Headscratchers / An American Werewolf in London

• David says, "that his memory is fine" regarding the attack on the moors. Except, he doesn't remember the dead man (werewolf in human form) on the ground next to him; naked and bleeding; where the werewolf used to be after it got shot.
  • He was lying or misremembering from shock.
• David has claw-marks on his left cheek, and also on his chest, but the werewolf never clawed him there. It didn't even bite him, it just clawed him.
  • Maybe he clawed himself?
• The locals tell David and Jack to stay on the road and to keep clear of the moors to prevent the werewolf from attacking them which doesn't make sense because it could still attack them on the road.
  • Maybe the werewolf instinctively avoids the road because of cars. Even if it's not run over, a car could easily escape and draw attention to the werewolf's existence. Plus, you have to figure that an animalistic monster is more likely to stick to the wilderness as opposed to more urban areas.
  • The locals also don't tell the boys to stay there, so "don't leave the road" may have just been a token warning to make themselves feel better about preventing an attack. That way if they do get attacked, they can absolve themselves of blame with "we said stay on the road, it's their own fault".
• Was David actually a werewolf or was it all in his head like metaphorically he lost his sanity or something cause when he dies at the end they don't show him transforming back into human form and Alex doesn't even display a shocked expression, so did he just go insane.
  • Just because they don't show a full transformation doesn't mean anything, as they may have just not had the budget to do it again. Also, a human being cannot easily decapitate another person, especially by biting. Bit too much of a reach there...
  • The first werewolf also instantly reverted back to human after being killed without a gradual transformation.
  • He was most definitely a werewolf. Dying as Yourself is a big part of werewolf mythology.
• I hope someone gets around to this sometime soon; so, the townsfolk at the Slaughtered Lamb knows there's a werewolf out there, right? Why is it that they never did anything about it? They shoot the thing dead with little difficulty as it's attacking David, so why in all the time that that thing was lurking in the moors did they never try to hunt it down since the film shows it's clearly doable?
  • Possibly the original werewolf was one of their neighbors, and was well-liked enough (when human-shaped) that they were reluctant to execute the man for something that wasn't his fault. The locals knew when to lock themselves away for safety, so perhaps the occasional dismembered sheep was deemed a reasonable cost for not having to murder a friend.
  • Maybe they don't actually know who the werewolf is, and worry that if they went after it and failed, whoever it was would be able to return the favour considerably once they were back in human form.
  • And just because killing it is doable, it's not like they'd actually want to. A werewolf has to be hunted at night, and in a rural location like that, it's considerably darker than a city. It's also extremely easy to get lost on the moors at night, especially in the early 80s without GPS, smartphones etc. Going after the werewolf also not only risks certain death (it's an unpredictable wild animal) but you getting bitten and becoming one yourself. Their solution to keeping safely locked away every full moon may have seemed like an easier option - possibly with the hope that the werewolf might move on to another location.
  • The BBC Radio play gives more time to the residents of East Procter as Brian Glover (the chess player) has a significantly expanded role, and his character is given the name of "George Hackett". This version of the story reveals that George is the town constable and that the original werewolf is his brother, who had genuinely escaped from a lunatic asylum on the night of the full moon.
    The Radio Play can listened to on YouTube
    • And perhaps in the past they did try to hunt it, but it just killed a bunch of them or infected them.
  • It looks very much like they'd been in extreme denial up until the point that David and Jack got into town. The woman at the bar even has second thoughts as soon as they leave and is trying to urge the others to go with her to warn them. It's possible they were okay with staying silent when it was only them at risk - as they knew the dangers and the precautions needed to stay safe. But when it came to two innocent young guys, that was the last straw. Morbidly, they only had a good shot at it because it was distracted going after David and Jack.
• Was David in control near the end by pretending to attack Alex to get the police to kill him or was the werewolf in control?
  • It could be either or. We ultimately know very little about whether a werewolf can ever keep their head while transformed. But it does seem to be more that Alex was able to reach him for a moment, but the wolf took over.
• Anyone who's been hospitalized and unconscious for three weeks would need to be hooked up to an IV and catheter. Nurse Gallagher's comment about having "had a look" at David's privates shouldn't have invited criticism from the others, as it'd be among the nurses' daily duties to check that the catheter remains in place.
  • Looking at his penis is part of her job. Gossiping about it to other nurses afterwards isn't.
• One problem at the end: when the firing squad kills werewolf David, Alex was standing right in front of them when they did. How did she not get hit too?
  • She's standing still and they're using rifles with telescopic sights. It also appears that only the officers who can actually see the wolf fire, as there are only 3 or 4 shots.
  • Alex's attempts at calming David do also give them a chance to set up the shots. So by the time he moves again, they're aimed and ready to fire.
• Come to think of it.... In the final scene, how does Alex suddenly know that the werewolf cornered by the police was David? For all everyone else knew, it was just a giant, bloodthirsty mad dog. Not to mention, throughout the movie until that point, she didn't even believe in David's ramblings about being a werewolf.
  • No dog is that big.
    • A Great Dane / Mastiff mix? Or perhaps a Caucasian, which can easily reach 200 pounds (the weight of an adult human) and are known for being especially prone to biting humans and going out of control if not trained correctly?
  • But has Alex ever actually heard of that breed?
  • She does cry out "David? Is it you?" like she's still not sure what the creature is. She tries to talk it down because she's not convinced either way, and it's his reversion to human form after dying that confirms it was all true. Hence, the intensity of her reaction as she bursts into tears: it's not just that the cute guy she's known for a week is dead, it's that her world-view is shattered as well.
  • The animal stands, walks and crouches more like a bear or lion, not a dog.
  • Alex is in disbelief at first until they hear about the six murders that happened the previous night - that had to have been done by a wild animal that couldn't have just wandered into the city out of nowhere. On the same night, David also disappeared for hours, and can't remember anything about where he was or what he did. Add that to the already very unusual evidence surrounding the case, vouched for by Dr Hirsch, who she'd know and trust well enough to know he wouldn't make such assumptions lightly. So Alex would have reason to believe that David could have been telling the truth, and if he was, then maybe she could reach him and save him.
• Jack said his spirit was trapped in limbo until the werewolf that killed his bloodline was severed...so back to the dawn of time no other werewolf in David's bloodline had taken a life before Jack? Shouldn't there be an army of ghouls?
  • Possibly there are, but David just can't see the ones whose deaths he didn't personally cause or witness. Jack does imply he's been talking to other dead people even before David's first rampage.
  • It is possible they can choose to appear, seeing as David doesn't see them all the time, and the longer dead ones don't bother anymore, seeing as they have probably tried to plead the werewolves to kill themselves for a very long time, but got fed up of them never listening, at most these days they just give pointers to the first new dead guy and tell them to deal with it, hence how Jack suddenly became Mr. Exposition after only being dead for a few weeks.
  • Yep, they can choose to appear. The man David killed on the underground is said to have insisted on seeing him personally, despite Jack not wanting him to. It's only David's victims that appear to him, possibly because the ones who don't have a personal connection to him don't see the point - or else it's been so long in limbo that they don't care as much about moving on.
• On a related note, if the victims of a werewolf are condemned to walk the Earth in Limbo, why didn't the other werewolf - the one who infected David - turn up as a ghost as well? Presumably he was attacked at some point in the past also, and David did get to personally witness his death. Does being shot dead as a werewolf not qualify as an "unnatural death", or is it that being killed in defense of one's latest victim is justifiable homicide, not murder?
  • Possibly werewolves get a "pass" and their spirits move on.
  • Or perhaps they manifest to others only if they chose to, and the one who attacked David didn't want to.
• Where was David's family in all of this? The poor guy spends three weeks in the hospital and there's never any indication that his parents came to check up on him. The only people who came from the States was Jack's family. Even after David is discharged his family doesn't try to reach him, and when he later calls home his sibling seems less than interested in talking to him. Why wouldn't they try to check up on him when he was unconscious for three weeks and his best friend had died?
  • At best, it's mentioned that his family made arrangements to wire money to the hospital to pay for his treatment. But yeah, that's pretty much it.
  • David is too battered, medicated and confused to continue the initial conversation with his doctor and the American liaison for more than a few minutes. He probably did talk to his parents long-distance once he woke up fully, we just don't see the conversation.
  • Well, a transatlantic flight is pretty expensive. And then once they get there, they need to stay somewhere and pay for necessities as well. Maybe they were waiting for more decisive news on David - him waking up or that he was unlikely to - before flying out. It's just that David wakes up and is perfectly fine, so he chooses to stay in London for a while.
• Shouldn't Alex have immediately found it suspicious to come home and find her flat door open, David missing, and his abandoned clothes (complete with ripped T-shirt) scattered all over the living room...? Especially since David probably didn't bring more than, at most, two sets of clothing with him for his backpacking trip, none of which are unaccounted-for. Yet Alex doesn't seem to have reported a possible abduction to the police, who are merely said to be "looking" for David, not searching her flat for clues to his disappearance.
  • Alex was working a night shift, so maybe she came home extremely tired and thought it was just unusual. Maybe she'd assumed that David chose to go out by himself and went to bed assuming she'd see him in the morning. She probably did find it suspicious but didn't put it all together until later.
• In the second excerpt from See You Next Wednesday (the porn flick), the topless woman answers the phone, says there's no one there by that name, and hangs up. There's a hand visible on the bed behind her, which is completely still and very pale-looking. Is the hand supposed to look dead, as if she'd literally screwed the guy she was with to death and then lied on the phone to deny her victim was ever there, or is it just more Stylistic Suck that the hand has too-pale makeup on...?
• Why did the pub goers kick David and Jack out, they know there is a werewolf out there, and obviously having 5 pointed stars carved into pub walls isn't a common practice, but everyone just gets mad they asked an innocuous question that could have been easily answered with "always been done, it's tradition" which is a general country folk excuse for out of place things, hell, they even use that very excuse to the Doctor who comes to investigate.
  • It's David that makes the decision to leave, they're not forced out. The people in the pub don't stop them leaving but they quickly demonstrate guilt and shame for not trying to.
  • The villagers barricade the door soon after the guys leave, and hole up in the pub with their guns. They probably do that at nightfall every time there's a full moon, for safety. So long as Jack and David are there, they can't take their usual precautions without the boys seeing what they're doing, and the villagers don't want a couple of tourists to know their business.
  • Well that's why they're right there to shoot the werewolf when it attacks. They realise they can't just barricade themselves inside and leave two innocent young boys to the mercy of it - so they go back out to warn David and Jack and end up finding the wolf already with them.
• When David has his first encounter with Jack's ghost, Jack has been dead for three weeks. Why does he look like a "fresh kill and still pretty messy" after all that time?
  • Perhaps Jack wanted to emphasize all the exposition he was giving out, or make it clear to David that yes, the werewolf attack (and the consequences thereof) did happen.
• How exactly did David end up at the wolf enclosure? Did the wolf form just go there by its own accord after sensing other wolves? Surely the animal catchers couldn't handle a wolf as aggressive and demonic-looking as the one David became.
  • He gets back out through a section of the bars that seem to have been broken off, so presumably he did indeed go in there as a werewolf to be with other wolves.
• Why does David transform two nights in a row? Full moons only last one night, and the film seems firmly entrenched in the "transforming only on the full moon" variety of werewolf.
  • The werewolf didn't account for David being American.
  • Some werewolf myths say that they transform on all three nights of the cycle.

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