Sixteen years after An American Werewolf in London perfected the horror-comedy alchemy, someone decided what the formula really needed was more CGI and a nightclub subplot.
Directed by Anthony Waller, An American Werewolf in Paris attempts to update the mythos for the late ’90s—an era when extreme sports were character traits and techno music could solve narrative problems.
Spoiler: it cannot.
From Practical Terror to Digital Fur
Where John Landis’ original thrived on practical transformation horror, this sequel leans heavily into early CGI. The result is… ambitious for 1997. The werewolves move with hyperactive elasticity, bounding across rooftops like rejected video game assets.
The physical agony that made the 1981 transformation so iconic is replaced by glossy digital morphing. It’s less painful. Also less convincing.
Progress, apparently, is not linear.
The Backpacker Upgrade
Tom Everett Scott plays Andy, another American tourist who makes the classic cinematic mistake of interfering in a mysterious European suicide attempt—this one involving Julie Delpy as Serafine.
Delpy brings an enigmatic charm that the script doesn’t fully support. Scott delivers earnest enthusiasm, though the film’s tonal inconsistency rarely lets him settle into anything resembling depth.
The chemistry is passable. The mythology is muddled.
Horror-Comedy Without the Balance
The film attempts to blend romance, slapstick, creature feature chaos, and late-’90s youth culture. Unfortunately, it never quite calibrates the mix. The humor feels broader. The horror feels softer. The satire—if present—barely registers.
There are flashes of atmospheric promise in nighttime Parisian settings. Rooftop chases. Moonlit bridges. But they’re quickly overwhelmed by pacing that treats tension as optional.
The Legacy Problem
Sequels to cult classics face a cruel paradox: lean too close to the original, and you’re redundant; stray too far, and you lose what mattered. An American Werewolf in Paris does a bit of both, landing somewhere in franchise purgatory.
It’s not aggressively terrible. It’s just… toothless.
The Verdict
An American Werewolf in Paris is a late-’90s creature feature that trades practical horror for digital spectacle—with uneven results. It has energy, occasional charm, and a few atmospheric beats, but it never captures the sharp wit or genuine dread of its predecessor.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 questionable transformations.
A reminder that some curses shouldn’t be rebooted without a very good reason—and perhaps a practical effects team on standby.
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