An American Werewolf in Paris

An American Werewolf in Paris
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anthony Waller
Screenplay by	Anthony Waller Tim Burns Tom Stern
Produced by	Richard Claus
Starring	Tom Everett Scott Julie Delpy Vince Vieluf Phil Buckman Julie Bowen
Cinematography	Egon Werdin
Edited by	Peter R. Adam
Music by	Wilbert Hirsch
Production companies	Hollywood Pictures Propaganda Films J&M Entertainment Cometstone Pictures Avora Media Delux Productions
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date	December 25, 1997 (1997-12-25)
Running time	105 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom Netherlands Luxembourg United States France
Languages	English French
Budget	$25 million
Box office	$26,570,463

An American Werewolf in Paris is a 1997 comedy-horror film directed by Anthony Waller and starring Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy. The film was in development for 6 years and follows the general concept of, and is a sequel to, 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

Andy McDermott is a tourist 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 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. That night, Andy, Chris, and Brad attend a night club called "Club de la Lune". The club's owner, Claude, is actually the leader of a werewolf society that uses the club as a way to lure people in to be killed. Serafine arrives, tells Andy to run away and transforms into a werewolf. The club owners transform into werewolves as well and butcher all the guests. Chris escapes but is later kidnapped by Claude, Brad's heart is eaten by a werewolf and Andy is bitten by another werewolf.

The next day, Andy wakes up at Serafine's house. He is still in shock, but Serafine allows him to feel her breasts to calm him down. She tells him he's transforming into a werewolf. This is inturupted by the sudden appearance of Alex's ghost. Andy leaves and soon Brad's 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; in order for Brad's ghost to be at rest, the werewolf that ate his heart must be killed too. Andy hooks up with an American tourist named Amy, but transforms and kills her. Andy also kills a cop who had been tailing him, suspecting Andy was involved in the Club de la Lune massacre. Andy is arrested but escapes. He begins to see Amy's ghost as well, and she begins trying to kill him.

Claude and his henchmen ask Andy to join their society, but to prove his loyalty, Andy must kill Chris. Serafine rescues Andy, explaining that her father prepared a drug to control werewolf transformations, but instead the drug forces werewolves to immediately transform into their beast form, as a result she killed her mother and savaged her stepfather. Claude and the other werewolves then raid Serafine's stepfather's lab and kill him, taking the drug to transform immediately.

Serafine and Andy learn of a Fourth of July party Claude has planned and infiltrate it. They help the partygoers escape and Andy manages to kill the werewolf that ate Brad's heart, thus setting Brad free. The cops arrive and a fight ensues. Andy and Serafine manage to kill many werewolves, with Serafine shifting to her beast form to fight when she runs out of ammunition. During a fight between Serafine and Claude, Andy shoots one of the wolves but it turns out that he has shot Serafine.

Claude makes his way onto a subway train, but slips onto the tracks. A train slams into him, causing him to transform back to a human. He tries to take another dose of the drug, but Andy stops him. As they fight, Andy discovers that Claude is the werewolf that bit him. Andy then kills him and eats his heart, breaking the werewolf curse. By some miracle, Serafine survives.

The film ends with Serafine and Andy celebrating their wedding atop the Statue of Liberty with Andy's pal Chris, who survives. They bungee jump off it as the credits roll.

In an alternate ending, after Andy eats Claude's heart, Serafine has a vision of her father in the back of an ambulance, explaining how he found a cure before his death. The new closing scene shows Serafine and Andy having a child, whose eyes shift to look like the werewolves'.

Cast

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

Trivia

• It is believed that being born a werewolf, that Serafine has a small bit of control of her werewolf side. After she kills another werewolf and sees Andy, she doesn't attack him, but acts as if she recognizes him. The same thing happened to David in the first film when Alex tells him she loves him and he hesitates for a brief moment before charging at her.

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 IMDb
• An American Werewolf in Paris at AllMovie
• An American Werewolf in Paris at Box Office Mojo
• An American Werewolf in Paris at Rotten Tomatoes