An American Werewolf in London
Two American backpackers traveling through the English countryside encounter something terrifying on a dark rural road. As strange events begin to unfold, one survivor finds himself facing a horrifying transformation he cannot fully explain.
An American Werewolf in London — Plot Summary
The Moors
Two American graduate students from New York City, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are backpacking across the North York Moors in England. As night falls, they stop at a local pub called the Slaughtered Lamb seeking warmth and refreshment. Inside, Jack notices a five-pointed star—a pentagram—mounted on the pub's wall. When he asks the locals about its meaning, the pub-goers suddenly grow hostile and silent, making David and Jack uncomfortable enough to leave.
As the Americans depart, the pub-goers call after them with cryptic warnings: keep to the road, stay clear of the moors, and beware of the full moon. Despite these ominous warnings, David and Jack wander off the road and onto the moors in the darkness.
A vicious creature attacks them on the moorland. The beast savagely mauls Jack to death and severely injures David. Some concerned pub-goers who followed the pair onto the moors shoot and kill the creature. However, when David looks at the beast's corpse, he sees not an animal but a naked dead man lying next to him before he loses consciousness.
Hospital Recovery
David wakes up three weeks later in a London hospital. Inspector Villiers interviews him about the incident and informs David that the locals reported an escaped lunatic attacked him and Jack. David insists that a rabid dog or wolf attacked them, unable to reconcile what he saw with the official explanation.
While recovering, David begins experiencing disturbing visitations. Jack appears to him—but Jack is undead, his body showing decay and deterioration. Jack explains the truth: they were attacked by a werewolf. Since David was bitten and survived, he is now cursed to become a werewolf himself. Jack reveals his own curse: he is trapped in limbo, neither dead nor alive, and cannot move on to the afterlife until the werewolf's bloodline is severed—meaning David must die. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon to prevent harming innocent people.
Dr. Hirsch, David's physician, visits the Slaughtered Lamb to investigate, suspecting that David might have been psychologically influenced by local superstitions about werewolves. When Dr. Hirsch asks the pub-goers about the incident, they deny any knowledge of David, Jack, or the attack. However, one distraught pub-goer privately tells Dr. Hirsch that David will endanger other people when he transforms, confirming that the werewolf threat is real.
Living with Alex
Upon being released from the hospital, David has nowhere to stay in London. Alex Price, the nurse who cared for him during his recovery, offers to let David stay at her flat. Alex expresses concern about David's mental health, noting that he has been having hyper-realistic dreams and nightmares that blur the line between sleep and waking.
David develops a heightened sexual drive and successfully seduces Alex, beginning a romantic and sexual relationship. Jack appears again to David, now showing even more advanced decay with flesh rotting from his bones. Jack warns David that he will transform into a werewolf the following night when the full moon rises. He again advises David to commit suicide to prevent the inevitable carnage. David refuses to believe Jack's warnings, dismissing them as hallucinations or delusions.
When the full moon rises, David undergoes an agonizing transformation inside Alex's flat. His body contorts and reshapes itself as he becomes a werewolf. The werewolf prowls the streets of London and hunts through the London Underground, killing six people during the night. David wakes up the next morning naked on the floor of a wolf enclosure at the London Zoo with no memory of what happened during his transformation. He returns to Alex's flat, confused and disturbed.
Realization and Despair
After learning about the previous night's murders through news reports and realizing that he is responsible for the deaths, David attempts to get himself arrested in Trafalgar Square, hoping imprisonment will prevent future transformations. However, his attempts to provoke police intervention fail.
David calls his family in America to tell them he loves them, preparing for suicide. However, when he attempts to slit his wrists with a pocket knife, he loses his courage and cannot complete the act.
David spots Jack outside an adult cinema. Jack's decomposition has progressed dramatically—his skeleton is now visible through rotting flesh. Inside the cinema, Jack introduces David to the ghosts of his previous night's victims. The undead murder victims are furious with David. Some plead with him while others angrily suggest various suicide methods, desperate for David to kill himself so they can be freed from their undead limbo.
Final Transformation
While still inside the adult cinema, David transforms into a werewolf again. The beast decapitates Inspector Villiers, who had been investigating the murders. The werewolf then escapes into the streets, wreaking havoc throughout London. It kills several motorists and pedestrians, creating carnage and panic.
Police surround and trap the werewolf in an alleyway. Alex arrives at the scene and runs down the alley toward the cornered beast. She tries to calm David by professing her love for him, hoping her voice and presence can reach his human consciousness trapped inside the monster.
Although David's consciousness briefly emerges and recognizes Alex, the werewolf's savage nature takes over. The beast lunges toward Alex to attack her. The police have no choice but to shoot David dead to protect Alex and end the rampage.
David's body reverts from werewolf form back to his naked human form in front of Alex. She mourns over his corpse as police and onlookers surround them in the alleyway.
An American Werewolf in London — Ending Explained
The ending demonstrates that love cannot overcome the werewolf curse despite Alex's belief that her feelings could reach David's humanity, with the beast's lunge toward her forcing police to kill the only person David cared about protecting. David's brief moment of recognition before the beast takes control suggests his consciousness exists within the werewolf but lacks power to control its actions, making him both perpetrator and victim of the murders he commits.
The film's conclusion that David must be killed rather than cured or contained reflects the werewolf curse's inevitability—once bitten, transformation and death are unavoidable outcomes with no possibility of redemption or medical intervention. Jack and the murder victims' releases from limbo through David's death validates the supernatural rules established earlier, suggesting the curse operates through metaphysical bloodlines rather than disease transmission that science could address.
David's transformation back to human form after death emphasizes the tragedy that the monster and the man are the same person, with Alex mourning not an animal she helped destroy but the man she loved who was forced to become a killer. The public setting of his death means David dies exposed and humiliated rather than peacefully, with his naked human corpse surrounded by strangers as final indignity.
The failure of David's suicide attempts despite knowing he would kill again suggests that self-preservation instinct cannot be overridden even when morally necessary, and that expecting victims of curses to sacrifice themselves requires superhuman courage most people lack. His victims' angry demands for his suicide acknowledge this difficulty while maintaining that his continued existence causes their suffering.
An American Werewolf in London — FAQ
Is the transformation scene considered groundbreaking?
Yes. The 1981 transformation sequence, created by makeup artist Rick Baker without CGI, is considered one of cinema's most influential special effects achievements. Baker won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup for this film. The scene's combination of practical effects, makeup, animatronics, and body suits to show David's painful transformation set new standards for horror film effects and influenced decades of subsequent werewolf movies.
What do the undead victims represent?
The undead victims trapped in limbo represent the consequences of David's curse extending beyond his own suffering to innocent people. Their various states of decay and damage reflect how they died, while their desperate pleas for David to kill himself create moral pressure that suicide is his responsibility. The victims function both as David's guilty conscience made visible and as evidence that supernatural curses create cascading harm beyond the initial victim.
Why does David see Jack in progressively worse decay?
Jack's advancing decomposition visualizes the passage of time and the unnatural state of limbo he occupies—neither alive nor properly dead. Each appearance shows more skeletal remains as his corpse undergoes the decay it would experience if buried, emphasizing that Jack's consciousness is trapped in a rotting body. The progressive decay also increases horror and urgency, making Jack's warnings more visceral and disturbing.
What is the significance of the five-pointed star?
The pentagram on the pub wall is a traditional protective symbol against evil, particularly werewolves in folklore. The pub-goers' hostile reaction to Jack asking about it suggests they know about the werewolf threat and use the symbol for protection, but don't want to discuss it with outsiders. The pentagram establishes that the locals are aware of supernatural dangers on the moors but choose secrecy over warning strangers adequately.