An American Werewolf in Paris

An American Werewolf in Paris
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anthony Waller
Produced by	Richard Claus
Written by	John Landis (Characters) Anthony Waller Tim Burns Tom Stern
Starring	Tom Everett Scott Julie Delpy Julie Bowen
Music by	Wilbert Hirsch
Cinematography	Egon Werdin
Editing by	Peter R. Adam
Studio	Canal+
Distributed by	Hollywood Pictures
Release date(s)	December 25, 1997
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English French
Budget	$22 million
Box office	$26,570,463

An American Werewolf in Paris is a 1997 horror/comedy film about werewolves. It was directed by Anthony Waller and stars Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy. It follows the general concept of the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London.

The title of this film has a bit of history; when production of the original London film ran into trouble with British Equity, director John Landis, having scouted locations in Paris, considered moving the production to France and changing the title of his film to An American Werewolf in Paris.

Plot

In the opening scene, Dr. Thierry Pigot (Thierry Lhermitte) is seen under attack, almost managing an escape from Parisian sewers before an unseen creature pulls him back. Meanwhile, tourist Andy McDermott (Tom Everett Scott) is seeing the sights of Paris with his friends Brad (Vince Vieluf) and Chris (Phil Buckman). When Serafine Pigot (Julie Delpy) leaps off the Eiffel Tower just before Andy is about to do a bungee-jump, he executes a mid-air rescue. She vanishes into the night, leaving Andy intrigued — and also unaware that she is the daughter of David Kessler and Alex Price, the couple seen 16 years earlier in the first film.

Andy tracks her down and asks her for a date. They attend a night club called "Club de la Lune" (literally translating to "Club of the Moon"). It is the night of the full moon. The owners of the club are actually members of a werewolf society, who wanted to kill and eat all the guests. Serafine tells Andy to run away and transforms into a werewolf. When Andy is running, a werewolf chases him. Just as Andy is about to escape, it bites him and he faints. The next day, he wakes up in Serafine's bed. When he awakens, he has toothmarks on his leg and is informed that he's making a transformation into a werewolf, confirmed by his sudden taste for raw steaks. Outside the window, Chris tells him to flee for his life. As he continues along he sees Brad's body being pulled out of the river with his heart missing. Suddenly his ghost appears to Andy and explains Andy's werewolf condition. In order for Andy to become normal again he must eat the heart of the werewolf that bit him, whom he believes is Serafine. Similarly, in order for Brad's ghost to be at rest, the werewolf that ate his heart must be killed, too. Andy does not believe he's changing, but because his more animalistic/base instincts are taking over, he hooks up with an American tourist. However, during a sex scene in the graveyard, Andy transforms and kills both her and a cop who had been tailing Andy because he thought he was involved in the Club de la Lune massacre. Andy awakens in the graveyard surrounded by the corpses and police, who immediately take him in. After escaping Andy begins to see the girl's ghost as well as Brad's. Because Andy killed her she spends her time trying to kill Andy while Brad is trying to keep him alive.

Andy returns to Serafine, who explains that her stepfather (seen in the film's opening scene) had been working on a drug to control her werewolf transformations. But the drug instead caused her to immediately transform into a werewolf and mutilate her stepfather.

Andy then has a run-in with the owners of the "Club de la Lune" who ask him to join, but, in order to prove his loyalty, he must kill Chris. Andy escapes when Serafine comes to his rescue, but has to leave Chris behind. The owners of the club then raid Serafine's stepfather's lab and kill him, taking the drugs that transform them immediately into a werewolf state. Serafine and Andy learn of another party the werewolves have planned and infiltrate it.

They find Chris and they help the party-goers to escape. However, after the cops show up the werewolves flee into the catacombs, but Andy manages to kill the one that ate Brad's heart. They then follow the werewolves into the sewers and the cops follow them. The werewolves begin picking off the cops one by one while Andy and Serafine manage to kill a few more werewolves. But Serafine runs out of ammunition and takes the drug. She then transforms and manages to kill another werewolf. However, Andy does not know she has tranformed and shoots Serafine. After transforming back she pleads Andy to eat her heart so that she can transform back, but he refuses. He sees policemen approaching and tells her that they can help. He then runs off in pursuit of the last werewolf. He trips and slides down an access chute into the subway, landing right on the train tracks. The werewolf is about to attack him, but Andy jumps out of the way and the train slams into the werewolf. However, it survives and transforms back into a human. The man tries to take another dose of the drugs, but Andy stops him and the two begin to fight. During the battle Andy discovers that the werewolf that bit him is the one he is facing now. The man knocks Andy to the ground; but he lands on the needle of the drug and transforms back into a werewolf. Andy then kills him and eats his heart, breaking the werewolf curse.

Serafine survives but we never learn how. The movie skips to a "few full moons later" with Serafine and Andy being married by Chris in New York atop the Statue of Liberty. They then bungee jump off it to the beginning of the credits.

Cast

• Tom Everett Scott as Andy
• Julie Delpy as Sérafine Pigot
• Vince Vieluf as Brad
• Phil Buckman as Chris
• Julie Bowen as Amy Finch
• Pierre Cosso as Claude
• Thierry Lhermitte as Dr. Thierry Pigot
• Tom Novembre as Inspector Leduc
• Anthony Waller as Metro Driver

Reception

An American Werewolf in Paris was poorly received by most critics and audiences alike. The review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes lists the film as "rotten", with only 8% of reviews positive based on national and worldwide ratings. Unlike An American Werewolf in London, which had Oscar-winning special make-up effects by Rick Baker, Paris relied heavily on CGI for its transformation effects and chase sequences, a common point of derision from most critics. According to box-office sales and online reviews, this sequel proved to be much less successful than the first film.

The film opened on December 25, 1997 to #7 with $7,600,878.

External links

• An American Werewolf in Paris at the Internet Movie Database
• An American Werewolf in Paris at AllRovi
• An American Werewolf in Paris at Box Office Mojo
• An American Werewolf in Paris at Rotten Tomatoes