American Werewolves

An American Werewolf has famously traveled the world. We had An American Werewolf in London and then later An American Werewolf in Paris. Did you know we were going to have An American Werewolf in Rome? I also just now learned that fact.

But what about An American Werewolf in AMERICA? We would probably just call that American Werewolves then.

There are quite a few werewolf movies set in America it turns out. We had The Wolf of Snow Hollow a few years ago, notably, that was one of my favorite movies that year. All of these movies with werewolves in America have two things in common. They have a werewolf in America. And they are fictional films. Completely made up. Story boarded, filmed, with CGI or person in a fur suit or both.

But what about reality? Maybe werewolves are real? In American Werewolves, we are going to hear about real people, who have had encounters that make them think one thing: Werewolves. So now they are believers. And now someone has gathered their stories together, so we can be the judge.

When the moon hits your eye, and that is all you can see, that’s a scary.

American Werewolves directors decided the best way to do this documentary about the supernatural was to provide NO outside influence or editorial to the stories. We don’t have an interview with someone calling any of these stories bullshit. We don’t have supernatural experts. Officially, the people talking on this documentary are only people who have stories where they claim to have seen werewolves.

Are all of these people lying? No probably not. They may have had a weird experience and their mind filled in some gaps. Memories can change and be influenced.

And as expected, most of the people with stories had very unclear views of this beast. Hiding in the bushes. Or no evidence. The final story implied a lot more direct interaction, but again, all it is a story.

I do think that for a documentary, it was a good idea to focus on people’s stories, and not make direct judgements. Let’s get some information out there and see if any of it tracks. I don’t love the stories, and they did no convincing for me, but they are there.

I think the documentary did more disservice though with the imagery and music they chose to use. It felt cheesy, and didn’t give the proper mood at all to me as a viewer. The stories that were told also felt very rehearsed. So many of the story tellers used the same phrasing to describe what they saw, really specific “scientific” like language like canine and bipedal instead of talking like what normal people would probably talk like. And that also brought me out of the stories.

I do wonder if the Sasquatch and the Werewolf legends are about a similar entity. That would be a fun twist. But I’d rather live in a world with multiple types of fantastic creatures, not just one.