Independent Films, Film Profiles

An American Werewolf in Paris

An American Werewolf in Paris is a 1997 horror/comedy about werewolves. It was directed by Anthony Waller and starred 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.In the opening scene, a man is seen under attack, almost managing an escape from the Parisian sewers before an unseen creature pulls him back. Meanwhile, tourist Andy McDermott is seeing the sights of Paris with his friends Brad and Chris. When Serafine Pigot 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 offspring of the couple seen 16 years ago in the earlier 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 called like that, because that night was a full moon in the sky. The owners of the club were actually members of a werewolves's society, which wanted to kill and eat all the guests. Serafine told Andy to run away (in that scene, Serafine is seen transforming into a werewolf). When Andy is running it is seen a werewolf chasing him and when 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. Serafine explains that her stepfather (seen in the film's opening scene) has been working on a drug to control her werewolf transformations. The real cure lay in killing and eating the heart of the werewolf that bit him.