Englishman Paul Davis was more than a fan of the classic 1981 Universal film, An American Werewolf in London; he was also an aspiring filmmaker. Yet with no credits to his name, undertaking a documentary about this property was a longshot in the minds of many, including Davis. However, after nearly three years of work, the film has found a home, in, of all places, Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s September 15, 2009 Full Moon Edition 2-Disc DVD and Blu-ray Hi-Def release of the film. In this exclusive interview, he tells the entire story of creating this micro-budget film, from conception through its now remarkably unlikely release.
MFM: What was the first impetus for starting this film?
PD: It was my first film – I had never made anything before. The project officially began at the tail end of 2006 while writing a 25th anniversary article on AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON for HorrorHound Magazine. I've been a fan of in-depth, retrospective documentaries ever since I saw the BBC produced doc on the making of THE EXORCIST in 1998, and while writing the article, it struck me that there are so many classic horror movies that have had the documentary treatment, why not AWIL? In fact, AWIL hardly had anything done on it - yet in my opinion, it's more than deserving as some of those that had. I've always loved AN AMERICAN WERWOLF IN LONDON; it was the first monster movie I ever saw, aged three, after realizing (through The Making of Thriller) that movies were well crafted works of fiction. People made these things. It was fascinating to me even at that young age.
MFM: How did you endeavor to embark on this project?
PD: I figured that considering the film was practically shot in my backyard and that a lot of the cast and crew were British based, if I didn't embark on this project now then someone else would. With that I spoke to my partner at the time, Romy Alford, and she was fully behind the project. We started our own production company (Kesslerboy Productions Ltd.) and I started to write the backbone of what it was I wanted to do and the story I wanted to tell. We then brought in a recently acquainted filmmaker called Anthony Bueno to shoot and edit the project. Anthony and his sister Claire had their own production company and fortunately had all the equipment we would need to go out and make this happen. By the beginning of the year (literally - January 2nd 2007), I had started tracking down members of the cast and crew while Romy was securing opportunities to shoot at the original locations. I'd decided early on that I wanted the chance to host/narrate the piece and wanted to do so from a selection of the film's original backdrops in the order in which they appear in the movie - like I was following them, to a degree. We technically didn't have a budget and literally worked it around our own day jobs. Once we got paid, we could go out and shoot. It was as simple as that - and that is how it remained for the entire project (that probably cost us in excess of just under $14,000).
