DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

Hell 1st Fur Wolfen

by Edouard Dauphin

"Little old lady got mutilated late last night. Werewolves in London again."

-Warren Zevon

Inexplicably, that 1978 song, perhaps the finest musical tribute to British lycanthropy ever recorded, is nowhere to be heard on the soundtrack of An American Werewolf In London, latest flick from John (Blues Brothers) Landis. But just about every other ditty concerning wolves or full moons gets an airing, with "Blue Moon" heard in three different versions. None of it helps. This movie should be fed to wolves.

Werewolf is in trouble from the firsthowl since it sports as its top star David Naughton, hitherto known only as the high-kicking boob of Dr. Pepper commercials. After a career of rhapsodizing about his product (Come on, Dave, isn't it just a teeth-rotting, pustule-causing soft drink?), he obviously felt it was time to move up to features. If this picture is indicative of his talent, watch for him soon in 30-second spots for Preparation H.

Naughton plays a Long Island Iunkhead backpacking in Blighty with his equally dim-witted friend, Griffin Dunne. In what is probably the film's only good scene, they take refuge from the oncoming night by dropping into a remote rural pub called The Slaughtered Lamb. This quaint place features a crudely drawn pentagram on the wall and taciturn regulars who scowl, slurp Guinness and cheat at darts. Kinda like Last Call, The Dauph's local bar on a good night.

Feeling unwelcome there, the Ugly Americans trudge across the moors only to be attacked by a snarling werewolf. Dunne is brutally savaged (no relation to John Savaged), while Naughton wakes up three weeks later in a London hospital. Surprises await him. His nurse is gorgeous Jenny Agutter, who has the hots for him, fang marks and all. And he is visited by a decomposing Dunne who hasn't died after all, but simply joined the ranks of the Undead. His chin halfrotted away, he confides to Naughton that "the Undead surround me." (I recall saying the same thing at a Ritchie Blackmore concert.)

Released from the hospital, Naughton is taken home and bedded by Agutter to the strains of Irish hippie Van Morrison singing “Moondance.” Dunne drops by again, looking like baked lasagna, and predicts that Naughton will soon turn into a prowling creature of the night and says that he must kill himself if Dunne is to be rescued from the Undead. Is that like the Uncola, Pepperhead wonders.

Of course, he ignores the warning. He even ignores Creedence Clearwater Revival singing “Bad Moon Rising” on the soundtrack. Does he turn into a werewolf and go on a bloody rampage the likes of which hasn’t been seen in London since Dave DiMartino’s Rockpile junket? Yes. Do you feel the slightest bit of sympathy for him? No. Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?

Skip An American Werewolf In London and wait for the sequel, A Canadian Werewolf In Birmingham.

☆ ☆ ☆

Dull, privileged white kids are in trouble again in Hell Night, a new horror movie starring Linda Blair. This one’s a blend c*

Funhouse, Terror Train and Prom Night—with a dash of TV’s Family Feud.

Seems there’s this college fraternity, Alpha Sigma Rho, that has a tradition of torturing pledges by forcing them to spend the night in a deserted mansion once inhabited by a family of maniacs, rhongoloids, deformities and a son named Andrew described only as a Dork. (No, the family is not the Bee Gees.) ,

Times must be rough at this college since only four pledges are in the running for frat acceptance. A sex junkie jock. A rich Bucky Dent clone. A boozy pillhead (who for some reason is English). And a demure chubette from the working class side of the tracks. If you have to ask which one survives, you clearly don’t know today’s low budget horror flick, the wages of sin aren’t just death but decapitation, spiked foreheads and lung removal.

And drool! Yes, sports fans, in the tradition of Funhouse, there’s drivel aplenty as Andrew The Dork, alive and well (he’d been living in the cellar with his dead siblings), rages like a Drool Fool through the entire confines of the mansion, lurching after Linda Blair like Ozzy Osbourne on the trail of chocolate covered lard.

Which brings to mind the last time The Dauphin saw Linda Blair, sidling up to a buffet bar at a Poly dor Records press bash. She avoided the guacomole dip—pretty fnteresting when you consider it was bilious green slime she fauceted out of her yap years earlier in The Exorcist. Later we all pelted her with enchiladas and she loved it!

But she’s grown up now. See Hell Night and wonder why she bothered.