History Film / AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon

* TheFlorenceNightingaleEffect: How Nurse Price falls in love with David. She finds him handsome and "sad." Another nurse admits to checking out his penis, which hints that his [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys being a werewolf]] may be inspiring these feelings as well.

* StylisticSuck: The porn film ''See You Next Wednesday'' that David and Jack watch features some delightfully absurd scenes that go nowhere. In one scene, an angry man bursts in on the copulating couple to accuse his lover of cheating on him. Both the man and the woman have no idea who he is, so he apologizes and leaves. Later, the naked woman answers a phone call, but it's a wrong number, so she hangs up. David comments, "''Nice'' movie!" leaving it unclear whether he's being sarcastic or if the film is intentionally some sort of Dada porno.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The ghosts disappear right before the climax and we don't see any conclusion with them moving on, as the movie ends right as David, the only one who could see them, is killed.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The ghosts disappear right before the climax and we don't see any conclusion with them moving on (since only David could see them and he's dead).

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[{{Tagline}} From the director of]] ''Film/AnimalHouse''... [[GenreShift A different kind of]] [[ComedyHorror animal]].'']]

On the night of a full moon, two American backpackers named David Kessler and Jack Goodman make a stop at a pub by the name of The Slaughtered Lamb on their trip through the UK. Forgetting the locals' advice to stay out of the moors, the two are soon attacked by a mysterious animal that kills Jack and wounds David before the locals gun it down. Before passing out, David noticed that the beast seemed to have been replaced with the body of a naked man. Waking up three weeks later in a London hospital, David is visited by Jack’s spirit who reveals that the beast who attacked them was a werewolf. He then tells his friend that he is now cursed to become a werewolf himself and warns him to take his life so that the previous wolf's victims can finally find peace in the afterlife… and because the night of the next full moon is only one week away.

* MirrorScare: Jack appears behind David when he adjusts a mirror.

''An American Werewolf in London'' is a [[TheEighties 1981]] Creator/{{Universal}} comedy/horror film written and directed by Creator/JohnLandis. Starring Creator/DavidNaughton, Creator/GriffinDunne, Creator/JennyAgutter, and John Woodvine, the film featured special effects by master make-up artist Creator/RickBaker. (Creator/FrankOz also made a cameo appearance, [[MuppetCameo as did]] [[Series/TheMuppetShow Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy]] -- not to mention Landis himself.) It was shot on location in the UK, with UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} standing in for the Yorkshire moors, and "The Black Swan" pub in UsefulNotes/{{London}} for "The Slaughtered Lamb." The background music consisted of a number of cannily deployed popular songs (all of which have "moon" in the title), bolstered with some eleven minutes of moodily atmospheric music by Music/ElmerBernstein.

* AllJustADream: The nightmare sequence is actually a parody of this, in that [[spoiler:David has a horrific dream, then wakes up and believes everything is fine... [[DreamWithinADream until a creature comes from the curtains and stabs the nurse!]] Then he wakes up again, exclaiming "Holy Shit!"]].
* AmbiguouslyJewish: It's never confirmed in the film that David Kessler and Jack Goodman are Jewish, but they both have Ashkenazi-sounding names, use a bit of Yiddish, and are from New York. A nurse suspects that David is Jewish after checking out his package, but Alex says that circumcision is no longer strictly a Jewish thing. In the dream sequence where werewolves and demons wearing Nazi uniforms kill David's family menorahs are visible on the mantel in the background. There is a balance scale on the mantel as well, hinting that Mr. Kessler is an attorney. In the 1997 BBC Radio 1 dramatization of the film Jack says "the rabbi never covered being Undead." John Landis who wrote and directed the film was born into a Jewish family and has said that he based the dynamics of David and Jack's friendship on one of his own friendships. Additionally, in a 2001 interview Landis described David as a "Jewish American kid."

** The pub goers early on seem to be this since they don’t warn Jack and David about the werewolf, but they’re later shown to have barricaded the pub and have drawn their weapons. They clearly come together as a community to protect each other, showing they’re not wholly apathetic, and indeed, they’re rallied to go and save the boys from the monster that has terrorized them for years, finally taking a stand - and if the werewolf hadn’t attacked David already, they would’ve ended the threat for good thanks to their numbers and weapons.

* BaitAndSwitch: Towards the end of the film it looks like [[ThePowerofLove The Power of Love]] [[spoiler:is the key to stopping Werewolf!David’s rampage. Nope! Werewolf!David still attempts to attack Alex.]]

* TheCameo: Mr. Collins, the American ambassador sounds exactly like [[Series/SesameStreet Bert, the Muppet]]. That is because he ''is'' Creator/FrankOz, the then-puppeteer of Bert, [[Franchise/TheMuppets Miss Piggy]] (who also appears in the film) and [[Franchise/StarWars Yoda]]; and later director of ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'' and the remake of ''Literature/TheStepfordWives''.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:David's love interest confesses her love to him while he's in wolf form. She actually seems to get to him a little, but he still dies in the end and so have several innocent people. Might slightly delve into [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] territory when you realize this means the souls of the ones killed by the werewolf might be able to move on now... but there's also a high chance that anyone who survived the Picadilly Circus rampage got turned.]]

* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Though poor David Naughton wasn't laughing, after Dr. Pepper sacked him as its spokesman for appearing nude on film.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "The Slaughtered Lamb," with a grisly picture of a severed wolf's head on the sign. Old British pubs do tend to have rather blunt names, though.

* YouAreInCommandNow: [[spoiler:After Inspector Villiers lets his position [[OffWithHisHead go to]] [[{{Pun}} his head]], his subordinate Sergeant [=McManus=] becomes the [[JustForPun new head of the police force]] on the scene due to being the only remaining senior official left.]]

* MoodWhiplash: At the very end no less. [[spoiler:David is shot dead by the police after his gruesome rampage after Alex fails to appeal to his human side by declaring her love for her. The film ends on her crying over his gunshot-riddled corpse, and then it ''immediately'' cuts to the cheery and upbeat "Blue Moon" by The Marcels playing over the credits, which includes [[Franchise/TheMuppets Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy]] in the credits ("[[AsHimself As Himself/Herself]]").]]