Imagine a college boy from Great Neck, L. I., carrying a knapsack and wearing a down parka, wandering very, very incongruously across the English moors. Now imagine two such innocents abroad, to the musical accompaniment of "Blue Moon." As the song suggests, the sun will be going down soon, and the moon will be coming up, and those deserted moors will prove to be not so empty after all. "An American Werewolf in London" begins on a note that's equally balanced between comedy and horror, and that also has a fine touch of restraint. It gets off to a wonderful start.

John Landis, who also directed "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers," has the makings here of a much better movie than either of those. He's serious about the hipness of his two leading characters, who behave, even after one has been killed by a werewolf and the...