This year's Halloween coincides with the release of Michael Jackson's posthumous concert film This Is It. The pop star's passing has already been marked around the world by massed restagings of the zombie dance routine from Jackson's ground-breaking Thriller video, for which Jackson recruited John Landis after the American director's classic 1981 horror-comedy American Werewolf in London. That film set a new standard for pre-digital special effects, care of Rick Baker's Oscar-winning makeup work.
Just as Thriller lives again in the wake of Jackson's death, American Werewolf in London is howling again on a new blu-ray release. A phone call finds Landis back in London where he is preparing his next film, Burke and Hare, about two Victorian bodysnatchers and serial killers which stars Simon Pegg and which Landis describes as a "romantic comedy".
What is it about Britain that brings this side out in you?
That's funny. It's not a horror film. This is a comedy. This was a script in the great [British comedy studio] Ealing tradition, very black comedy, kind of like Kind Hearts and Coronets.
From the outside it would sound more like a Hammer Horror. They are one of those legends like Jack the Ripper.
They are well known in Britain, but not that well known in the United States. Say "Burke and Hare" there and they will think you are talking about a law firm.
Releasing a special effects-heavy movie like American Werewolf on blu-ray - if you get that much more clarity does it work against the movie?
That is what I was concerned about, that it would hurt some of the makeup stuff. But in fact - in tribute to Rick Baker - it looks better. It's extraordinary.
Was it meant to be a horror or a comedy or did it just end up a happy collision of both?
Well, in my mind it's certainly a horror film, it's not a happy story. The first time we see these boys they are in a truckload of sheep and then they go to the Slaughtered Lamb [pub]. It's not subtle. It's pretty traditional kind of horror movie or monster movie but it is very, very funny. I wouldn't call it a comedy.
Of all your films, is it just another or a particular favourite?
Well, it's a movie I wrote when I was very young. I wrote it when I was 18. And it took forever to get made - I wrote it in 1969 and I made it in 1981.
And it led to the Thriller video and Michael Jackson which has, of course, been everywhere of late.
That little film is amazing. For some reason the Thriller dance is performed all the time at strange venues - people do it at their weddings and birthdays, just the oddest times. Have you seen that insane clip with the 3000 Filipino prisoners? It's nuts.
Like American Werewolf, it's a classic. You had a good run there in the 80s.
Well I've actually been very lucky - The Blues Brothers is still being shown theatrically. Animal House and Trading Places. I've made a lot of movies that are still in circulation. So I have been lucky.
And some years later there was Jackson's Black and White clip, which then was also quite something.
It was the first time anyone had seen CGI-morphing. That was because in 1972 I met John Whitney, who was really the father of computer animation, to ask him if it was possible. And he said it was possible but we didn't have the brainpower yet. So when I did that film with Michael years later I thought they must be able to do this. They created the software for that film to do the morphing and it's ironic because now you can go buy it and do it on a laptop.
I only worked with Mike twice. I was called in on Black and White. A company called Propaganda had made a big deal with Sony/CBS to produce all of the videos for the Dangerous album and they were having trouble because Michael wasn't showing up and they were losing money. I was called by them to come in and do one because they thought Michael would show up for me. So that was different.
Thriller was mine. I could do whatever I wanted and it was fun. This one I was much more of an employee. In fact I insisted on being paid weekly. Thriller had a huge impact on a number of different businesses. None of it intentional, by the way. It basically made MTV and it proved the viability of selling records through these videos ... and selling videos too, it changed the business.
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