What a Disappointment

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I'm a huge fan of horror movies, and werewolves are my favorite "monster," but I have to agree with some of the OP's criticisms. I don't dislike it as much as the OP, but I definitely feel it's mediocre at best.

I just re-watched this with a friend tonight (hadn't seen it in years), and aside from the ending, and the transformation scenes, much of this movie is a mess. The thing that bothered me most--or at least, kept this from being as enjoyable of a re-watch (and I've seen it 4 or 5 times), is the poor storytelling. Much of the narrative doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially initially; my friend, who had never seen it and wasn't familiar with it, was confused about much of the first half. Many of the scenes are very brief transitional scenes without much development to either story or character. There's just not much coherent narrative or atmosphere. And it being based on a book is no excuse--it should be able to stand on its own.

Don't get me wrong, I still consider this a "must-see" for anyone delving into horror. And I even like most of the silly sequels. The Howling II has Christopher Lee, which alone should give it a stamp of approval. But I can see why someone, even a solid horror fan, could be let down by this movie, or at least feel its flaws pretty strongly.

"every time godzilla loses to mothra I die a little bit more"--Godzillaswrath

Well I've always personally felt that 'An American Werewolf In London' was/is a very overrated and overhyped film. I mean you take away all the movie's special effects and what do you really have left? Not a whole lot IMO. And the entire romantic subplot was pretty uninteresting and dull as it didn't add or offer much of anything in the way of either substance or intrigue to the film's plot. And you want to talk about a poor and/or unsatisfactory ending to a movie? I mean how ridiculously rushed, and even sloppy, was the end of 'AAWIL'? NOT that great a film overall aside from the impressive special effects, and maybe some of the beginning scenes that took place in the pub.

John Landis is also an immensely overrated and overhyped filmmaker as well. Dante is definitely a far more imaginative director whose films very often contain a great deal of humor, wit and mischief in them.

"Life IS pain highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something".

Created in sin, raised by stupidity.

You are entitled to your opinion, but in my opinion, this is STILL the best werewolf movie to date (2016). Silver Bullet would be a pretty close second. Not a werewolf movie out there, even now, that has werewolves that look as good as the ones in this movie, nor do any of the recently made werewolf movies have the atmosphere of this movie. Also, this movie actually has a story and it is a VERY good story. It actually takes the time to build the characters instead of just throwing CGI werewolves into action sequences like the crap they make today.

Stick with your "Teen Wolf" and I will stick with my real werewolf movies.

it's really good.

Please-----Teen Wolf was more of a comedy flick than anything. The Howling is a grown folks' horror movie, and a good a classic creepy one, too---it's hardly "overhyped". The OP---who was probably some silly teenager when they posted the dumb nonsense about it, claiming Teen Wolf was better than The Howling proves they had no taste in horror films whatsoever, lol. I mean, come the hell on!