fly.

None of it holds together very well. Did I have an okay time for less than 100 minutes? Sure, but there are better ways to have a better time. It was always going to be a tall order to drop a belated sequel to a cult classic, and this movie is not up to the task.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The Grand Budapest Hotel is the likely frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The nominees are:

Foxcatcher

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Guardians of the Galaxy

Just about every year, there is grumbling about this category, and the complaints usually go something like this: The Academy Awards are the prestige film awards the world over, they should honor the best the film world has to offer, and under no circumstances should a film like Norbit end up anywhere near the Oscar ceremony. This logic is flawed in so many ways, but it is a topic that comes up all the time.

Yes, films such as Norbit, The Lone Ranger, Click, and Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa can call themselves Academy Award nominated, and something like The Nutty Professor (1996) can even slap “Oscar winner” on the DVD cover if someone in the marketing department so chooses, all thanks to this category. You know what? That is awesome.

I mentioned before how the cinematographers’ branch is willing to look outside the box for nominees. Well, meet the poster child branch for that idea. Prestige does not get an automatic pass. It is about the quality of the work and nothing else, which is as it should be. Also, I like to think about it this way: For every The Nutty Professor, there is an Oscar for The Fly or An American Werewolf in London. Sounds just fine to me.

In any event, no such complaints should be heard this year as all three nominated films are critically well regarded successes of one kind or another. Unlike many years in which there is a lone nominee in the category, all of this year’s contenders popped up in at least one other category, suggesting widespread love for each of them. The Academy tends to like old-age makeup, and barring the kind of transformative creature effects of someone like Rick Baker, they tend to reward the film with the most prestige that also features the most makeup, which brings us to our frontrunner.

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Though clearly well liked by the Academy as a whole, this is a bit of a surprise nominee, given the more flashy contenders such as Maleficent and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I that were left on the sidelines. Still, now that it is on the shortlist, it is in the driver’s seat for this award. It is the most nominated film of the bunch, it is a Best Picture nominee, and the work is impeccable.

This is Frances Hannon’s first nomination, but partner Mark Coulier is a previous winner in this category for helping turn Meryl Streep into Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. The old-age makeup on Tilda Swinton in this film is as transformative, if not more so. Swinton is unrecognizable as Madame D., the elderly woman having an affair with Ralph Fienne’s concierge M. Gustave. Her hair is huge, her skin is sagging and wrinkled, and yet we never once question the reality of the transformation.

In addition, Hannon and Coulier do much more subtle work throughout the film, particularly on Fiennes and Willem Dafoe’s Jopling, a hired thug with distinctively bad teeth. To me, as good as the work on Swinton is, it is the Fiennes makeup that impresses most. He is an aesthete to his core. There is neither a blemish on his skin nor a hair out of place on his head. The makeup goes a long way toward creating the character Fiennes so well embodies.

Guardians of the Galaxy – If the award were for most makeup, this would win in a walk. Alas, it is not, but the makeup concocted by Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White goes a long way toward grounding many of the film’s more fantastical beings in a believable reality. Main characters such as Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista) can exist in this world as a green woman and a blue man covered in tattoos, respectively, because the universe they inhabit allows for it. Yianni-Georgiu and White’s work is partly to thank for that.

According to the film’s star, Chris Pratt, Bautista’s makeup took up to five hours daily to apply and another hour and a half to remove, a process that included applying and removing 18 prosthetic tattoo pieces. The effort shows up on screen as Drax appears as a fully formed character before he even speaks a word, just judging by the lifetime of tattoos he has acquired. For Gamora, the look of Saldana’s character is created almost entirely through makeup, a tremendous commitment by both the actor and the crew to a project that often as not is completed through CGI these days.

Foxcatcher – That nose. There is actually a ton of great, subtle makeup and hairstyling work in this film, but I promise the only thing anyone remembers is the prosthetic nose worn by Steve Carell as John du Pont. If I am being honest – and I have no reason to lie to you fine folks – I found the nose distracting. There is a great exchange in Ocean’s Thirteen in which Matt Damon, who is wearing a fake nose as part of a con, defends his choice as “not just a prop for prop’s sake.” Carell’s performance is too good to hide behind a fake nose. It is a prop for prop’s sake.

The shame is that the rest of the makeup and hairstyling in the film is incredible, from the cauliflower ears on wrestling brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) to the ghostly pallor of du Pont’s skin. Makeup artists Bill Corso, a previous Oscar winner for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Dennis Liddiard do an amazing job of bringing three very real people to the screen. It would be a disservice to their accomplishment to boil it down to a big nose, but to be fair, it is a damn big nose.

The final analysis

Ultimately, any one of these three films could win, and each would be deserving to one extent or another, but the overall support for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel will probably be enough to carry the day here. Guardians of the Galaxy is a definite challenger just based on the sheer amount of effort that shows through on screen, and Foxcatcher is probably bringing up the rear, which is simply an indication of the high quality on display in the category this year.

Will win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Should win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wish it had been here: Noah

31 Days of Horror: An American Werewolf in London

David Naughton becomes the wolf in An American Werewolf in London.

In addition to our regular programming, every day this month, Last Cinema Standing will be bringing readers recommendations from the best of the horror genre as we make our way to Halloween. This should not be treated as a “best of” list but more as a primer. You can read the full introduction to Last Cinema Standing’s 31 Days of Horror here, and be sure to check back each day for a new suggestion.

Day 19: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Rick Baker is a genius. If we can all agree on that from the start, we should have no trouble moving forward. Most often, he is credited as a “special makeup effects artist.” What I want to focus on is the word “artist” because everyday discussions about movies often undervalue the contributions of the craftsmen and women behind the scenes. Those in the industry recognize this contribution, which is why the Oscars remains the only awards show to include presentations and speeches for the crafts categories.

Baker has seven Oscars. His work on American Werewolf in London, as much as any other factor, is the reason the Best Makeup category was created. You may not know his name, but you are as familiar with his work as with the work of any star. His credits include all three Men in Black movies, Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor, this year’s Maleficent, the first Star Wars film, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video.

The wide variety of projects he has worked on speaks to his versatility as an artist, but if he is remembered for one thing, it will be for his work in this specific horror genre: the werewolf picture. He won his most recent Oscar for the latest The Wolfman movie. He turned Christina Ricci into a monster for Wes Craven’s Cursed and Jack Nicholson for Mike Nichols’ Wolf. When it looked like director John Landis would be unable to secure funding for An American Werewolf in London – after the two had discussed the project for years – Baker took his talents to The Howling, which came out the same year.

When funding finally did come through, he left The Howling, remaining a consultant on that film, and focused all of his energy and attention on Landis’ picture. That dedication culminates in the centerpiece transformation of lead actor David Naughton into a werewolf. It is one of the great transformation sequences ever put to film, perfect in its smallest details and stunning in its overall effect, so great the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had no choice but to create a new category and give Baker his first of many Oscars.

If the movie were nothing but this one scene, it would be memorable, but what makes it great is everything else around it. Naughton and co-star Griffin Dunne play American tourists in England caught on the Moors under a full moon. They are attacked by a werewolf. One is killed, and the other begins a slow, steady descent into madness.

It is dark stuff, but perhaps unsurprisingly from the director of Animal House and The Blues Brothers, Landis infuses the film with immense humor, dark humor to be sure, but if you are not laughing, you are not paying attention. At the same time, Landis himself, upon a viewing years later, expressed shock at the amount of gore in the movie. While fun and full of comedy, An American Werewolf in London never backs away from its roots as a terrifying and bloody horror picture.

It is only the best monster movies that are able to draw pathos from the things that go bump in the night. Under the gore and the humor, this film packs an emotional punch. Naughton’s excellent lead performance is key, and his collaboration with Landis and Baker forces us to feel the full weight of the blow as we watch a terrible thing happen to a good person.

Tomorrow, a Canadian werewolf in Canada shows us modern horror with a twist.