Sightlines · reception

How An American Werewolf in London was received

1981 · John Landis · An American Werewolf in London on Sightlines

The arc

Critics in 1981 were wrong-footed by the comedy/horror whiplash — Ebert among the unconvinced — but the film did solid business and has since been fully canonized as the werewolf movie, the one everything since gets measured against.

What’s debated

The eternal 1981 wolf-off: American Werewolf or The Howling — plus the perennial argument over whether the abrupt ending is a punchline of genius or a shrug.

Its footprint

Rick Baker's fully-lit transformation scene is one of the most referenced practical-effects sequences ever made, and the film led directly to Michael Jackson hiring Landis and Baker for the 'Thriller' video; the all-moon-songs soundtrack ('Blue Moon', 'Bad Moon Rising') became a joke format of its own.

Where it stands

A gateway horror classic and practical-effects holy text — the 'you must have seen the transformation scene' movie that every FX-loving cinephile eventually arrives at.

Did you know? Rick Baker's work here won the first-ever competitive Academy Award for Best Makeup, a category essentially inaugurated in 1982 with this film — and Landis had written the script back in 1969, sitting on it for over a decade because studios found it too funny to be scary and too scary to be funny.

Named by the director

• The Wolf Man (1941) — Landis repeatedly cited the Universal classic as the werewolf-lore template he was consciously riffing on — his characters even argue about its rules on screen.