AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON gets remastered "again" but with more satisfying results in the definitive Blu-ray package (standard and limited) from Arrow Video.

NYU graduates David Kessler (David Naughton, MIDNIGHT MADNESS) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne, AFTER HOURS) are backpacking across Europe but have ended up in chilly Northern England and the village of East Procter. After alienating the locals at "The Slaughtered Lamb," they are warned to stay off the moors and "beware the moon," realizing only too late that what the locals are really afraid of is a vicious werewolf that tears Jack to shreds and bites David before it is shot down. David wakes up in a London hospital to learn that Jack is dead and his body has already been shipped back to the United States for burial in the three weeks he has been in a coma. Although the police are satisfied with the reports of the East Procter constabulary that David and Jack were the victims of an escaped lunatic, David insists that he was attacked by a wolf. While sympathetic nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter, DOMINIQUE IS DEAD) tries to help him work his way through his grief and survivor's guilt – which seems to be taking the form of Jack's increasingly decaying apparition telling him that he is a werewolf and that the only way to free the damned souls of his victims is to kill himself and sever the wolf's bloodline – Dr. Hirsch (John Woodvine, THE DEVILS) decides to look into unanswered questions of his own regarding the incident with a trip up to East Procter. Meanwhile, David wakes up naked in the city zoo and believes that he may not be a werewolf but he is certainly nuts; that is, until he hears of six Londoners torn to pieces during the previous night's full moon.

Boasting a still unmatched entirely practical effects prosthetic man-to-wolf transformation courtesy of Rick Baker (OCTAMAN) and some incredibly vicious make-up effects work – who had first collaborated with director John Landis on the less-demanding SCHLOCK – AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON quickly reached the status of cult classic even though it upset audience expectations coming from the director of ANIMAL HOUSE and KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. While Landis' comic approach is woven throughout the film, its horror sequences are remain intense in spite of a touches of levity, and the climactic Piccadilly Square rampage scene will have the audience jerked between titters at Baker's werewolf and flinching at the automotive havoc (along with an earlier nightmare-within-a-nightmare sequence involving Nazi demons). It is, above all, a tragedy in the form of a gored-up, sexed-up take on the classic Hollywood werewolf films in which lycanthropy is a curse (with the dashing aside of the myths of silver bullets and that a werewolf can only be killed by one who loves him making the abrupt finale even more downbeat). Naughton is a likable lead while Dunne provides the comic relief (along with a cameo appearance from Frank Oz who was in London shooting THE MUPPETS MOVIE) – along with the extras and the cliché of British understatement – while Woodvine brings gravitas; however, it is Agutter who really sells the dramatic aspects with not nearly enough material. The balance of humor and horror is greatly aided by the British component of the film from supporting turns by ALIEN 3's Brian Glover, THE DOGS OF WAR's David Schofield, and STAR WARS' Michael Carter as well as production designer Leslie Dilley's (INVADERS FROM MARS) recreation of part of Piccadilly Square for the climax and cinematographer Robert Paynter (NATIONAL LAMPOON'S EUROPEAN VACATION). Elmer Bernstein (GHOSTBUSTERS) provides some orchestral accompaniment but most of the sequences in which one would expect traditional scoring either unfold without music or are underscored by various song choices featuring the word "moon" from Bobby Vinton's and Sam Cooke's covers of "Blue Moon," Van Morrison's "Moondance," and Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" (presumably Warren Zevon's "Werwolves of London" would have been too on-the-nose). Baker's effects team included Doug Beswick – who also did mechanical effects on THE HOWLING which Baker entrusted to Rob Bottin (BASIC INSTINCT) when the Landis film was greenlighted – and Craig Reardon (THE BLOB). British porn starlet Linzi Drew appears in Landis' porno-within-a-film "See You Next Wednesday."

Although distributed by Universal Pictures, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON was a Polygram production and after the early eighties MCA VHS and laserdisc releases, the film was easier to find in its various Vestron Video VHS and Image fullscreen laserdisc releases and later Live Home Video fullscreen VHS, widescreen laserdisc, and non-anamorphic DVD editions. The film ended up back with Universal when Polygram became part of their music division, and a collector's edition DVD with DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks came out in 2001 with a handful of extras that have found their way on to subsequent editions including a 2006 HD DVD, a 2009 Blu-ray, 2014 steelbook, and finally a 2016 "restored" Blu-ray. While the 2009 Blu-ray looked noisier (not grainier), the "restored edition" looked too smoothed out. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a brand new 4K restoration of the original camera negative supervised by Landis. The "restored version" was a tad brighter while the Arrow looks a tad darker, but the prosthetic make-up effects hold up incredibly well in the new transfer (especially during David's transformation which takes place in the bright light of Alex's apartment) while Jack's torn out throat and slashed face look even more stomach-churning in the new transfer. The original mono track is included in DTS-HD Master Audio1.0 and the 5.1 remix is also included, coming to life especially during the musical passages, the werewolf attacks, and the climactic mayhem. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.

Carried over from the DVDs is an audio commentary by actors Naughton and Dunne who reveal that Landis cast them without auditions – Landis was a fan of Naughton's Dr. Pepper commercials and Dunne got the job because he told Landis that he was not claustrophobic without realizing the extensive make-up effects he would be under – the cold shooting conditions in Wales and in Windsor Park (where icicles formed in their hair and on their clothes on the coldest night of that year), working with Baker, their admiration of Agutter and the other British cast members, Naughton's nude scenes in the public zoo, and their feelings about the film's humor and the abruptness of the ending. Also included is an audio commentary by filmmaker Paul Davis whose feature-length documentary "Beware the Moon" which was added to the 2009 Universal Blu-ray edition and subsequent editions. Drawing heavily from his own research, Davis' track is pretty much a scene/shot-specific version of the information contained in the documentary as relayed by Davis rather than the cast and crew members. While the documentary itself is an entertaining watch, Davis' track is equally informative and listenable.

New to the release is "Mark of The Beast: The Legacy of the Universal Werewolf" (77:18), feature-length documentary by filmmaker Daniel Griffith featuring Naughton, Landis and fellow filmmakers Joe Dante (THE HOWLING) and Mick Garris (SLEEPWALKERS), screenwriters Peter Atkins (HELLRAISER) and C. Courtney Joyner (THE LURKING FEAR), effects artists Rearden, John Goodwin (THE THING), and Steve Johnson (HOWLING IV), and film historian Steve Haberman (who has appeared on commentaries for many Universal genre films). The documentary thoroughly traces werewolf lore from folklore and literature to cinema, including Universal's earlier THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON to the more influential THE WOLF MAN and Hammer's CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (an adaptation of Guy Endore's "The Werewolf of Paris" thrown together to take advantage of sets erected for a Spanish Inquisition movie the British censors told Hammer they would never approve), the rediscovery of the Universal horrors in the sixties via syndicated TV horror shows and monster magazines, through to the production of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.

"An American Filmmaker in London" (11:41) is a new interview with director Landis but it pretty much repeats many of his stories as heard in both "Mark of the Beast" and "Beware the Moon" as well as the vintage featurettes from the DVD editions. "Wares of the Wolf" (7:58) is a look at props and memorabilia from the film by special effects artist Dan Martin and Tim Lawes of The Prop Store. "I Think He's a Jew: The Werewolf's Secret" (11:26) is a video essay by filmmaker Jon Spira that seems at first to be reaching, going off of a throwaway line about David's religion by a nurse based on a peak under his gown, but Spira points out other hints at the Jewishness of the two male main characters in the dialogue and buried in the film's production design, suggesting that the film itself is an "allegory of the modern Jewish experience" with the werewolf's pentagram echoing the yellow star worn to single out Jews in World War II Germany and the "othering" of the werewolf curse on a man in a foreign environment. "The Werewolf’s Call" (11:26), an appreciation by filmmaker Corin Hardy (THE NUN) and writer Simon Ward (THE MEG), is of less value, focusing on the effect of the film on both filmmakers' formative experiences.

The aforementioned Paul Davis documentary "Beware the Moon" (97:39) is included in its entirety (in standard definition lest one worry about the amount of space it is taking up on the loaded Blu-ray disc) featuring just about every surviving cast and crew member from Naughton, Dunne, Agutter, Woodvine, Schoefield, as well as victims Carter and Brenda Cavendish (BRITANNIA HOSPITAL) and porn star Drew, producer George Folsey Jr. (SCHLOCK), cinematographer Paynter, assistant director David Tringham (HIGHLANDER), art director Dilley, make-up artist Robin Grantham (THE LEGACY), and editor Malcolm Campbell (AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON) among others. Intercut with Davis' visits to locations and reenactments of scenes are the interviews which follows the organization of pre-production to production to post-production and reception and includes some of the behind the scenes and outtake footage of the Piccadilly Square sequence (including Landis' stunt cameo) featured in the archival featurette "Making AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON" (4:54) also included on the disc.