Universal PicturesDespite both being immensely recognizable movie monsters, it feels like there are significantly more beloved vampire movies than werewolf movies. It’d be easy for most horror fans to name at least five great vampire movies – there’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Lost Boys and Fright Night and Near Dark and even last year’s Sinners — but if you were to ask the same thing about werewolf movies you might get some blank stares after Ginger Snaps and the original The Wolf Man.There are quite a few reasons that go into it but there are two in particular that seem to be the most likely culprits: one, unlike vampire movies, werewolf movies almost demand a decent-sized budget for special effects. The second reason is that vampire movies are easy to slot into multiple different genres, while the idea of a werewolf film carries a very specific tonal expectation with it. But 45 years ago, one film in particular would take its spot as arguably the greatest werewolf movie ever made, by completely rejecting strict genre tonal rigidity. And to this day, An American Werewolf in London’s deft balance of humor and dread make most horror-comedies still pale in comparison.Part of what works so well about An American Werewolf in London is that it fully leans into the irreverent juxtaposition of its title — what starts out as a vacation comedy descends into what is undoubtedly the worst-case scenario for tourists trying to sightsee in England. From the moment we’re introduced to David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) backpacking across the North York Moors, we recognize the age-old stereotype at play: the naive, bumbling Americans stumbling upon forces they don’t understand. Director John Landis does a remarkable job at evoking the traditionalist superstition and the atmosphere of unknowable menace lurking after dark in those quaint village pockets of Europe. When David and Jack stop for food and lodging at the Slaughtered Lamb pub, they interrupt the drunken camaraderie with one question too many about a pentagram drawn on the wall; you get the sense that these people are acutely aware of the supernatural danger lurking outside the pub’s walls, but to tell their unwitting guests would be to open up their secrets to the world. They do just as much to preserve an air of mystery as the locale of the moors themselves — Landis and the crew filmed the opening scenes near the Black Mountains in Wales, and the setting is consumed by pitch black shadow and the dim light of the full moon, making it impossible to pinpoint the location of the howling that starts as soon as David and Jack leave.Even though they’re only on-screen for ten minutes before disaster strikes, you can’t help but fall in love with these two well-meaning tourists who have no idea how to read a room. | Universal PicturesThat howling ends up being a prelude to their fate, as the two backpackers are viciously attacked by a beast that inexplicably transforms into a man after its gunned down by a mob of locals (whose consciences magically materialize after they've already let David and Jack go). Not only does the sequence, surprising in its brutality, set the stage for the immaculate practical effects work from Rick Baker (who would win the first ever Oscar for Best Makeup for his work on the film), but also sets the stage for the central conflict of the film: Jack is killed almost instantly, but David is saved, waking up in a hospital days later, totally unaware that he’s now the carrier of a curse far older than he can perceive.Despite the bloody chaos of the film’s opening, perhaps the greatest strength of American Werewolf is how effective its blend of comedy and horror is. Landis wrote the script for the film back in 1969 (after witnessing a Romani funeral ritual while serving as a PA on Kelly’s Heroes), but it was shelved for a decade because studio executives didn’t believe in the film’s balance of tones — a note that, years after the film’s solidification as a cult classic, comes across as silly. Juggling the movie’s borderline-slapstick humor and visceral horror would be difficult enough, but there’s also a crucial romance underpinning the film as well: While in the hospital, David meets Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter), and their love affair brews with the same rapidity as the transformation inside our unaware protagonist.The star-crossed romance at the heart of the film feels reminiscient of the tragic monster movie love affair in David Cronenberg’s The Fly. | Universal PicturesOne of the things that helps the movie stand out is the truly experiential nature of David’s transformation into a werewolf. Landis dives into the psychology of the curse where lots of other filmmakers would jump straight into the blood and guts — long before we see David take a life, we see him wrestling with vivid and surreal dreams of him running through the woods like a primal animal, and in one of the film’s most bewildering and legendary scenes, he dreams that his entire family is slaughtered by werewolf members of the Nazi SS. As much as he tries to deny what’s coming, his nightmares are like a drum beat marching towards the inevitable.And when it finally does arrive, it’s the stuff of movie magic. Landis is clearly as infatuated by Baker’s special effects work as the audience is, revealing David’s painful transformation in an extended sequence that shows off fingers distending into claws, a human face elongating into a snout, and a body that sprouts hair and bends and contorts into the form of an animal. At times the practical effects veer into the realm of the uncanny valley, but it works in the film’s favor — it is, after all, a completely inhuman circumstance.Over 40 years later, Rick Baker’s work on An American Werewolf is still a legendary highlight of the 80s practical effects arms race. | Universal PicturesAmidst the levity and the SFX spectacle, Landis never loses sight of what David’s lycanthropy represents: a loss of humanity, a loss of control, and an embrace of pure animal instinct. There’s an emphasis on guilt that a lot of films in the genre don’t bother with; after Jack’s death, he appears to David in the form of a decaying corpse, begging him to end his own life so that the curse can be ended. Naturally, David doesn’t believe him, and within the span of a few nights David is joined by a host of fresh corpses courtesy of David’s nighttime activities — the comedy never overtakes the horror of helplessness inherent to David’s situation.By the end, another transformation leads to David rampaging through London like King Kong, and although the setpiece feels reminiscent of old-school monster movies, there’s a similar sense of avoidable tragedy to it as well. There’s no final-hour cheat code to reverse the transformation, there’s no spell-breaking kiss delivered by Alex — it all ends in a hail of bullets and the tears of an ill-fated lover. An American Werewolf in London might be noteworthy for its fearless rejection of genre rigidity, but what gives it its staying power is the fact that the ending packs a surprising emotional punch.An American Werewolf in London is currently streaming on Tubi.