An American Werewolf in Paris is a 1997 comedy horror film directed by Anthony Waller, co-written by Tim Burns, Tom Stern, and Waller, and starring Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy. It follows the general concept of, and is a sequel to John Landis' film An American Werewolf in London. The film is an international co-production between companies from the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United States.
The film's title has its roots in the production of its predecessor; when production of the original London film ran into trouble with British Equity, director John Landis, having scouted locations in Paris, considered moving the production to France and changing the title of his film to An American Werewolf in Paris. Unlike its predecessor, which was distributed by Universal, it was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures.
Plot[]
Andy McDermott is a tourist seeing the sights of Paris with his friends Brad and Chris. When Serafine Pigot leaps off the Eiffel Tower just before Andy is about to bungee jump, he executes a mid-air rescue. She vanishes into the night, leaving Andy intrigued. That night, Andy, Chris, and Brad attend Club de la Lune, a nightclub hosted by Serafine's friend Claude. Serafine is not present, so Chris volunteers to go back to her house. He frees her from a cell in the basement and is locked in it. He escapes after finding a legless werewolf confined to a bed. The club's owner, Claude, is actually the leader of a werewolf society that uses the club as a way to lure in people to be killed. Serafine arrives, tells Andy to run away, and transforms into a werewolf. The club owners transform into werewolves as well and butcher all the guests, including Brad.
The next day, Andy wakes up at Serafine's house. She tells him he is transforming into a werewolf. This revelation is interrupted by the ghost of Serafine's mother. Andy jumps out the window in panic and runs away. Chris tries to get his attention, but Claude kidnaps him. Brad's ghost appears to Andy and explains his werewolf condition. For Andy to become normal again, he must eat the heart of the werewolf that bit him, and for Brad's ghost to be at rest, the werewolf that killed him must be killed. After developing an appetite for raw meat, Andy hooks up with American tourist Amy Finch at a cemetery. He transforms and kills her and a cop who tailed him, suspecting Andy was involved in the Club de la Lune massacre. Andy is arrested but escapes. He begins to see Amy's ghost, who tries to find ways to get him killed.
Claude and his henchmen capture Andy and pressure him to join their society, but Andy must kill Chris to prove his loyalty. Serafine again saves him, and they return to her home to find her basement ransacked and her stepfather, the confined werewolf, dead. Her stepfather prepared a drug to control werewolf transformations, but it had the opposite effect: forced transformation. As a result of testing on Serafine, she killed her mother and savaged her stepfather. Claude stole the drugs during the ransacking.
Andy and Serafine learn of a Fourth of July party Claude has planned and infiltrate it. They try to help the people escape but flee after seeing that police have entered. Claude and his men inject themselves with the drug and slaughter almost all the guests. Andy and Serafine flee after killing a werewolf and setting Brad's spirit free. Serafine takes the drug to fight another werewolf when they become separated. Andy encounters them and, not knowing who is who, accidentally shoots her, leaving her to be found by the police. A werewolf then attacks him, chasing him down to an underground train track. The train stops due to it hitting the werewolf. It gets on the train where it attacks the driver and several passengers. The drug wears off, revealing Claude as the werewolf. Claude tries to inject himself with the last vial but is interrupted by Andy. In the ensuing fight, Andy finds that Claude is the culprit behind his infection. The two struggle to obtain the last vial of the drug, and Andy is accidentally injected. After transforming, Andy kills Claude and eats his heart, thus ending his own curse and presumably Serafine's (this point is not clarified since earlier in the movie Serafine implied that Claude had stolen her blood to become a werewolf. In an alternate ending, after Andy eats Claude's heart, Serafine has a vision of her stepfather in the back of an ambulance, explaining how he found a cure before his death). An ambulance transports her to the hospital.
Serafine and Andy celebrate their wedding atop the Statue of Liberty with Andy's pal Chris, who survived. They bungee jump off when Chris accidentally drops the wedding ring from the statue.
Cast[]
- Tom Everett Scott as Andy McDermott
- Julie Delpy as Sérafine Pigot McDermott
- Vince Vieluf as Brad
- Phil Buckman as Chris
- Julie Bowen as Amy Finch
- Pierre Cosso as Claude
- Tom Novembre as Inspector LeDuc
- Thierry Lhermitte as Thierry Pigot
- Anthony Waller as Metro Driver
- Isabelle Constantini as Serafine's Mother