Sometimes the work of one of the creative department is so excellent that it overshadows the rest of the work. Which I find is a good thing here because the rest of the creative work, beyond make-up/animatronics SFX, is not very good.
Let's not put the blame on the cast: they are all very good. So fine actors from a nice casting with nice direction. Unfortunately the script errs on the tongue-in-cheek side, a common fault after the demand for slasher movies developed in the seventies and the common misconception that so-called horror movies are meant to entertain teens who are fast to laugh for fear they would get sucked too deep into the movie.
So teens' forced laughs are not an indication that horror should be mixed with comedy! Polanski tried this back in 1967 (because he thought he was too smart to take horror seriously) in the Fearless Vampire Killers and his spoof just felt too long and protracted. All the nice horrendous settings just fell flat, exactly like it does here.
When the horror starts building up a fascinating atmosphere John Landis's script waters it down by merging it into a story arc about the undead (seriously? We should empathize with the past victims rather than be scared about who's next?) and a little romance to round it off.
From a marketing point of view this is a killer-thriller deal. A technical tour de force as a publicity workhorse plus a blend of everything studio executives might want to comply with customer surveys (comedy, romance, exotic punk London...) and you get the perfect date movie of 1981. He dares her to come watch it and she gets more than just haemoglobin and jump scares in return.
Makes me want to check back on the Howling which I remembered more as a horror movie (but I was a teen then). Anyway the assistant make-up/SFX designer there went on to do stellar work in a movie that is on the horror level: The Thing (1982).
Let's not put the blame on the cast: they are all very good. So fine actors from a nice casting with nice direction. Unfortunately the script errs on the tongue-in-cheek side, a common fault after the demand for slasher movies developed in the seventies and the common misconception that so-called horror movies are meant to entertain teens who are fast to laugh for fear they would get sucked too deep into the movie.
So teens' forced laughs are not an indication that horror should be mixed with comedy! Polanski tried this back in 1967 (because he thought he was too smart to take horror seriously) in the Fearless Vampire Killers and his spoof just felt too long and protracted. All the nice horrendous settings just fell flat, exactly like it does here.
When the horror starts building up a fascinating atmosphere John Landis's script waters it down by merging it into a story arc about the undead (seriously? We should empathize with the past victims rather than be scared about who's next?) and a little romance to round it off.
From a marketing point of view this is a killer-thriller deal. A technical tour de force as a publicity workhorse plus a blend of everything studio executives might want to comply with customer surveys (comedy, romance, exotic punk London...) and you get the perfect date movie of 1981. He dares her to come watch it and she gets more than just haemoglobin and jump scares in return.
Makes me want to check back on the Howling which I remembered more as a horror movie (but I was a teen then). Anyway the assistant make-up/SFX designer there went on to do stellar work in a movie that is on the horror level: The Thing (1982).