10 Most Terrifying Horror Movie Werewolves
3. An American Werewolf In London
Director John Landis and co sidestep the often hokey bipedal lycanthrope by making their monster far more wolf than man. After David suffers a fateful bite on the Yorkshire moors, his monstrous new form stalks victims in the London Underground. With much of the action shot from the beast’s perspective, the tension in the scene is palpable, made all the more scary by its restraint.
The film’s most famous scene is the first transformation, and it’s one of the best in film history. The change comes out of nowhere, with David minding his own business of a boring evening when suddenly he is gripped by an immense pain. The camera lingers on the poor soul as his jaw juts and his limbs distort into something monstrously lupine.
Worse still is the dream sequence in which gun toting Nazi werewolves storm into the protagonist’s family home and shoot the place up. These are particularly grotesque in their depiction, and the weaponry and far right affiliation don’t help.
American Werewolf is perhaps better remembered for its humour than its horror, but where other films suggest that being a werewolf would be in some way freeing, this depiction shows just how agonising the process could really be.