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Interview with Beware the Moon Director Paul Davis
By Heather Wixson An American Werewolf in London (AWIL) is probably one of most revered horror movies of the 80s- a movie that intelligently mixed the horror and comedy genres, brilliantly shot by iconic director John Landis, and a film that literally changed the face of special effects in movies with what I argue is the most realistic werewolf morphing scene ever captured on film, orchestrated by the legendary Rick Baker. How the movie escaped the documentary treatment until now, I will never know. One London filmmaker, 27-year-old Paul Davis, took on the challenge of telling the story behind the masterpiece and the result is Beware the Moon: Remembering An American Werewolf in London, which will be a part of the 2009 Blu-Ray release of AWIL. For the British, AWIL is probably one of the most realistic portrayals of the fine city of London- where it’s not just a “destination”  but a place where real people live their lives and maybe that’s why the film is so important to them.
“I think primarily because its one of the few movies that doesn't marvel over the London landscapes like a Japanese tourist,” commented Davis. “It shows the side of London that we who live there see everyday... the shit weather, the varied cultures... you don't hear the 'Rule Britania' every two seconds. It's just very real and respectful to what London really is, a place where people live as well as a place riddled with landmarks - with the emphasis placed on the former.” Davis himself grew up loving film, especially the art of storytelling that comes from movies. Once he graduated in 2003 with his BA Honors degree in Cinema History, he took his time in finding the right project to put himself into, just so he wasn’t making a movie for the sake of making a movie. In the meantime, he was freelance writing with HorrorHound Magazine, and it was in 2006 when the puzzle pieces began to come together for the Beware the Moon documentary idea. “I was doing an article for issue 5 of HorrorHound in October ’06 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of AWIL and the more I learned about the extraordinary production and all the different and interesting stories about it, the more it started to dawn on me that I was in finally in a position to make my own documentary – and living in London, what better movie to do than An American Werewolf In London?,” said Davis. Davis’s decision to film a horror movie documentary can be attributed to Fear of God, which is a BBC-produced documentary on The Exorcist that Davis saw back in 1998 and left a profound impression on his life. “It was seeing (Fear of God) that encouraged me to go and study film at University and get into journalism,” according to Davis. “It was so brilliantly shot, lots of mood lighting for the likes of Max Von Sydow, Billy Friedkin and Linda Blair and in addition to the way it looked, it was so informative and (I thought) incredibly funny too. So I got the total entertainment factor from that documentary and really wanted to be able to do something like that myself one day… fast forward 9-years and, I did.” In December, Davis started getting the ball rolling with his documentary idea and put together his team- partner Romy Alford was on board to help him produce and Anthony Bueno came on to handle camera and editing duties. In January 2007, Davis and Alford began locating the everyone involved with making AWIL and kept working until they were ready to have Bueno start rolling the cameras in March. Although it seems like a daunting task getting everyone located and willing to participate, Davis said that the process itself went pretty smoothly considering the amount of interviews involved. “All of the UK cast and crew we literally filmed with 2 weeks notice of approaching them; doing two, sometimes even three interviews in one week,” said Davis. “The interviews we needed to do in the States were trickier because we had to make sure we could get everyone we needed in such a short span of time. When we went to LA, I remember that being like eight interviews in three days – it was very pressing. Then of course when we did come to LA – which was followed by a short stay in New York, we couldn’t get to David Naughton or Griffin Dunne, so we then had to come back a couple of months later just to get those two.” Even Landis decided to get involved with the project, even helping with the mastering with the final version of the film. Davis contacted Landis early on in the project and Landis became instrumental throughout the entire process, especially since sometimes these types of projects can get a little complicated when it comes to studios and film rights. “I was fortunate enough to have a contact for Mick Garris, who of course is good friends with John, and I sent an email to Landis via Mick and within a day I had a reply, the gist of which was “I’m flattered but why?”, described Davis. “As we started to exchange emails, John became more and more worried about it because, well, I didn’t have any of the rights to the movie to make this thing, and very rarely does something like have a happy ending. It wasn’t until we met John in London and we showed him 10 minutes of what we’d already shot that I think we shocked and surprised him to the extent where he couldn’t turn us down. We set a date to visit him in LA and the rest is, as they say, history.” The process of putting together the documentary interviews and materials was definitely a positive and rewarding experience for Davis and his crew. “Finding stills was a lot of fun,” added Davis. “I'll be honest and say our entire stills library in the documentary was put together either from personal photos from those we interviewed, Hollywood Book & Poster on Hollywood Boulevard, and from eBay. It’s always great to find photos we'd never seen before... getting to show those off is exciting.” Beware the Moon had it’s US debut at the Pittsburgh HorrorHound convention during the last weekend of June. Since the debut, the film has had nothing but positive feedback from those who’ve seen it (including a glowing review from Dread Central) and Davis is hoping now to work on a companion book to hopefully tie-in with the 2009 release. “We shot 18 hours of interview footage and the doc is only an hour and a half… there are a ton of stories that didn’t make the cut,” explained Davis. “One of my favorites is regarding the severed head of the inspector (who gets it bitten off by the wolf in Piccadilly). When they were on location in Piccadilly Circus shooting that scene, it had become apparent that they had forgotten to bring the head with them. So they called up the editor Malcolm Campbell who was at Twickenham Studios where the head was left and asked him to bring it to the set. So he did, and he was sat on the London Underground (train system) with this head in a clear bag, absolutely relishing in the fact that all these British people are giving him the most disgusted looks ever.” As for the future for this promising young director, he’s hoping to follow-up Beware the Moon with a slew of movies. “I want to do a couple of shorts (both horror) and then work on my first feature screenplay which will be a comedy/horror piece,” said Davis. “It’s an exciting time for all of us involved in the documentary right now and I can’t wait to see what’s waiting for us around the corner.” Writer’s Note: AWIL is the first horror movie I saw when I was three-years-old (I won’t repeat the reaction of John Landis when I met him in November and told him this tidbit) but I have to think it was because of my mother’s infinite wisdom to take a 3-year-old to a horror movie that has put me where I am today. I was insanely excited when I saw the preview of Beware the Moon in November and to get to write a piece about the film feels like my horror existence has come full circle, so to speak. So, thank you, Mom and thank you Paul Davis for taking the time to let me tell your story. |
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