| David Kessler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| As werewolf | |
 | |
| Background | |
| Played by | David Naughton |
| Films | An American Werewolf in London |
| “ | Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare's French! Shit! Fuck! Piss! | ” |
– David trying to get arrested. | ||
David Kessler was an American college student, and the main protagonist of An American Werewolf in London. After walking through the moors of Yorkshire, England with his friend Jack Goodman, he was attacked and bitten by a werewolf and thus became one at the night of the full moon.
After disbelieving Jack (in ghost form) about him being a werewolf, David turned into one and killed six Londoners. When he found out, he then made a way to stop himself from killing more innocent people by killing himself. He was killed by the police during his second and final change.
History[]
Werewolf attack[]
David Kessler and his friend Jack Goodman, are backpacking across the Yorkshire moors. As darkness falls, they decide to stop for the night at a pub called "The Slaughtered Lamb". Jack notices a five-pointed star on the wall. When he asks about it, the pub becomes very quiet and the pubgoers start acting very strange and hostile. The pair decide to leave, but not before the others offer them pieces of advice such as "Beware the moon, lads" and "Keep to the road." Whilst conversing with each other and wondering what they meant, they wander off the road, onto the moors.
Back at the pub, the owner gets very distressed and suggests that they go after the pair. As she says this, a sinister howling is heard. The rest of the pubgoers, having barricaded the door, decline. Back out on the moors, Jack and David have also heard the howls, and they seem to be steadily getting closer. They start back to the slaughtered Lamb when they realize that they have left the road and are now lost on the moors. A full moon comes out from behind the clouds, and they remember the advice they were given earlier. The noises get steadily closer until they are stopped by a supernaturally large animal. The animal attacks both of them, and kills Jack. The animal is then shot and killed by the pubgoers, who have finally emerged. The beast changes into the dying body of a naked man. David survives the mauling and is taken to a hospital in London.
London[]
When David wakes up three weeks later, he does not remember what happened and is told of his friend's death. At this point, the viewer learns that David is Jewish. David is questioned by the arrogant Inspector Villiers and the bumbling, but more understanding Sergeant McManus and learns that he and Jack were supposedly attacked by an escaped lunatic. David insists that they were actually attacked by a large wolf. But Villiers had already been told there were witnesses and an autopsy report of the maniac, so they deduce that David is suffering from shock.
David begins to have a series of bizarre nightmares. In the first, he runs through the woods. In the second, he is running through the woods again naked, sees a deer, then decapitates and eats the deer, In the third, he is running through the woods (fully clothed) and sees himself in a hospital bed. He watches as Alex comes up to his bed smiling when his dream self wakes up with a monstrous, fanged face. In the final dream, he is at home with his family when they are attacked by Nazis with monstrous faces, wearing gas masks and wielding machine guns. David wakes up and Alex asks him if he'd been up long. David responds that he just had a nightmare. Alex tells David that she knows what he needs and goes to the curtains to open them. When she does, one of the Nazi monsters jumps out and kills Alex causing David to watch in horror as she's stabbed repeatedly causing David to actually wake up realizing he just suffered a dream within a dream.
Things get stranger when Jack, now a reanimated corpse, comes to visit David and explains that they were attacked by a werewolf, stating that David himself is, in fact, now a werewolf. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon, not only because Jack is cursed to exist in a state of living death for as long as the bloodline of the werewolf that attacked them survives, but also to prevent David from inflicting the same fate on his eventual victims.
Trying to see if David is indeed telling the truth, his doctor, Hirsch takes a trip to the Slaughtered Lamb. When asked about the incident, the pubgoers deny any knowledge of David, Jack or their attacker. But one distraught pubgoer speaks to Dr. Hirsch outside the pub and says that David should not have been taken away, and that he and everyone else will be in danger when he changes. He's interrupted by another pubgoer, who remains silent. After more investigation, Dr. Hirsch finds out that the police report was "misplaced", and that David's wounds were cleaned and dressed before he was even looked at by the authorities. The doctor is convinced that the whole town was lying, and that David was indeed attacked by some sort of animal, though he is not convinced it was a werewolf.
Upon his release from the hospital, David moves in with Alex Price, the pretty young nurse who grew infatuated with him in the hospital. He stays in Alex's London apartment, where they later make love for the first time. Jack (in an advanced stage of decay) suddenly appears to David again and tells him that he will turn into a werewolf the next day. Jack advises David to take his own life; otherwise he is doomed to kill innocent people who will then become the living dead.
As a Werewolf[]
When the full moon rises, as Jack had warned, David, who is alone in the apartment, begins to feel excruciating pain before stripping naked upon "burning up" and turning into a werewolf. He prowls the streets and the London Underground and brutally slaughters six Londoners. When he wakes in the morning, he is naked on the floor of the wolf cage at London Zoo with no memory of his time as a Werewolf and is unharmed by the resident Wolves.
Later that day, David realizes that Jack was right about everything and that he is responsible for the murders the night before. After failing to get himself arrested and running from Alex, David calls his family in New York to basically say good-bye, though he only speaks to his little sister, telling her to tell the rest of their family that he loves them. Walking out of the phone booth after failing to slit his wrists with his pocket knife, David spots Jack (in a more advanced stage of decay) outside an adult cinema in Piccadilly Circus. Inside, Jack is accompanied by David's victims from the previous night, most of whom are enraged with him (though the couple are strangely cheery, despite being murdered). They all insist that he must commit suicide before turning into a werewolf again. While talking with them, night falls and, consequently, David turns into a Werewolf again then kills and devours two theater employees.
Death[]
After busting out of the cinema (biting off Inspector Villiers' head in the process), chaos ensues in the streets, causing multiple deaths and a large pileup of cars. David is soon ultimately cornered in an alleyway by the police. Alex arrives to in an attempt to calm him down by telling him that she loves him. Though he is temporarily softened, he's quickly overcame by his killing instincts is shot and killed as he lunges forward at Alex. David then returns to his human form in front of a grieving Alex as he lies dead. Despite his demise, Jack, along with all of David's murdered victims, still walk the earth in limbo, due to the werewolf's curse continuing through Alex's daughter in the sequel.
Gallery[]
An American Werewolf in London[]
