• Sony Pictures Classics
• The Skin I Live In

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Like Crazy

The Skin I Live In

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

• Warner Bros.
• J. Edgar

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Jack and Jill

J. Edgar

Martha Marcy May Marlene

• Universal
• Tower Heist

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Anonymous

Bellflower

In Time

Puss in Boots

The Rum Diary

Take Shelter

Tower Heist

• Roadside Attractions
• Margin Call

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Margin Call

• Universal

By Matt Brunson

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

DIRECTED BY John Landis

STARS David Naughton, Jenny Agutter

Writer-director John Landis' tongue-in-bloody-cheek horror yarn is considered in some circles to be the best werewolf film ever made, yet as I’ve stated before, I belong to the group that prefers 1981’s other wolfman hit, The Howling (to say nothing of 1941's definitive The Wolf Man). Still, until it derails at the end, Landis' piece does a nice job of mixing its horror with humor.

Yankee tourists David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) are backpacking across the English moors when they're attacked by a frightful man-beast; Jack is killed, but David is only injured and shipped off to London to recuperate. A lovely nurse (Jenny Agutter) takes him under her wing, but David begins to doubt his own sanity after he's confronted by a decomposing Jack, who informs his friend that he'll turn into a werewolf during the next full moon.

Landis goes with the flow here, referencing classic wolfman flicks through the dialogue, cramming the soundtrack with appropriately titled oldies ("Blue Moon," "Bad Moon Rising"), and even taking some good-natured digs at English mores and manners. Unfortunately, he runs out of steam just before the finish line, as the film ends with the sort of chaos (crashing cars, falling bodies) that was appropriate in the director's previous hits (National Lampoon's Animal House and The Blues Brothers) but proves to be embarrassing and insufficient here.

For his excellent work, Rick Baker won the Best Makeup Oscar in its first year as an annual (rather than occasional) award. For the record, the only other nominee that initial year was fellow makeup/FX great Stan Winston, cited for transforming Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters into shiny robots in the box office disaster Heartbeeps.

(An American Werewolf in London will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31, at the Neighborhood Theatre, 511 East 36th St. The movie is being shown as part of the Bad Moon Rising series presented by The Light Factory, The Neighborhood Theatre, Actor’s Theatre, and Visart Video. Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Details here.)

• Summit Ent.
• The Three Musketeers

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Johnny English Reborn

The Three Musketeers

• Hammer Films

By Matt Brunson

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961)

DIRECTED BY Terence Fisher

STARS Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed

During its heyday, Hammer Films produced nine Dracula pictures, seven Frankenstein films, four Mummy movies and even a couple of dinosaur yarns. But when it came to one of the mainstays of the monster-movie genre, the wolfman, the prolific company managed only to release one title in this vein. Given the solid return on The Curse of the Werewolf, though, it would have been desirable to see them tackle the topic a few more times.

Based on Guy Endore’s novel The Werewolf of Paris but moving the action to Spain, this starts out with a harmless beggar (Richard Wordsworth) being tossed into prison by the heinous Marques Siniestro (Anthony Dawson, best known as the would-be assassin in Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder); soon forgotten, the peasant spends decades locked up in the dungeon, cared for only by a mute servant girl (Yvonne Romain). When the Marques throws the girl into the same cell for refusing his advances, the now-crazed beggar rapes her; eventually freed, she finds herself in the care of a kind gentleman (Clifford Evans) and his housekeeper (Hira Talfrey), who both help her through her unexpected pregnancy. The resultant child, named Leon (played as a youngster by Justin Walters), eventually finds himself turning into a wereboy, but that evil impulse is finally controlled by the love and support bestowed upon him by his adopted family. Yet once he grows into a man (Oliver Reed) and leaves the nest, he has trouble keeping the beast at bay.

The Curse of the Werewolf barely resembles its source material — for one thing, the rapist in the book is a priest rather than a peasant — but the script by "John Elder" (in actuality the film’s producer, Anthony Hinds) nevertheless manages to be a literate and respectful addition to the lycanthrope canon, generating enormous sympathy for its characters (particularly Romain’s servant girl and Reed’s tortured Leon) and even taking digs at the abuses heaped upon the working class by the 1%: In addition to the Marques Siniestro plotline, there’s also a thread involving Leon’s wooing of the daughter (Catherine Feller) of his employer (Ewen Solon), who would rather see his offspring unhappily married into a wealthy family than finding true love with a commoner. Showcasing the achievements of two Hammer regulars — director Terence Fisher and makeup artist Roy Ashton — The Curse of the Werewolf has never developed the cult following of many other wolfman flicks, but it’s one worth catching.

(The Curse of the Werewolf will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at the Neighborhood Theatre, 511 East 36th St. The movie is being shown as part of the Bad Moon Rising series presented by The Light Factory, The Neighborhood Theatre, Actor’s Theatre, and Visart Video. Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Details here.)

• Magnet
• Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

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The Thing

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

By Matt Brunson

TEEN WOLF (1985)

DIRECTED BY Rod Daniel

STARS Michael J. Fox, James Hampton

Rather than a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Teen Wolf is basically a standard 80s teen flick in werewolf’s clothing.

Although it was filmed before Universal Pictures’ Back to the Future, the small distribution house Atlantic Releasing Corporation elected to wait a few weeks after that blockbuster hit theaters before releasing their decidedly lower-profile film. It was a savvy marketing move, since riding Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly coattails enabled this minor endeavor to gross a decent $33 million at the U.S. box office.

Fox stars as Scott Howard, an ordinary high school kid who’s shocked when he suddenly turns into a werewolf. As his dad (James Hampton) explains, lycanthropy runs in the family, and Scott had best get a grip on his newfound hirsuteness. But rather than a curse, Scott sees it as a blessing, as his popularity among his peers increases a thousandfold once he lets the wolf out.

Fox is as likable as always, celebrated TV writer Jay Tarses (The Carol Burnett Show, Buffalo Bill) has a couple of good moments as the basketball team’s laid-back coach, and, yes, tubby Chubby is played by the same actor (Mark Holton) who had essayed the role of Pee-wee’s nemesis Francis in that same summer’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Otherwise, get past the on-the-cheap wolf makeup (clearly, we’re not talking Rick Baker or Jack Pierce) and all that’s left is an utterly formulaic teen romp indicative of the period, replete with the frosty blonde who catches our hero’s eye, the spunky brunette who pines for him but is dismissed as just a friend, the jock jerk, and the obnoxious best friend who in this case even goes so far as to wear a T-shirt that reads, “Obnoxious.”

(Teen Wolf will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, at the Neighborhood Theatre, 511 East 36th St. The movie is being shown as part of the Bad Moon Rising series presented by The Light Factory, The Neighborhood Theatre, Actor’s Theatre, and Visart Video. Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Details here.)

• Columbia Pictures
• Philip Seymour Hoffman and George Clooney in The Ides of March

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Dream House

The Ides of March

Real Steel