An American Werewolf in London (1981)

“From the director of Animal House, a different kind of animal,” reads the tagline of John Landis’ gleefully irreverent spin on the classical horror film, following an unlucky American tourist whose ill-advised detour across the English moors lands him with a particularly hairy problem. Blending pitch-black comedy with jaw-dropping practical effects, Landis turns the werewolf myth into a delirious mix of shocks and laughs, where no one heeds the warnings, the full moon always comes around, and the curse strikes with both savage bite and wicked humor. Laced with winking nods to The Wolf Man and even the sly absurdism of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Landis sustains a surreal comic detachment that sharpens the mordant wit as much as it revels in the grotesque, the absurd, and the gleefully outrageous. The laughs hit just as hard as the scares.