Tags:
Film: An American Werewolf in Paris
Year: 2005
Director: Anthony Waller
Writer: Tim Burns, Tom Stern and Anthony Waller
Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Julie Delpy and Vince Vieluf
Review:
This film begins with a doctor in a lab coat running from something. It is raining out and the doctor is played by Thierry Lhermitte. He calls for a taxi. He runs over a grate on the ground and something crushes through it, knocking him over. The taxi driver gets out to help, but he hears a roar and sees something pulling Lhermitte into the hole of the grate.
We then shift to a train. There are three friends traveling together. There is their quiet and respectful friend, played by Tom Everett Scott. There is the joker, played by Vince Vieluf and the good looking one played by Phil Buckman. They are going on a tour of Europe, doing daredevil stunts and they are in competition. Currently leading is Vieluf. Buckman is in second and is contending that sex points should be factored in. Scott is given grief, but he states he has a stunt he will do that will put him in first.
They sneak to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Scott begins to get his gear ready, because he is going to bungee jump. Vieluf hears something and tells them that someone is coming. They all hide. We then see that it is a French woman played by Julie Delpy. She climbs up the railing and is going to jump. Scott tries to talk her out of it, but it doesn’t work. She jumps, but Scott jumps after her. He catches her foot before she hits the ground, but her shoe comes off. She lands harmlessly and drops a letter. Scott’s friends have to save him from hitting the ground. When he bounces back up, he smashes his head on a metal beam.
He comes to in the hospital. Scott wants his friends to find the letter the girl dropped and send them off to search. Scott still has her shoe. He sees Delpy taking something from the hospital. He calls to her, but he is hit in the back of the head with a door. She disappears. His friends show up at that time and show him the letter.
He gets out of the hospital and finds her address. Scott is afraid she will try to kill herself again. They ring the bell for her house and she appears. Scott notices she has blood on her hand, but she claims it is paint. Scott is relentless until she agrees to see him tomorrow.
Vieluf and Buckman give Scott advice how to get her into bed. They want him to be a confident bad boy and give him condoms. Scott messes it up and ends up making a fool of himself. A man comes up to attack Scott for a condom landing in his drink. Delpy flings him off and the three Americans realize she is super strong. Scott chases after her and she tells him that it is not a good idea for them to see each other. She rides her bike and gets away.
Scott won’t give up though. The three of them go back to her house where they meet Pierre Cosso. He lets them know that Delpy is not home, but she is going to this party they are hosting. He invites all of them to it and loves them because they are Americans.
They go to the party, but they do not see Delpy. Scott offers to go back to the house to see if she is there, but Buckman tells Scott to stay and he will go check. The men that are running the party are kind of weird. Buckman goes back to house and finds Delpy locked in a cell in the basement. Buckman lets her out and she knocks him out, putting him in the cell.
Delpy shows up to the party and takes Scott into the tunnels. The entrance is blocked off and the French that are throwing the party turn into werewolves. Delpy throws bricks at Scott until he runs and she turns into one herself. Vieluf is killed by a werewolf and Scott is bit as he escapes.
Buckman makes his escape from the cell to find that Lhermitte is strapped to a bed, with no legs and he is a werewolf. Buckman escapes through a window.
Scott wakes up in Delpy’s home. She tells him that she is a werewolf and so is he. He doesn’t believe it, but he is freaked when he sees Delpy’s dead mother, who is actually the nurse from An American Werewolf in London.
Scott meets with the police who think there is something up with him. He gets a craving for rare meat and is haunted by Vieluf. He tells him that he has to kill the werewolf that turned him. His animal instincts take over as he has sexual intercourse with Julie Bowen, another American. He kills her in a cemetery along with an inspector, played by Tom Novembre, who is tailing him.
He now believes he is a werewolf. He is tailed by the police, he must kill the werewolf that turned him, but he loves Delpy. All the while he has Bowen nagging at him, as she haunts him as well. He also learns that Cosso and his henchmen have a plot and a new drug that allow them to change whenever they want. Can Scott get his life back? Can he stop the werewolves before they do too much damage?
I have to say that I used to watch this all the time when I was younger. I remember watching it when I first came out. I was too young to fully appreciate the prequel. Now that I am older, I see some flaws in this one. I really like Vieluf, I think he is funny and he does well at the role of the dead spirit haunting Scott. I think Bowen is nice as the annoying ghost. Delpy doesn’t have much depth and not really that great. The story in this one is good, but I feel that it is too much like the prequel to be great. Cosso is also a good bad guy and I really like the werewolves’ plot. They aren’t hell bent on taking over the world, they just want to change whenever they can and they think they are superior. This concept adds a nice dimension to this film.
My problem is that they took a great black comedy horror film and they didn’t bring enough talent to do it again in this one. As I stated, it clings too much to original and doesn’t stand alone enough. Scott doesn’t do as well as his predecessor. We don’t get the vivid dreams that made the original creepy. I also think having the wolves be completely CGI took away from it as well. The original had a great transformation and looked real. This one doesn’t look horrible, but computers sometimes take away the believability. The same with the attack scenes, they show more due to more technology, but it is less scary than London. I think for the most part, the acting is pretty bland.
I would still give this one a viewing. There is an implied reference to London through Delpy’s mother, which I liked. The concept of what the werewolves are doing is good. The story is okay, the romance is more in this one, but it doesn’t have the same impact as the original had. I thought it was forced and unrealistic. With that said, this isn’t the worst werewolf film, but definitely it is enjoyable at least once.
My Rating: 5 out of 10