Before Moonrise

An American Werewolf in Paris (1997) directed by Anthony Waller

“She’s not interested in douchebags like us. European babes are charming and sophisticated. Especially the French.”

Tom Everett Scott is a lucky lucky man. You can consider 1996-1997 to be the highlight of his career: a popular bubblegum movie about a faux bubblegum pop song (That Thing You Do!) and then he got to hold Julie Delpy’s breasts while she says “This will relax you, no?” (Relax may not be the word for it. I would say, maybe, soothe.) James Dean’s career looks like a failure by comparison. (Holding Sal Mineo’s man-boobs in Rebel Without a Cause just doesn’t make the grade.)

Now that I’ve mentioned the reason I loved this movie in 1997, we can move on to some other things of interest in this movie. I was never a big fan of An American Werewolf in London, so even the tentative (and underplayed) relationship between the earlier film and the new one didn’t really resonate with me. Maybe it’s time I took another look at the original. The thing I wasn’t expecting on watching An American Werewolf in Paris again was how much it screamed “Mid-1990s” to me.

The Americans in question (Andy, Brad and Chris) are backpacking through Europe with their Eurail pass and engaged in a running contest to see who gets the most points for doing x-treme™ things like bungee jumping off the Eiffel Tower. X-treme™! And if that doesn’t scream x-treme™ to you, maybe the music of Smashmouth will. Ah, 1997. The only thing that would have made this film more 1997 would have been if the climax of the film had featured a retro-swing bar populated by werewolves doing the Lindy. Granted the motif of sensitive 90’s American college student (“No one as beautiful or as sensitive as you deserves to be so sad,” he says to her.) in Europe trying to score with a French girl is really more 1995, but the fact that for both Ethan Hawke and Tom Everett Scott the femme in question is Julie Delpy…well, that really speaks to my generation in a special way. Very special. Very…way.

Anyhow, in the wake of Hostel it was interesting to see an earlier film tackle the idea that there are people in Europe who are just looking for novel ways of dispatching and brutalizing American expatriate college students. Spend your year abroad studying in Fiji and you’re fine. Spend a summer in Europe, though, and you’re one party at the Clube Lune away from being eaten by a werewolf. (And elitist, America-bashing Social Darwinist French werewolves, at that.) Just how old is this distrust of Europe as expressed in horror stories? Older than Smashmouth, I would guess.

The werewolf transformations and lore are pretty good for 1997. The CGI is tolerable, as is most of the humor and action. For a movie that closes with a song by Bush (yeah, it’s just like 1997 all over again) it has aged pretty well. (Though, if this movie was a George Lucas film he would probably have changed the New York skyline for the ending when Serafine (Julie Delpy) and Andy (Tom Everett Scott) jump off the Statue of Liberty. Vince Vieluf (Brad) has a couple of good scenes after his character dies, as does the hilarious Julie Bowen (who attempts to have sex with Andy on Jim Morrison’s grave in Pere Lachaise cemetery). Two Julies for the price of one! And only one of them will make you drink a heart smoothie.

I’m not saying this is one of the best horror comedies ever. I’m not. But it’s pretty good and it’s a really entertaining time capsule of a special, more innocent and yet, more x-treme™, time. So, if you’re tired of brooding werewolves, werewolves who must fight vampires, or would like to see a mix of Hostel without the torture, and Before Sunrise but with Werewolves with a little bit of Eurotrip thrown in, with a pair of Julies, and a French cop (who must be friends with the one from The Transporter) and love Smashmouth, then this is a good fun movie to sit through.

Extras
Trailer
“Things are going to get a little hairy…” Yep, they are. Good trailer.

Additional Titles
The posters for Scream 2, The Crow and Playing God, or as I like to call it, The World’s Most Unlikely Triple Feature.