Major spoilers for An American Werewolf in London ahead.
1981 was certainly a great time for those who wanted to make werewolf movies — just look to the success of cult films like
The Howling (1981) and
Wolfen (1981) — but after 40 years, not much has come close to matching the award-winning special effects and comedic appeal of the film that topped both for lycanthropic supremacy, John Landis’s
An American Werewolf in London (1981).
Beginning along the moors of the British countryside, the film opens on two backpacking American students, David Kessler (
David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (
Griffin Dunne