An American Werewolf in London

For all of the work John Landis has done he will no doubt remembered for this, the darkest of dark comedies. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON quite literally blew our collective minds when it hit the screens in 1981 mixing gut splitting laughs with amazing gut spilling visuals. The work of Rick Baker here was in fact so fine it earned him the Oscar, the first time the Academy had presented the award for this category. The werewolf, by the way, was based on his dog Bosco! The team of David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are top notch and Jenny Agutter was even sexier here than she was in LOGAN'S RUN. There are also some fantastic cameos, always the case in a Landis film, so keep an eye out for Frank Oz (two cameos actually), and Brian Glover and Rik Mayall playing a game of chess. Landis not only crafted an outstanding story here, he manages to present it in an amazingly lush visual style, no small feat when you consider most of it is in near darkness. Certainly one for this season but I certainly wouldn't show it to the rug rats and make sure you rent or buy a copy as to see a cut version on television would be downright criminal, punished by...oh say...a little bite to the neck?