Dino De Laurentiis’ King Kong released December 17, 1976

King Kong is a 1976 American motion picture produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong, about how a giant ape is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition.

The remake’s screenplay was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the original movie story written by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, which had been adapted into the 1933 screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose. It starred Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange, in her first movie role, playing a part similar to the one made famous in the original by Fay Wray.

Jessica Lange in King Kong 1976

Directed by
  John Guillermin

Writers
  Idea
   Merian C. Cooper and
   Edgar Wallace
  1933 screenplay
   James Creelman and
   Ruth Rose
  Screenplay
   Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Producers              
  Dino De Laurentiis … producer
  Federico De Laurentiis … executive producer
  Christian Ferry … executive producer

Cast
  Jeff Bridges … Jack Prescott
  Charles Grodin … Fred Wilson
  Jessica Lange … Dwan
  John Randolph … Captain Ross
  Rene Auberjonois … Roy Bagley
  Julius Harris … Boan
  Jack O’Halloran … Joe Perko
  Dennis Fimple … Sunfish
  Ed Lauter … Carnahan
  Jorge Moreno … Garcia
  Mario Gallo … Timmons
  John Lone … Chinese Cook
  Garry Walberg … Army General
  John Agar … City Official
  Keny Long … Ape Masked Man
  Sid Conrad … Petrox Chairman
  George Whiteman … Army Helicopter Pilot
  Wayne Heffley … Air Force General
  Forrest J Ackerman … Fleeing Extra in Crowd (uncredited)

Rick Baker as King Kong

Make Up Department
  Del Acevedo … makeup artist
  Rick Baker … makeup effects
  Jo McCarthy … hair stylist
  Rob Bottin … makeup effects

Special Effects Department
  Joe Day … special effects
  Carlo Rambaldi … special effects
  Glen Robinson … special effects
  Terry W. King … special effects technician (uncredited)
  Andrew Miller … special effects (uncredited)
  Wayne Rose … special effects crew (uncredited)

Visual Effects Department
  Lou Lichtenfield … matte artist
  Barry Nolan … photographic effects assistant
  Aldo Puccini … miniature coordinator
  Frank Van der Veer … photographic effects supervisor
  Harold E. Wellman … additional photographic effects

Frankenstein’s Daughter released December 15, 1958

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) was the third of four drive-in classics crafted by producer Marc Frederic and director Richard E. Cunha in their late-’50s moviemaking heyday. In it, the original Doctor Frankenstein’s grandson repeats his grandfather’s grisly experiments.

Cast
  John Ashley … Johnny Bruder
  Sandra Knight … Trudy Morton
  Donald Murphy … Oliver Frank/Frankenstein
  Sally Todd … Suzie Lawler
  Harold Lloyd Jr. … Don (Suzie’s guy)
  Felix Locher … Carter Morton
  Wolfe Barzell … Elsu
  John Zaremba … Police Lt. Boyle

Trivia:

• The full monster make-up was actually being worn by a man, Harry
  

  Frankensteins Daughter is Sandra Knight

  Wilson. Because of this, makeup creator Harry Thomas did not realize that the creature was supposed to be female. All he could do at the last minute was apply lipstick to the creature.

• Make-up artist Harry Thomas has said that when he was given the assignment to make a mask for the “monster”, he was not told that the monster was to be a female, so he made the mask to be a male. By the time he was notified that the monster was to be a female, the mask had already been done, and there was no money in the make-up budget left to do another one.
• Director Richard E. Cunha recently recalled that, upon seeing the make-up for the title creature just before filming, he was so disappointed he left the set and broke down in tears.
• The exteriors of the house were shot at the home of producer Marc Frederic.
• Sally Todd’s scream at the beginning of the film is that of Allison Hayes from the soundtrack of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958).
• This film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.

Edward Scissorhands released December 14, 1990

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 comedy-drama fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film tells the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter Kim. Supporting roles are portrayed by Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Alan Arkin and Vincent Price.

Burton conceived the idea for Edward Scissorhands from his childhood upbringing in suburban Burbank, California. During pre-production of Beetlejuice, Caroline Thompson was hired to adapt Burton’s story into a screenplay, and the film began development at 20th Century Fox, after Warner Bros. passed on the project. Edward Scissorhands was then fast tracked after Burton’s success with Batman. Before Depp’s casting, the leading role of Edward had been connected to Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Robert Downey, Jr. and William Hurt, while the role of The Inventor was written specifically for Vincent Price.

The majority of filming took place in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, which generated over $6 million for the local economy. Edward’s scissor hands were created and designed by Stan Winston. The film is also the fourth feature collaboration between Burton and film score composer Danny Elfman. Edward Scissorhands was released with positive feedback from critics, and was a financial success. The film received numerous nominations at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Saturn Awards, as well as winning the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Both Burton and Elfman consider Edward Scissorhands their most personal and favorite work.

 Trivia:

• The houses used in the film were a real community in Florida, completely unchanged except for their garish exterior paint.
• This was Vincent Price’s last screen appearance and his last moment ever on screen is a death scene. He actually fainted on the set as it was filmed. Tim Burton decided the take was fine and kept it for the morbidity of it.
• The first draft of the film was written as a musical.
• Johnny Depp had to lose a reported 25 pounds for the role of Edward Scissorhands.
• Johnny Depp said only 169 words in this film.
• Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [music] music by Danny Elfman
• The idea for the movie was inspired by a drawing Tim Burton had done when he was a teenager.
• For her role as the religious zealot Esmeralda, O-Lan Jones also arranged and actually played the organ music her character performs on-screen.
• Some of the topiary that Edward makes in the movie can be seen permanently at the New York City restaurant Tavern On the Green.
• When Edward goes to have his hands sharpened, the storefront was that of an actual hardware store called Crowder Brothers in Southgate Shopping Center. At the time of the filming, they did offer a sharpening service, and they did have a giant motorized Victorinox in the window.
• The Southgate Shopping Center is located in Lakeland, FL while the neighborhood was filmed at the Carpenter’s Run subdivision in Lutz, FL.
• The neighborhood is based on Burton’s hometown, Burbank.
• Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey and Robert Downey Jr. were all considered for the role of Edward Scissorhands.
• Composer Danny Elfman said of all the films he’s composed music for, Edward Scissorhands is his favourite.
• Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton’s favourite of all his films.
• Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [Black and white stripes] Jim’s shirt collar at dinner.
• The restaurant that the family eats at was, at one time, a real restaurant; a national chain diner called “Sambo’s”. It was located directly across the street from Southgate Shopping Center, as appears in the movie. Due to the controversial nature of the name and interior design, the diner (and entire chain) closed sometime in the late 70′s/early 80′s. It remained an abandoned building for many years, until Tim Burton came to town to film “Edward Scissorhands”. Burton’s crew unboarded the doors and windows and redressed the interior to look like a working restaurant again.

 

John Carpenter’s Starman released December 14, 1984

John Carpenter’s Starman is a 1984 science fiction-fantasy film directed by John Carpenter which tells the story of an alien (Jeff Bridges) who has come to Earth in response to the invitation found on the gold phonograph record installed on one of the Voyager space probes.

The screenplay was written by Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon and Dean Riesner (uncredited). Bridges was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film inspired a short-lived, 1986 television series of the same name which starred Robert Hays and Christopher Daniel Barnes.

Trivia:

• Producer Michael Douglas considered several directors, including Mark Rydell, Adrian Lyne, John Badham and Tony Scott, before settling on John Carpenter.
• Jeff Bridges’ character (Starman) walks in and buys a Cadillac “cash”. In the film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), Bridges character (Lightfoot) exclaims that one day he would like to walk up and buy a Cadillac with cash.
• This script was being developed at Columbia at the same time as another script about an alien visitation. The studio did not want to make both, so the head of the studio had to choose which film to make; he decided to make this one and let the other script go to a rival studio. The other script was for _E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)_.
• The only John Carpenter film to have an Academy Award nomination (Jeff Bridges, Best Actor).
• The role of Starman originally went to Kevin Bacon.
• When Jeff Bridges walks outside the house naked and uses a ‘marble’ his hair seems to stand on end. This effect was actually created by shooting Bridges hanging upside-down and then matting the shot onto the background the right way up to give him a surreal look.

 

I Married a Witch released October 30, 1942

I Married a Witch is a 1942 fantasy romantic comedy film, directed by René Clair, and starring Veronica Lake as a witch whose plan for revenge goes comically awry, with Frederic March as her foil. The film also features Robert Benchley, Susan Hayward and Cecil Kellaway. The screenplay by Robert Pirosh and Marc Connelly and uncredited other writers, including Dalton Trumbo, is based on the novel The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith, who died before he could finish it; it was completed by Norman Matson and published in 1941.Many believe that this along the later movie is a partial inspiration for the ABC TV Series Bewitched. Bewitched was a fantasy-comedy loosely based on the feature films I Married a Witch and Bell, Book, and Candle which dealt with the problems that arise when a mortal man marries a beautiful witch.

Trivia:

• The 1960s TV show “Bewitched” (1964) was based on this movie.
• Several cast members listed in studio records did not appear in the movie. These were (with their character names): Reed Hadley (Young Man), Jan Buckingham (Young Woman), Florence Gill (Woman Playing Chess) and Walter Soderling (Man Playing Chess).
• Dalton Trumbo was a contributing writer, but left because his interpretation of the novel differed from producer Preston Sturges. Sturges also left the production (and declined onscreen credit) because of artistic differences with director René Clair
• Joel McCrea was initially cast as the lead, but declined the role because he didn’t want to work again with Veronica Lake, his co-star in Sullivan’s Travels (1941).
• Veronica Lake and Fredric March did not like one another, due in part to some disparaging remarks March made about her. During filming, Lake delighted in playing pranks on March, such as hiding a 40-pound weight under her costume when March had to carry her in his arms. In another scene in which the two were photographed only from the waist up, Lake stuck her foot in March’s groin.
• One of several Paramount Pictures productions purchased by United Artists for theatrical release in 1942-1943 during a product surplus of the former company, and a product shortage of the latter.
• Many scenes had to be reshot because of the behavior of Veronica Lake. Fredric March, her co-star, found her annoying and started to call the movie “I Married a Bitch”.

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Child’s Play 4: Bride of Chucky released October 16, 1998

 

Bride of Chucky (also known as Child’s Play 4: Bride of Chucky, Child’s Play 4 or BOC) is a 1998 American comedy horror film directed by Chinese director Ronny Yu, who also directed Freddy vs. Jason and The 51st State. It is the fourth entry in the Child’s Play series. The film stars Jennifer Tilly (who plays and voices the titular character the Bride of Chucky or Tiffany) and Brad Dourif (who voices Chucky). This movie co-stars John Ritter, Katherine Heigl and Nick Stabile. The music score is by Graeme Revell (who previously did the music for Child’s Play 2).

Child's Play 4: Bride of Chucky (1998)

 

Bride of Chucky marks the point where the series takes a more humorous turn, often into self-referential parody. Thus the change from the Child’s Play in the title. Contrary to the previous three films, the violence in Bride of Chucky is punctuated by humor to deflate the macabre visuals. The film follows the events of the previous films continuity-wise, but not tonally or in a continuation of those film’s overall plot (where Chucky pursued the character Andy Barclay). This film also marks Chucky’s new permanent look, a more frightening appearance in which he was covered in scars.

 Trivia:

In the opening shot, when the policeman is walking through the evidence locker room, several dolls appear. These resemble, or may actually be, from the movie series Puppet Master. They appear in the first storage case shown, on the left side of the screen.

Also in the evidence room in the beginning of the movie, there is “The Crate” from the movie “Creepshow”

• The film’s promotional poster is a parody of the Scream 2 promo poster.

• In the film’s opening scene, Michael Myers’ mask (from the Halloween films), Jason Voorhees’s mask (from the Friday the 13th films), Leatherface’s chainsaw (from the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films), and Freddy Krueger’s glove (from the Nightmare on Elm Street films) are visible in the evidence locker.

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• Andy Barclay is not mentioned, nor does he appear, in this film, except in the opening credits where a newspaper headline reads: Boy Claims Doll Possessed By Killer’s Soul. In a deleted scene, Chucky argues with Tiffany about getting his revenge on him for causing him trouble in the past.
• In the scene before Tiffany is electrocuted and she was watching the 1935 movie Bride of Frankenstein (the movie that inspired Bride of Chucky), when Frankenstein says, “We belong dead.” In the scene at the cemetery, after Tiffany stabs Chucky in the back and he asks “Why?” and Tiffany says the exact same line, paying homage to the earlier film.
• Chucky’s death scene at the end (when he was shot to death by Jade) was a 10-year anniversary homage to Chucky’s death at the end of Child’s Play.
• The date on Tiffany’s newspaper clippings at the beginning of the movie and the date of death on Charles Lee Ray’s tombstone is 9 November 1988, the release date of the first Child’s Play movie.
• There is a character in the film named Damien Baylock. In The Omen, the satanic child is named Damien, while his evil nanny is named Mrs. Baylock.
• When John Ritter’s character is seemingly killed, his face looks much like Pinhead from Hellraiser. Chucky exclaims, “Why does that look so familiar?” Andrew Robinson, who played Sgt. Botnick in Child’s Play 3, played Larry Cotton in Hellraiser.
• According to the DVD’s director commentary, Chucky was originally supposed to say to Chief Warren (John Ritter), “Sorry, Jack, but three’s a crowd,” after killing him – referring to Ritter’s starring role in the hit television sitcom Three’s Company. (At the last minute, the director deleted the line from the script because he found it too corny. The joke may have also referred to the series’ short-lived spinoff, Three’s a Crowd).
• When Jesse (Nick Stabile) asks Chucky and Tiffany how they became dolls, Tiffany replies “it is a long story,”. and Chucky says “Let me put it this way,if this were a movie it would take 3 to 4 sequels to do it justice,”. (A humorous reference to the length of the “Child’s Play” series).
• Police Officer Robert Bailey, who is killed in the opening sequence of Bride of Chucky, is referenced in the sequel Seed of Chucky. Tiffany is trying to end her killing fetish and decides to atone for her killings. She phones Bailey’s widow to apologize for slitting her husband’s throat, causing the woman to sob and Tiffany to feel a sense of closure.
• When Chucky decides to kill Chief Kincaid, he first picks up a ball-peen hammer, only to put it down when Tiffany remarks, “Predictable.” In the original Child’s Play, Chucky kills his first victim by hitting her in the head with a ball-peen hammer and sending her flying out a window.
• Tiffany asks Chucky if he was born with a knife superglued to hand. This is a reference to the second film when Chucky loses his hand in the climax and replaced it with a knife.

27 x 40 Movie Poster

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Fade to Black released October 14, 1980

27 x 40 Movie Poster!

Fade to Black is a 1980 slasher film starring Dennis Christopher, Eve Brent Ashe, and Linda Kerridge. Mickey Rourke also features in a small role. The film was nominated for many Saturn Awards, and Eve Brent Ashe won one for Best Supporting Actress.

Tagline:  Meet Eric Binford, the ultimate movie buff. If you know someone like him… run!

Trivia:

Chris Stein of Blondie was the original choice to compose the soundtrack but his deal was canceled.

Fade to Black contains film clips from: a) Kiss of Death b) White Heat c) Public Enemy d) Horror of Dracula e) Creature from the Black Lagoon f) Night of the Living Dead

Linda Kerridge

Near Dark released October 2, 1987

 

 

Near Dark (1987)

 

Near Dark is an American vampire/Western horror film, written by Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow, and directed by Bigelow. Starring then little-known actors Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright, the movie was released in 1987, part of a revival of serious vampire movies in the late 1980s. It did poorly at the box office upon release, but was viewed favourably by critics subsequently and has a sizable cult following.

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Tagline: Killing you would be easy, they’d rather terrify you…forever.

Plot: A young cowboy is seduced by a new girl in town only to find out he has been kissed by a vampire. Slowly turning into a creature of the night, he is persuaded to join up with the girl and a roaming band of ghouls. But when his own father and sister become targets in the vampires’ endless search for ‘food,’ he is forced to choose between loyalty to the vampires, or loyalty his own family.

Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton

Kathryn Bigelow wanted to film a Western movie that departed from cinematic convention, which at the time was strongly identified with the films of John Wayne and John Ford. When she and co-writer Eric Red found financial backing for a Western difficult to obtain, it was suggested to them that they try mixing a Western with another, more popular genre. Her interest in revisionist interpretation of cinematic tradition led her and Red to the idea of combining two genres that they regarded as ripe for reinterpretation: the Western movie, and the vampire movie, whose conventions largely derived from Bela Lugosi’s performance in Dracula. The film was scored by the German electronic music group Tangerine Dream, who also created the soundtracks for Risky Business and Legend.

Movie Poster

 

Trivia:

Unusually for a vampire movie, the word “vampire” is never mentioned.

As Caleb staggers through town, just before the bus stop scene – the cinema behind him in showing Aliens (1986) which also featured Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and Jenette Goldstein.

In the scene where Caleb lets the young cowboy from the bar get away, a billboard can be seen in the background spray paint with “Bill + Louise”. Bill Paxton, who plays Severen, is married to Louise Newbury.

Was the last movie produced and released by DEG (DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group) as the studio went bankrupt. As a result, the film did not receive much publicity during its release in the fall of 1987 which lead, in turn, to its box office failure.

This film marked Kathryn Bigelow’s first solo directorial effort and the film’s producer, Edward S. Feldman told her that if she couldn’t handle or didn’t know what she was doing while filming after five days, she would be replaced. She kept the job.

In the scene where Severen and Jesse torch the motor home, Severen asks Jesse if he had remembered about a “fire that they had started in Chicago”. It refers to the great fire in the Midwest/Chicago in 1871 that left more than 100,000 people homeless and destroyed businesses. The fire still remains a mystery to this day.

Near Dark got a K18 rating in 1988 by the Finnish Board of Film Classification. That meant, in those days, ‘for theatrical release only’. However, some film critics received VHS copies (most probably from Transworld Video) with Finnish subtitles ca. 1990. There were also reports that videos were accidentally available a few days to the general public before they were drawn back from video stores.

Both Johnny Depp and D.B. Sweeney auditioned for the role of Caleb.

While shooting in the desert, Lance Henriksen relieved the boredom between takes by hopping in his car and taking short drives through the desert, still in costume and often staying in character. According to Henriksen and Bill Paxton, the two were stopped by a policeman who became so unnerved questioning Jesse about his speeding that the officer became visibly uncomfortable, stepping back and placing his hand on his firearm. The obviously flustered officer decided to send them on their way rather than write them a ticket.

Michael Biehn turned down a role in the movie because he was not satisfied with the script.

According to the Making of Near Dark that appears on the DVD, the fog under Adrian Pasdar’s shirt was caused by a complicated series of tubes leading to five lit cigars under his shirt.

Natural Born Killers released August 26, 1994

http://goremaster.com/blog/2009/08/26/natural-born-killers-released-august-26-1994/

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson

Natural Born Killers is a controversial 1994 satirical crime film directed by Oliver Stone.

The film was promoted with the tagline “A bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime and consumed by the media.”, and was released theatrically in the United States on August 26, 1994.

Complete Guide to Special Effects Makeup

Special Effects Department
  Larry L. Fuentes … special effects foreman
  Steve Luport … special effects
  Frank L. Pope … special effects
  Jim Schwalm … special effects
  Bob Stoker … special effects foreman
  Lucinda Strub … special effects
  Matt Sweeney … special effects coordinator
  G. Peter King … special effects (uncredited)

Visual Effects Department
  Daniel Chuba … visual effects producer: PDI
  Rebecca Marie … visual effects supervisor: PDI
  Alex Olivares … optical effects coordinator
  Wendy Rogers … lead animator: PDI
  Cathy Wagner … animator: PDI
  Aaron Dem … assistant to the producers: PDI (uncredited)
  Al Magliochetti … visual effects (uncredited)
  Carter Tomassi … animation camera (uncredited)

Natural Born Killers Poster

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An American Werewolf in London released Aug. 21, 1981

 

David Naughton & Griffin Dunne

 

An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 American-British comedy/horror film, written and directed by John Landis. It stars David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Agutter. The movie won the 1981 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. The film was one of three high-profile werewolf films released in 1981, alongside The Howling and Wolfen. Over the years, the film has accumulated a cult following and has been referred to as a cult classic.

Tagline: John Landis – the director of Animal House brings you a different kind of animal.

Rick Baker

Blending the macabre with a wicked sense of humor, director John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House) delivers a contemporary take on the classic werewolf tale in this story of two American tourists who, while traveling in London, find their lives changed forever when a viscious wolf attacks them during a full moon. Featuring groundbreaking, Academy Award-winning make-up by Rick Baker (The Wolfman).

The film was followed by a 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, which featured a completely different cast and none of the original crew.

John Landis

John Landis came up with the story while he worked in Yugoslavia as a production assistant on the film Kelly’s Heroes. He and a Yugoslavian member of the crew were driving in the back of a car on location when they came across a group of gypsies. The gypsies appeared to be performing rituals on a man being buried so that he would not “rise from the grave.” This made Landis realize that he could never be able to confront the undead and gave him the idea for a film in which a man of his own age would go through such a thing.

John Landis wrote the first draft of An American Werewolf in London in 1969 and shelved it for over a decade. Two years later, Landis wrote, directed and starred in his debut film, Schlock, which developed a cult following. Landis developed box-office status in Hollywood through the successful comedy films The Kentucky Fried Movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers before securing $10

Beware of the Moon

million financing for his werewolf film. Financiers believed that Landis’ script was too frightening to be a comedy and too funny to be a horror film.

Michael Jackson cited this film as his reason for working with Landis on his subsequent music videos, including Thriller and Black or White.

The various prosthetics and fake, robotic body parts used during the film’s painful, extended werewolf transformation scenes and on Griffin Dunne when his character returns as a bloody, mangled ghost impressed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so much that they decided to create a new awards category at the Oscars specifically for the film – Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. Since the 1981 Academy Awards, this has been a regular category each year. During the body casting sessions, the crew danced around David Naughton singing, “I’m a werewolf, you’re a werewolf…wouldn’t you like to be a werewolf, too” in reference to his days as a pitchman for Dr Pepper.

Blueray DVD

In-Jokes:

The film was produced by Lycanthrope Productions, a lycanthrope being a person with the power to turn himself into a wolf.

The film’s ironically upbeat songs all refer in some way to the moon such as: Bobby Vinton’s slow and soothing version of “Blue Moon”, which plays during the opening credits, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” as David and Alex make love for the first time, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” as David is nearing the moment of changing to the werewolf, a soft, bittersweet ballad version of “Blue Moon” by Sam Cooke during the agonizing wolf transformation and The Marcels’ doo-wop version of “Blue Moon” over the end credits. Landis failed to get permission to use Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow” and Bob Dylan’s “Moonshiner”, both artists feeling the film to be inappropriate. It was stated on the DVD commentary by David Naughton and Griffin Dunne that they were not sure why Landis could not get the rights to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” – a song that would have been more appropriate for the film (perhaps Landis dismissed the song on the grounds that it didn’t have the word “moon” in the title).

Landis’ signature in-joke of the fictitious film See You Next Wednesday can be seen when the werewolf runs rampant in Piccadilly Circus, playing at the porn cinema and as a poster in the London Underground train station where Gerald Bringsley is attacked by the werewolf.

References to the film have appeared in many of Landis’ other films and most notably in Michael Jackson’s Thriller as the sounds of Jackson transforming into a werewolf are from the film.

Although not part of this film, in the Masters of Horror episode entitled “Deer Woman”, directed and co-written by Landis, when the protagonist mentions “a series of freak wolf attacks in London in 1981″, a brief but clear reference to An American Werewolf in London. According to its trading card insert, “‘Deer Woman’ is a very much a part of An American Werewolf in London canon.”

Cameos and Bit Parts:

In the Piccadilly Circus sequence, the man hit by a car and thrown through a store window, is Landis himself.

As in most of the director’s movies, Frank Oz makes an appearance: first as Mr. Collins from the American embassy in the hospital scene, and later as Miss Piggy in a dream sequence, when David’s younger siblings watch a scene from The Muppet Show that was never shown in the United States.

Actors in bit parts who were already – or would become – more well-known include the two chess players David and Jack meet in the pub, played by the familiar character actor Brian Glover and then-rising comedian and actor Rik Mayall. One of the policemen helping to chase and kill the werewolf is John Altman, who would later achieve fame as “Nasty” Nick Cotton in EastEnders.   Alan Ford – later to appear in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch – plays a taxi driver. The policeman in the cinema is played by John Salthouse and the policeman in Piccadilly Circus is played by Peter Ellis. Both Salthouse and Ellis appeared in police drama The Bill.

A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1997, written and directed by Dirk Maggs and with Jenny Agutter, Brian Glover, and John Woodvine reprising the roles of Alex Price, the chess player (now named George Hackett, and with a more significant role as East Proctor’s special constable) and Dr. Hirsch. The roles of David and Jack were played by Eric Meyers and William Dufris.  Maggs’ script added a backstory that some people in East Proctor are settlers from Eastern Europe and brought lycanthropy with them. The werewolf who bites David is revealed to be related to Hackett, and has escaped from an asylum where he is held under the name “Larry Talbot”, the name of the title character in The Wolf Man.

Movie Poster 27x40

 

Make Up Department
  Elaine Baker … makeup effects crew
  Rick Baker … special makeup effects
  Doug Beswick … makeup effects crew
  Kevin Brennan … makeup effects crew
  Robin Grantham … makeup artist
  Tom Hester … makeup effects crew
  Steve Johnson … makeup effects assistant
  Beryl Lerman … makeup artist
  Shawn McEnroe … makeup effects crew
  Joseph Ross … makeup effects crew
  Bill Sturgeon … makeup effects crew
  Craig Reardon … makeup effects crew (uncredited)

 

Special Effects Department
  Neil Corbould … special effects assistant
  Martin Gutteridge … special effects
  Garth Inns … special effects