I actually think this is pretty cool for a 1997 poster
Premise: A college drop-out Euro-tripping in Paris discovers his artsy uncle has died, and his assistant, Serafine, is not only lovely, she’s also a Werewolf.
About: The sequel to the original An American Werewolf in London was nowhere near as successful as the first film in the series.
Writers: Based on the John Landis original script, the script had three writers on it: Tim Burns, Tom Stern, and Anthony Waller. This excess in credits is normally the first sign of a poor script. None of these writers had very impressive credits though. Burns and Stern had both mostly worked on Freaked and Henson Hour, and Waller had two feature credits including one for Mute Witness. I guess it was an opening shot for them all.
What’s funny about this script (I actually read a pre-shooting draft which is slightly different than the filmed version) is that without placing the dating anywhere, I instantly knew this was written short before Y2K. It had that tragically hip and glossed over, shiny feel films did in the late 90’s. And I was hooked for the first two pages, I swear.
The thing about this thing is it’s a sequel to a film that existed sort of as an oddity to begin with. A sequel was certainly not merited. So suffice it to say, this film has no relevance whatsoever to the original. But, that being said it’s really not that terrible a script: the kid gets called to Paris, his uncle dies, he meets the assistant, falls in love with the assistant, turns out the assistant’s a werewolf. Showdown with werewolf.
It’s a pretty classic twist on a pretty time honored Werewolf structure, and that’s fine. The characters are modern and that’s okay too. The first act is very generic, and boring. But it’s mediocre in it’s badness. Not awful, just not compelling in any particular way.
And once we get to the meat of the film, there’s a few less cheesy jokes and more scenes heavy on action and the werewolves encounter in the story. The sad thing about this whole thing, which Bad Moon Rising is guilty of but to a much lesser degree is that the American Werewolf in Paris doesn’t have any greater reason for the film to be about Werewolves, besides the fact that the monsters look cool. But from what I understand in the reviews, the werewolves were CGI’d and didn’t look that impressive at all.
There’s this tendency in monster movies to ultimately fall into a simplistic good guys vs. monsters set up. This film is the grand daddy of them all. It throws character development and any larger driving force right out the window to focus on the monster. Topping off this crap-fest with a JURY sequence, and then an IT’S JUST A DREAM ending. I’m hoping they took this out of the actual film because it’s completely stupid.
Scooby Doo (Complete Crap)
[X] - Atilla (Poor, Few Redeeming Qualities)
Wedding Crashers (Mediocre)
Hot Rod (Good)
Definitely Maybe (Pretty Darn Good
Isla Prospects: Nope. No classic roles here. The love interest is foreign, and kind of quirky. Plus she’s a vampire. But definitely no missed opportunities.
What I Learned: Nothing positive. I think what I learned here, which may very well be the theme of this film is things in film shouldn’t exist without a purpose. Most things (the Werewolves, the plot, the characters) seemed to be devised only to appear hip and cool, but in the end the whole thing just seems very pointless.
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