When I was a kid I was obsessed with special effects movie makeup. The best horror magazine at the time (and still currently, in my opinion) was Fangoria, and as an 11-year-old I had a subscription that I couldn’t wait to receive each month. The gory and bizarre stills from Friday the 13th, Halloween, Alien, The Beast Within and so many others excited my imagination and made me want to see all of these movies (which I eventually did). The pictures that most captured my attention were from An American Werewolf in London. The issue that featured Rick Baker’s groundbreaking werewolf transformation makeup were so provocative, so damn cool, that I absolutely couldn’t wait to see it. After what seemed like an eternity, the movie finally came to my city, and in 1982, at age 12, I went to see it with my father and younger brother (who was only 8 at the time!) I was not disappointed. To this day, the transformation scene reigns as one of the all-time best Hollywood special effects. And the movie was riveting: funny, gory, and wildly scary in parts. I had expected the gore and scares, but what I didn’t expect was the humor. It’s a horror film, yes, but it’s equal parts comedy. David (the main character) and his friend Jack are attacked by a werewolf, killing Jack and leaving David wounded – and now cursed to be a werewolf. Except Jack isn’t dead, not entirely. He and all of the werewolf victims are now the “undead,” spirits roaming some purgatorial realm and unable to move on until the werewolf’s bloodline is broken. Jack appears to David in visions, warning David that he will change during the next full moon, but the visits aren’t played up for horror; they’re done for comedy. When Jack appears, he’s a ghastly green, decomposing corpse (“a walking meatloaf,” as David calls him), but he’s chipper and happy. He sneaks bites of David’s food and implores him to commit suicide before he makes more undead victims like himself. Each time Jack shows up, he’s more desiccated and rotten, and he’s literally falling to pieces, but he’s cheerfully making jokes (“Have you ever talked with a corpse? It’s boring!”) That’s just a few examples of the humor in American Werewolf. This was my first encounter with horror-comedy, and the two elements blended beautifully. Of course, more movies like this soon began turning up: Gremlins, Re-Animator, Evil Dead II, Dead Alive, Parents, and so on. More recent movies like Shawn of the Dead, Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, Krampus, The Cabin in the Woods, and many others have continued and deepened the tradition. I’m talking about movies that want to scare you and make you laugh in equal parts. It’s hard to do, but well worth it. An American Werewolf in London was an enormous influence on my writing. However, it’s not until my upcoming book that I really paid homage. My novel The Beast in Aisle 34 is also a werewolf story. Like American Werewolf, the protagonist of my novel is the monster. And like American Werewolf, my story goes for a balance of laughs and gore. The humor disarms the audience, setting the stage for even more impact when the horror elements appear. I can only hope that my novel is a fitting and entertaining descendant of the film that made me. The Beast in Aisle 34 |
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