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.[2]
Reception
An American Werewolf in Paris was poorly received by most critics. The review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes lists the film as "rotten", with only 9% 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.
Main cast
Plot
In the opening scene, a man 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 was the night of the full moon. The owners of the club were actually members of a werewolf society, who wanted to kill and eat all the guests. Serafine told Andy to run away (in that scene, Serafine transforms into a werewolf). When Andy is running, a werewolf chases him. Just as Andy is about to escape, it bites him and Andy 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. He discovers Chris outside the window who tells him to flee for his life. As he continues along after fleeing Serafine's after seeing her dead mother 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 and for Andy to become normal again he must eat the heart of the werewolf that bit him who he believes is Serafine. Similarly, in order for his ghost (Brad's) to be at rest the werewolf that ate his heart must be killed, too. Andy doesn't believe he's changing, but through his more animalistic/base instincts taking over, hooks up with an American bimbo tourist. However, during a sex scene in the graveyard, Andy transforms and kills her and a cop who had been tailing Andy because he thought he was involved in the Club de la Lunda massacre. Andy awakens in the graveyard surrounded by the corpses and police who immediately take Andy in. After escaping Andy begins to see the girl's ghost as well as Brad's. Since 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, 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, but after the cops show up the werewolves flee into the catacombs, but Andy manages to kill the one that ate Brad's heart who wishes Andy and Serafine well. They then follow the werewolves into the catacombs and the cops follow them. The werewolves begin picking off the cops one by one while Andy and Serfaine manage to kill a few more werewolves. But Serafine runs out of ammo and takes the drug so she transforms and manages to kill another werewolf. However, Andy doesn't know it's her and shoots her. After transforming back she pleads Andy to eat her heart so he can transform back, but he refuses and sees some cops coming 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, who lands on the needle of the drug and transforms. Andy then kills him and eats his heart, making him regular again.
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.
References
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