John Landis added humor to An American Werewolf in London (1981) to catch his audience off guard
“I want to keep everyone constantly off balance,” said the director.
It may sound strange, but sometimes the most frightening horror movies have an air of humor within them. Horror is scariest when it mimics real life - when characters laugh and make jokes, a viewer can attach themselves to the movie, see themselves in the cast, even in the most surreal situations.
That’s why An American Werewolf in London remains one of the scariest horror films of the 1980s. The film’s director, John Landis, admitted that keeping a healthy dose of humor was integral to the core of the film.
“The idea is to take a totally absurd premise— man turns into wolf at full moon and kills people— and treat it as realistically as possible,” Landis said during an interview with The Daily News. “That’s one of the reasons it’s so very funny. Who would believe it could be real?”
Landis also included humor in an attempt to keep his audience on their toes. “I want to keep everyone constantly off balance,” said the director, “as off balance as David and Jack are when they face the supernatural.”
By the time the film was released, critics took issue with the film’s tone, though Landis let those comments roll off his back. “One of the criticisms of this script has always been that ‘it’s too scary to be funny’ or ‘too funny to be scary,’” said Landis. “Actually, I think it’s both.”
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