An American Werewolf in London is that rarest of beasts: a horror/comedy that delivers both gasps and guffaws in equal measure.

The story is pretty simple: two American students David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) tour the English countryside and are attacked by a werewolf during a full moon.

Jack is torn to pieces and David barely escapes with his life. He wakes up in a hospital where Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter in her most swoon-worthy performance) finds him, “Very attractive and a little bit sad.”

What follows is a story both strange, wistful and tragic as we realise David is a werewolf, stalking and killing unfortunate Poms during a full moon. Soon Jack, plus all of David’s victims appear to him as “the undead” encouraging him to kill himself and end the curse.

In other hands this could have been a terrible movie (look at the sequel An American Werewolf in Paris. Actually, don’t, it’s bloody awful) however John Landis was at the top of his game here. Juxtaposing jaunty tunes with Rick Baker’s ground-breaking (and Academy Award-winning) transformation effects, having the undead that haunt David continue to rot and David’s surreal, terrifying nightmare sequences all stand the test of time, especially with this grainy but superior Blu-ray print.

As if the movie itself wasn’t enough, we have exhaustive extras, including an all new feature length doco.

John Landis once told me (during a Masters of Horror-related interview) that Barry Humphries explained the movie’s popularity in this country, stating that: “It’s because you kill a Yank and a bunch of Poms!” That may be part of it, but it’s also an absolute ripper of a movie.

SCORE: Four and a half wolfy scratches