An American Werewolf in London: A Preventable Tragedy

There's a particular kind of frustration that comes from watching a horror film where every single tragedy could have been avoided if literally anyone involved had access to a basic health and safety manual. And nowhere is this more painfully apparent than in An American Werewolf in London .

Don't get me wrong – I love this film. It's a masterpiece of practical effects, dark humour, and genuine horror. The transformation sequence is still breathtaking. The decay of Jack's corpse throughout the film is brilliantly grotesque. And that ending? Devastating. But my god, the medical negligence is insane.

The entire plot hinges on a series of catastrophic failures by every adult with any semblance of authority or responsibility. And the worst part? The film is almost painfully aware of this, yet nobody does anything about it.

The Greek Tragedy That Didn't Need To Be Greek

Dr. Hirsch calls David's situation a Greek tragedy. And he's right, technically – there's the doomed protagonist, the supernatural curse, the inevitable tragic ending. All the classical elements are there. But here's the thing about Greek tragedies: they're supposed to be unavoidable. The whole point is that fate is inescapable, that the gods have decreed your doom, and no amount of mortal effort can change it.

David Kessler's fate was entirely, frustratingly, preventably avoidable.

Let's start with the most obvious failure: Dr. Hirsch doesn't even entertain the possibility that David might have clinical lycanthropy . Not as a diagnosis, not as a differential, not even as something to rule out. And yes, I know clinical lycanthropy is rare (and actual lycanthropy is, presumably, even rarer), but when a patient is having persistent delusions about transforming into a wolf after being attacked by what witnesses describe as "a massive beast," maybe – just maybe – you should consider it?

At the very least, you'd expect some basic psychiatric evaluation. David is clearly experiencing severe trauma. He's having vivid hallucinations of his dead friend. He's convinced he's going to transform into a monster. He's displaying signs of acute psychological distress. And the response from the medical establishment is... to let him discharge himself into the care of his nurse girlfriend who he's known for approximately three days?

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant medical practice there.

Alex Price, Professional Enabler

And speaking of Alex – look, I get it. She's clearly got a thing for the traumatised American patient with the sad eyes. The film leans into the romance angle, and Jenny Agutter sells the hell out of the role. But from a professional standpoint, what she does is borderline criminally negligent.

David explicitly tells her he's seeing his dead friend. Not in a "I miss him and sometimes I imagine conversations with him" way, but in a "he appears to me as a progressively decomposing corpse and warns me I'm going to become a werewolf" way. This is not subtle. This is not ambiguous. This is a man in psychological crisis telling you, directly, that he's experiencing severe hallucinations.

The appropriate response to this is not to shag him and then keep him home in your flat.

(Yes, the film has her as more or less a teratophile – the whole "I could fall in love with a werewolf" thing – but that's not exactly a solid foundation for responsible patient care, is it?)

The appropriate response is to immediately contact psychiatric services, document everything, and ensure he receives proper evaluation and treatment. At minimum, you keep him under observation. You don't discharge him into your personal care because you fancy him. That's not how medical ethics work. That's not how any of this works.

But even setting aside the professional misconduct, let's look at what she does after David attacks her in the flat. She knows something is deeply wrong. She's witnessed his transformation-adjacent behaviour (the nightmare sequences make it clear he's not acting normally). She's been warned by him multiple times. And her response is... to let him wander around London unsupervised?

There's no attempt to secure him. No attempt to restrain him for his own safety (and the safety of others). No attempt to contact authorities or medical professionals. Just... passive acceptance that her werewolf boyfriend is going to go murder some people, and there's nothing to be done about it.

Except there absolutely is something to be done about it. Which brings us to the central, infuriating point.

Preventative Measures We Could Have Taken

The victims of the curse included the werewolves. This is made explicit in the BBC Radio adaptation (see Review: An American Werewolf in London made-for-radio BBC audio adaptation for my reaction), where Larry explains that the cursed person is as much a victim as those they kill. The system creates victims on both sides – the lycanthrope loses their humanity and agency, whilst innocent people die horrifically. It's a tragedy for everyone involved.

But here's the thing: if we accept that lycanthropy exists in this universe (which we must, because it demonstrably does), then the complete absence of any preventative infrastructure is baffling.

Where are the dedicated facilities for managing cursed individuals? Where are the protocols for containment during transformation? Where is the medical research into treatment options? Where are the health and safety regulations for communities known to be affected by supernatural curses?

Because let's be clear: the people of East Proctor know about the curse. The entire pub knows about it. They've dealt with it before (RIP Larry Talbot and his victims). And their solution is... a pentagram on the wall and a warning to stay off the moors?

That's it? That's the entire preventative measure?

Not "we have a secure facility where affected individuals can be safely contained during full moons." Not "we have veterinary and medical specialists who can assist with the condition." Not even "we have a bloody big cage and some chains in the basement of the pub." Just... a pentagram. Drawn in what appears to be non-descript blood. With some candles.

I'm sorry, but that's not a preventative measure. That's set dressing.

The Slaughtered Lamb and Health & Safety Violations

And whilst we're on the subject of that pub – how in the absolute fuck did they get an alcohol licence?

The health and safety violations alone should have shut that place down decades ago. You've got:

An openly displayed pentagram that appears to be drawn in blood (or at least a substance masquerading as blood)

Candles left burning unattended

No visible fire safety equipment

No clear emergency exits

An atmosphere of menace that suggests the staff are complicit in covering up multiple deaths

Zero verifiable connection to nearby hospitals or emergency services

A complete lack of any visible first aid provisions despite being located in an area with a documented history of violent animal attacks

And somehow this establishment is allowed to operate? The local council just... looks the other way?

(I'm being slightly facetious here – obviously the film isn't interested in the minutiae of British licensing laws – but the point stands that this community has developed exactly zero functional infrastructure for dealing with a recurring supernatural threat.)

The radio adaptation expands on this somewhat, with Dr. Hirsch explaining that the people of East Proctor migrated from eastern Romania about 200 years ago, bringing the curse with them. Which raises even more questions, honestly. You've had two centuries to develop proper containment protocols, and the best you've managed is a warning pentagram and some vague advice about staying off the moors?

The Veterinarian Problem

Here's what really gets me: even if we accept that the medical establishment is sceptical about lycanthropy (which is fair enough, honestly), once you've got credible evidence of a large predatory animal attacking people, you call in veterinary specialists.

David's transformations are happening on a predictable schedule. They're lunar-based. This is a known pattern. You could plan around this. You could implement containment measures. You could have a veterinarian and a physician on standby, ready to sedate and secure him before the transformation begins.

But instead, we get... nothing. David is allowed to walk around London unsupervised during the full moon, with predictable and horrific results. The Underground massacre, the carnage in Piccadilly Circus – all of it was preventable with basic, sensible precautions.

Put him in a reinforced cage. Have medical professionals monitoring him. Sedate him if necessary. These are not complex solutions. These are the kind of things we'd do for any dangerous animal, and David explicitly tells people he's going to become one.

But nobody does anything. And people die.

The radio adaptation actually makes this even more frustrating by expanding the transformation scene. David is audibly confused and distressed, crying out for Jack and forgiveness as his voice distorts into "animalistic, lupine cries." It's visceral and horrifying, and it makes the complete absence of medical intervention even more inexcusable. This isn't someone who's hiding their condition – David is begging for help, and no one provides it.

Why It Works (and Why It's Frustrating)

Here's the paradox: all of this medical negligence and preventative failure is exactly why the film works as horror.

Horror requires vulnerability. It requires systems to fail. If everyone behaved responsibly and implemented sensible precautions, there wouldn't be a film. David would be safely contained, no one would die (except possibly Jack, whose death kicks off the plot), and we'd have a very boring story about effective crisis management.

The horror comes from the failure of institutions, from the isolation of the individual, from the inability of modern society to protect people from ancient curses. It's effective precisely because it's frustrating. We watch the tragedy unfold, knowing it could be prevented, feeling powerless to stop it – much like David himself feels powerless to stop his transformations.

Dr. Hirsch's framing of it as a Greek tragedy is actually perfect, but not for the reasons he thinks. It's not a Greek tragedy because David is cursed by fate. It's a Greek tragedy because everyone involved makes terrible decisions based on flawed understanding and institutional failure, and the audience can see the disaster coming but is powerless to intervene.

The tragedy isn't that David is cursed. The tragedy is that the curse is treated as inevitable when it absolutely isn't.

The Victims of the Curse

The bit about victims of the curse including the werewolves themselves – this is the emotional core that makes the whole thing work. Larry, the werewolf who killed Jack and cursed David, appears in the radio adaptation as another tormented soul in limbo. Jack's reaction to meeting him is telling: he calls Larry a "son of a bitch" for killing him, even whilst Larry insists he was a victim of the curse himself.

This is genuinely tragic. David didn't ask for this. He's a victim of circumstance, attacked whilst doing nothing wrong. And the curse transforms him into a monster against his will, making him into the very thing that victimised him. Larry was in the same position before him. George was the one before that. It's an unbroken chain of victims creating more victims, stretching back centuries.

But – and this is crucial – this tragedy is compounded by the systemic failures around them. If there were proper support systems in place, if there were medical professionals who took the condition seriously, if there were facilities designed to contain and protect cursed individuals... they'd still be victims of the curse, but they wouldn't also be victims of medical negligence.

The curse makes them dangerous. The medical negligence makes them deadly.

The radio adaptation's opening scene actually drives this home beautifully. It shows Larry (before he became Larry-the-undead-victim-in-limbo) as "a crazed man, presumably locked up in a mental facility," who breaks out during his transformation. So there was some attempt at containment, however inadequate. Which just makes the complete absence of any similar measures for David even more inexcusable. The infrastructure for managing this existed at some point. They just... stopped bothering.

Living With Contradictions

So where does this leave us? With a film that's simultaneously brilliant and infuriating, tragic and preventable, a masterpiece of horror that only works because everyone involved is catastrophically incompetent at their jobs.

And I think that's fine, actually. You can love something whilst being critical of it. You can appreciate the artistry whilst acknowledging the logical holes. You can recognise that the horror requires the failures whilst also being frustrated by how unnecessary those failures are.

An American Werewolf in London is a film about systems failing people. Medical systems, social systems, community systems – they all fail David when he needs them most. And yes, this makes for excellent horror. But it also makes for a deeply frustrating watch when you think about it for more than five minutes.

Because at the end of the day, David Kessler didn't need to die in that alley. The people in the Underground didn't need to die. The carnage in Piccadilly Circus didn't need to happen. All of it – every single death – could have been prevented with basic, sensible precautions that no one bothered to implement.

The radio adaptation even adds a detail about animals sensing the supernatural – a child's dog that's "usually very friendly with strangers" snarls and barks at David, and later a cat hisses at him. These are warning signs that something is fundamentally wrong. Early warning systems that are completely ignored by every adult with the power to do something about it.

That's the real horror of An American Werewolf in London. Not the transformation. Not the curse. Not even the deaths themselves.

The real horror is how preventable it all was.