MovieChat Forums > An American Werewolf in London (1981) Discussion > It doesn't make sense that a werewolf co...

It doesn't make sense that a werewolf could be killed by ordinary bullets


We see David supernaturally transform into a werewolf, about doubling his mass in the process, in a matter of about two minutes. The amount of damaged tissue that would have to be regenerated after getting shot would only amount to maybe a pound (a little more or a lot less, depending on the type of ammunition and/or shot placement). If you can generate 200 pounds of tissue out of thin air in 2 minutes, that's 1.67 pounds per second, which means a gunshot wound could heal in less than a second.

That's why supernatural monsters are usually given an Achilles' Heel type device, because it doesn't make sense that such a creature could be killed by typical methods. For werewolves that device is traditionally silver.

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I'm not sure whether to thank you for the genuinely interesting observation, or curse you because this is the kind of outlook on cinema that's responsible for its death. Maybe both, why not ?

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For me, this sort of thing doesn't ruin my enjoyment of a movie; it's just something that's fun to discuss. AAWIL is one of my favorite horror movies regardless.

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That's fair enough. I guess I was just concerned that focusing on the "plausibility" of a tale (a supernatural one at that) could detract from appreciating its more important qualities (cinematic or otherwise). But -same as before- I guess one can do both, why not?

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well , i can only guess , but
maybe the magic adrenaline / hormone / whatever/ process that generates the tissue mass out of thin air only occurs during a transformation and cant be used for genral bullet hole healing at any time ...

..after all it does seem to be a bit of an upheaval on the body and not a continously running background process .

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The full moon would be the continuously running background process, i.e., it's what triggers the transformation to the werewolf form in the first place. Tissue damage would be a deviation from that form, and as long as the full moon is still out, it should trigger the transformation back to its full (undamaged) werewolf form.

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Sorry, Maxim, but no animal, of any size, can survive a bullet wound that damages or destroys the heart or brain.

Obviously, the British marksmen who killed David as a creature obviously knew what they were aiming at.

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Except, it's not an ordinary animal, it's one that was supernaturally created in a matter of about two minutes. Tissue damage from a bullet would heal almost instantly at that rate of generation. No organism in real life can generate tissue at anywhere near that rate because it would require an enormous amount of energy, probably on the order of megatons of TNT equivalence.

As a side note, David wasn't shot in the head or the heart. He only had two bullet wounds, both of which were in the torso, and neither of which were inline with the heart:

https://i.imgur.com/roIHqaF.jpg

And when he was shot he was in an alley facing the police officers, and he was on all fours and lunging forward, so there's no way that either one of those bullets would been angled toward the heart. Both bullets would have angled toward his waist, i.e., if they exited, the exit wounds would have been in the area of his lower back, or possibly even lower.

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1. Dude, it's only a movie. I'm more surprised that Jenny Agutter's character wasn't shot by the marksmen as she was directly in their way.
2. Are you pointing me towards erotic imagery? That's what was asked of me when I clicked on the picture! :D

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It's a screenshot from the movie, the shot of David dead on the ground, which shows the locations of his bullet wounds. I don't know why it would say anything about "erotic imagery", unless imgur has some sort of screwed up algorithm that misidentified it as such. I just tried the link with three different browsers and it took me directly to the image without asking me anything about it.

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Well, it asked me if I was old enough to see erotic imagery.

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I could be wrong but (I'm inclined to think that) those men who killed David as a Werewolf probably did believe in the supernatural and had silver bullets that penetrated his skin and took him to heaven

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He was shot and killed by cops in an urban area who were responding to what they thought was a vicious dog or other dangerous animal loose in public. Why would they have silver bullets? The movie indicates that the city people didn't know about / believe in werewolves to begin with, unlike the country people at the tavern who kept their knowledge of werewolves a secret from outsiders.

Also, silver bullets aren't something you can just go and buy at a gun shop (silver is very expensive and not a good bullet material, therefore there's no general market for them). They have to be custom made, and finding someone to make them probably wouldn't be easy, because people who cast bullets cast them from lead / lead alloys and their melting pots don't get anywhere near hot enough to melt silver, and people who cast silver probably don't have bullet molds, because it's normally done for jewelry and such, not bullets. You could have a machinist make them on a lathe from silver rods, if you wanted to spend the money, not only for the silver (much of which would be wasted, i.e., end up as metal shavings on the floor) but for the labor; it would be a lot more time consuming than casting. Then you'd need to get them loaded into cases, so you'd need to find someone else to do that if you didn't have the equipment/supplies/know-how to do it yourself.

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Why only a silver bullet? why not any bullet? same with vampires why only a wooden stake why not a big knife? in the novel Dracula was killed with a knife.

Other werewolf films like Wolf and Bad Moon it didn't take a silver bullet to kill a werewolf.

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"Why only a silver bullet? why not any bullet?"

I explained in my OP why an ordinary bullet being able to kill a werewolf doesn't make sense. As for why a silver bullet, it doesn't need to be a silver bullet; the writer could make up whatever he wants as long as it makes sense within the context of the story. Silver is an obvious choice because it's a longstanding part of werewolf legends, and since it kills due to some sort of supernatural effect, it makes sense that it could kill a supernatural creature. If you're going to make up something other than silver, in order for it to make sense it has to either have supernatural effects or be able to do far more damage than an ordinary bullet, such as high explosives.

"Other werewolf films like Wolf and Bad Moon it didn't take a silver bullet to kill a werewolf."

It didn't make sense in Bad Moon either (even less sense than in AWIL, because the Bad Moon werewolf was even bigger), though it's not much of an issue in Wolf, because those were just "wolfmen" in that movie, i.e., their transformations didn't involve adding much mass to their bodies.

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Why silver bullets?
Silver bullets would have more penetrating ability than lead as there is not as much flattening on impact. Looking at the transformation as the OP states, one would expect the werewolf to be tougher or more resistant to normal bullets.

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I think the ending of the movie was an homage to “Werewolf of London” from 1935 when the police and Scotland Yard arrive to kill the werewolf with regular old lead bullets.

The idea of werewolves only being killed by silver bullets was introduced by Curt Siodmak for the 1941 film “The Wolf Man.”

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It dates back a lot further than that:

c. 1640 the city of Greifswald, Germany was infested by werewolves. "A clever lad suggested that they gather all their silver buttons, goblets, belt buckles, and so forth, and melt them down into bullets for their muskets and pistols. ... this time they slaughtered the creatures and rid Greifswald of the lycanthropes."

Temme, J.D.H. Die Volkssagen von Pommern und Rugen. Translated by D.L. Ashliman. Berlin: In de Nicolaischen Buchhandlung, 1840.

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Well, cinematically anyway.

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Werewolves did not exist ever, including the year 1640

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They did for a short time in 1128 but quickly died out.

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Did Count Dracula kill the werewolf?

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That's just a myth. Truth is, he always felt like he was a mummy trapped in a werewolf's body, so he made the transition and lived a happy bandaged life til the end of his days.

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"Werewolves did not exist ever, including the year 1640"

Your non sequitur is dismissed. Also, you're not the fastest car on the lot, are you?

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What does non sequitur mean? I drive a 1992 Honda Civic so its not fast at all

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I've been meaning to put you on ignore for a long time, as you're either a very untalented troll or day-old dumb. Either way, I've never seen you post anything but pure foolishness, so you're now on ignore.

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Now I won't be able to sleep tonight

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Why not? It's still an animal.
It doesn't make sense that silver bullets would kill it, but not lead bullets.

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"Why not?"

I've already explained "why not" in my OP. Did you only read the subject line?

"It's still an animal."

It's not an ordinary animal, obviously.

"It doesn't make sense that silver bullets would kill it, but not lead bullets."

Yes, it does, and I've already explained why. Again, did you only read the subject line?

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It doesn't make sense that a man can transform into a werewolf either

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"It doesn't make sense that a man can transform into a werewolf either"

That doesn't matter because that's the premise. Once you've established your premise, regardless of whether the premise is actually known to be possible or not, everything in the movie should makes sense within the context of that premise.

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Ok, so the premise includes that lead bullets can kill any human or creature too

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"Ok, so the premise includes that lead bullets can kill any human or creature too"

No, that contradicts the premise (I've already explained why), and therefore doesn't make sense within the context of the premise, obviously.

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This thread is very confusing. Did you know that werewolves existed back in the year 1128 but quickly died out as per a few posts above? Maybe the dinosaurs killed off the werewolves to extinction, assuming dinosaurs also existed in that time period? How else could werewolves have died out? Its doubtful that primitive mankind would be able to produce silver as a weapon.

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Your non sequitur is dismissed and your tacit concession is noted.

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Moonglum9 has a posting history on these boards that are as accurate as anyone I have ever seen. I believe what he posts

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