The Slaughtered Lamb

Have you ever been the sole person in a cinema screening? I've been in a few where it was me a around 4 others (Night at the Museum 2, for instance. Apparently rip-roaring comedy.. Only laughs were the Einstein Bobble-heads).

The Vue cinema in Leicester are doing a week of 10pm screenings of the John Landis horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London. All time Classic, one of my favourite films, and I've managed to get a few different styles of poster for.

I had thought of ringing and booking my ticket in advance, what with it being such a, I thought, well known film, and short run and all. I needn't have bothered. I got there around 9pm, and made sure I got my ticket. The attendent was talking to a couple about the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam film starring the late Heathe Ledger. Without knowing which film they were discussing, I didn't recognise the film at all.

Anyway, I got the ticket and returned to the car to read the new US Esquire magazine, featuring ms Kate Beckinsale as the newly enobled Sexiest Women in the World. I'd seen scans and the video they had posted beforehand, and it's a post I have no disagreement over. Earlier incarnations of the post include Jessica Simpson, Halle Berry, Megan Fox.

As the screening time neared, I returned to the desk to get a good seat. Whilst I hadn't noted a flood of folks into the place, couldn't be too careful. It soon became obvious that I would be in a small number of folks watching.

Knowing that if so inclined, the folks outside the screening can watch what the folks in screening are doing, being the sole person in there kind of restricts even more as to what you can get up to. Playing 'Drum Hero' to the opening of the film (one of many versions of Blue Moon in the film) could look a bit silly... LOL!

Even though I've seen the film countless times, this digital transfer made the film really fresh, and I noticed lots of things that I had either not noticed, but forgotten. Still loved the pub scene, especially the 'Remember the Alamo' joke told by Brian Glover. Don't recall Rik Mayall having so many shots. But then until it was pointed out in later years where and what Rik Mayall was in the movie, I just took it as 'extra in shot', which I guess he would have been at the time. Also forgot just how stunning Jenny Agutter was in the film. Sometimes you had Jenny in soft focus on her own, sometimes in normal focus, on her own, or two shot. As a lad growing up just after the film came out, it was a rite of passage watching American Werewolf, especially the Agutter moments, and the first 'change' sequence.

The initial transformation scene was still as great as always. Still amazes me how they shot the stretching of the feet, ears etc. In the past few years they had a 'top 100 scariest movies'on Channel4 in which this was placed. This enabled director John Landis to demystify that scene, telling us how David Naughton (David, the survivor) just had his head and shoulders above the floor when he was seen laying on his back, as his stomach changed shape.

I guess it's one of those films that has a bit of 'Jaws' in it. You don't see much of the werewolf at any part of the film. The werewolf look in the aforementioned transformation scene is different from the werewolf in later scenes, and I think its the first time I spotted the werewolf crouching in the back of the alley in the closing scenes. Movie legend has it that the 'terror' in Jaws was built up because you don't see the whole shark til a long way into the movie. Partly due to the fact the mechanical fishes they used kept breaking down, or looked rubbish. Most of the shots of the werewolf are headshots just before the thing attacks, or long range shots like the closing scenes.

I thought it was nice of Landis to allow the poster for 'Airplane' to be featured on the walls of Tottenham Court Rd tube station (Northern Line), as well as the 'See You Next Wednesday' porno flick that David and his undead friend go to see off Picadilly later on.

It's the 3rd film I've seen this week! This Is It! and Fantastic Mr Fox being the other 2.