There’s no better time than right now to watch a horror movie, and every streaming service is well aware when fans want to dive into the genre. The classic 1980s horror movie Poltergeist has made its way back onto a major streaming platform, while Peacock has carved out a corner full of classic movies for horror fans of all ages. All the streaming platforms that require a subscription have made tons of new additions for the Halloween season, but the truth of the matter is that the best movie back online in October is on a free platform.
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With October now in full swing, one of the best new additions to streaming this month is none other than 1981’s An American Werewolf in London. The monster movie has returned to streaming on Tubi, where it can be watched for free with ads. Fandango at Home and The Roku Channel also have the film available for free with ads, while library users can watch it on Kanopy as well. Despite being a Universal Pictures release, the film cannot be found on Universal’s streaming service, Peacock.
An American Werewolf in London’s Effects Stand the Test of Time
An American Werewolf in London made an immediate impact on the horror genre upon its release for one profound reason: the make-up effects and creature design by Rick Baker. In the film, Baker’s work is not only the giant werewolf animatronic itself, which has a unique design across all of cinema’s lycanthropes, but most importantly, the transformation sequence where David’s body stretches, contorts, and breaks to become the beast itself.
The scene stands out as the most dynamic werewolf transformation in film history, with previous notable werewolf movies having the transformation either take place off-screen or use camera tricks to cut between new applications of make-up. With American Werewolf, Baker showed that the curse of becoming this monster is one that is not only incredibly painful but also one that manipulates the body into shapes and forms that it should never be in. As a result of his work on the film, Baker was awarded the first-ever competitive Academy Award in the Best Makeup category, a prize he won six more times, becoming the record holder for most wins (7) and nominations (11).
An American Werewolf in London Remains the Peak Horror-Comedy
An American Werewolf in London is not only the standard bearer for creature effects in a horror movie, but is the rubric by which horror comedy movies as a whole are still held up to. The performances by David Naughton as David Kessler and Griffin Dunne as Jack Goodman are tremendous, of course, as the pair bob and weave between the varying tones at the heart of the movie, but they’re not alone in making both the laughs and the scares for the movie work.
Two other major components of the movie are Jenny Agutter as Alex Price, the nurse who befriends and falls in love with Naughton’s character, and John Woodvine as Dr. J.S. Hirsch, the physician who becomes obsessed with figuring out what really happened to David out on the moors. Both carry not only tremendous dramatic weight, Agutter carrying the personal relationship and trauma, and Hirsch pondering the truth of the matter, but both are also quite funny (Woodvine’s attempt at getting out of a phone call by asking his secretary to tell them he’s “passed away” is just one of countless little jokes).
Even further into the cast are characters that manage to make the comedy and horror of American Werewolf work so well. Michael Carter (best known as Bib Fortuna in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi) has a terrifying chase sequence on a London tube station, one punctuated by jokes such as his assertion that the creepy sounds he hears are “not in the least bit amusing.” There’s also Brian Glover, the loudmouth chess player in the Slaughtered Lamb, who waffles between boisterous jokes and timid fear. Even Frank Oz, the voice of Miss Piggy and director of Little Shop of Horrors, makes a hilarious appearance.
New Movies Streaming on Tubi
An American Werewolf is just one of several horror movies that made their way onto Tubi in time for the Halloween season in October. Monster movie fans can not only watch Landis’ movie but also find new additions like the spider-fueled Arachnophobia, Robert Rodriguez’s vampire western From Dusk Till Dawn, plus the comic book adaptation, 30 Days of Night. Tubi has also brought in two well-regarded American remakes, 2002’s The Ring and 2004’s The Grudge. Furthermore, the first three movies in the Saw franchise are now streaming as well.
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