An American Werewolf in Paris

A group of three young Americans travel to Paris. Instead of a rich culture, they encounter an underground society of werewolves and one of them becomes An American Werewolf in Paris.

One night while sneaking into the Eiffel Tower after closing, our lead Andy saves the life of a pretty blonde girl named Serafine who tries to kill herself. We quickly learn that she is in fact a werewolf, and locks herself in a cage just before the full moon hits to stop herself from killing. After Andy is bitten by one of the werewolves during an underground party where they feed on humans, Serafine warns him that he will turn when the moon is full. He of course does and kills a few people along the way. Is there a way for Andy to survive being cursed to live a werewolf, or he will meet the inevitable fate we all see coming?

An American Werewolf in Paris is more of a teen comedy/adventure than an actually horror film for me. Sure we get the beasts terrorizing parts of Paris, but a lot of the film plays more to the love between Andy and Serafine and the chase to find a cure for the curse and to stop the cult from murdering hundreds of tourists. Most of the humour is juvenile and typical teen movie-like, very typical of late 90's/early 2000's. We get the friends scoring points for how many girls they sleep with, blowing bubbles with condoms, etc. A lot of it isn't very smart like the original film had going for it. The acting was alright for the most part. Tom Everett Scott is no David Naughton, but very capable. We also get a young Julie Bowen from Modern Family. I thought she was very good as the undead victim following Andy around town.

This sequel is not even close to the level of the original classic film by John Landis. I think I may have enjoyed it a bit more if they hadn't used the name as a means to catch people who enjoyed the original. This one has a neat concept of the underground cult of werewolves trying to feed on American tourists, but at the end of the day it feels very average.

5/10

I don't know why I get my hopes up for sequels... my hopes are always destroyed.

This movie is no exception. For starters, it's important to note that An American Werewolf in London (AAWiL) will always have a special place in my heart as one of the first horror movies I remembers seeing on HBO as a kid.

This movie lacked just about everything that AAWiL had: good acting, good special effects, a decent soundtrack, etc.

Tom Everett Scott is a terrible actor... the kind of actor I see and wonder how he ever gets casted for anything. Julie Delpy is OK and I dig her accent. Everyone else was pretty much fluff and/or fodder. The effects were God awful. It's hard enough to pull off CGI monsters and hairy ones are even harder to make believable. When you are making a sequel for a movie that had effects that are still impressive by today's standards, some serious effort has to be made if the intent is to make a movie that rivals the original. This one isn't even in the same league as AAWiL. The music for AAWiL was also very well done. AAWiP had... Bush? Yeah, that's the route you want to go to create a timeless classic.

Unlike other reviews I wouldn't even go so far as to say this movie would have good as a stand-alone (no connection to AAWiL), but I wouldn't even give it that much credit.

It just sucked.

A sequel to "An American Werewolf in London", but without any correlation between them, which is a shame, because the first one delivers a wonderful ending when the werewolf bites several people at the end of the film, which could have caused a major outbreak, but they chose to create a weak story, with only reasonable effects, but nothing compared to the first one, not very captivating or entertaining...

Serafine is a beautiful young woman, daughter of a werewolf who lives in Paris, where her mother and stepfather fight to cure her of a terrible disease that she inherited genetically, but not everything goes as planned and she tries to commit suicide, putting an end to so much suffering. But she didn't expect that she would be saved by Andy, a young American who travels through Europe with two friends in search of adventure. Serafine and Andy end up falling in love, but the girl tries to fight this feeling knowing that it would be too dangerous for Andy.

"An American Werewolf in Paris" is an excellent horror-comedy, in the great tradition of "The Lost Boys" and "Fright Night". I see that a lot of people dislike this movie. These are obviously hardcore horror fans who wanted to see something dark and gothic; but instead got something blackly humorous and were not amused by it. I admit, "An American Werewolf in Paris" is not really scary, but neither are "The Lost Boys" and "Fright Night," and those two movies seem to be highly regarded by horror fans. I don't understand why everyone hates this one so much. If you are a fan of horror-comedies, or if you have a morbid sense of humor, this is definitely for you. I think it's great: nine out of ten stars (On a one star DVD, I should say. It would have been nice to have some extra features besides the trailer.)

5.5 out of 10

Werewolf movies are usually alarmingly bad, even though they should, in theory, make for more interesting villains than vampires, zombies, and slashers. But An American Werewolf in Paris is an exception, sort of. Tom Everett Scott stars as a daredevil who tours Europe with his buddies, performing outrageous stunts. During one particular escapade, he saves the life of a young woman (Julie Delpy) who tries to commite suicide. Thinking she's the girl of his dreams, little does he know what he's getting into.

Paris tries to be a mixture of different genres: it wants to work as a horror film (to a mild extent), an action/adventure, and as a comedy. Dog Soldiers was definitely far superior at these aspects, but AAWIP's campy approach makes it a decent timewaster. There's not a single boring moment, though a lot of the material is admittedly very silly. Thankfully, none of it's taken very seriously, and some of the humor is actually very funny. Scott and Delpy (who's probably the third most beautiful French actress I've ever seen, behind only Mathilda May and Sophie Marceau) have good chemistry together, even if Scott's performance is a little on and off. The werewolf effects are obviously CGI, but more "serious" effects work would have ruined the campy mood.