Does Wolf Man Use Practical Effects? Behind the Scenes of Leigh Whannell's Gory New Film (WATCH)
Before Wolf Man hits theaters, get a special look at how its creature effects came to life.
Creature design is a cornerstone of any werewolf movie. With each new film in this particular horror subgenre, there's an opportunity to embrace the classic tropes of the concept, but also to put your own particular stamp on the canon, and deliver a monster no one has ever seen before.
With Wolf Man, Leigh Whannell's latest horror film and follow-up to another classic Universal Monster reimagining -- the acclaimed The Invisible Man -- the writer/director he saw an opportunity to do exactly that with his own take on the legendary creature. What happened next was so gruesome that even the film's crew was stunned.
See how Leigh Whannell's Wolf Man gruesomely utilizes practical effects
In the new featurette above, released this week by Universal Pictures, Whannell explains that he approached the horror film with a clear mission statement for the visuals in mind, and that began with practical effects.
"I felt that the best way to approach it was more practically," Whannell says. "I wanted to actually see it. I needed it to exist as if it was happening right in front of you."
To make that a reality, Whannell turned to creature effects designer Arjen Tuiten, who developed the look and makeup of the character. A family story as much as it is a horror story, the film follows Blake (Christopher Abbott), who moves to rural Oregon with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). It's supposed to be a new start, but when Blake is attacked by a creature in the woods, he begins to change, and terror ensues.
Inspired by films like The Thing and The Fly, Whannell wanted to present a "different direction" for his werewolf look, which Tuiten describes as "two anatomies trying to mix that don't quite go together." The results were gruesome enough that, when Abbott emerged in the creature makeup for the first time, the entire set was apparently stunned.
"Hearing from the crew, the first time they saw it, they were coming up to me and saying 'I don't get scared easily, but this is one of the scariest things I've seen,'" Tuiten says. "That was a turning moment where we all knew 'OK, this is gonna be something good.'"
While The Invisible Man was often as much about what people didn't see as what they did, Whannell's ambition for Wolf Man is to create sights that linger in viewers' heads long after the film is over. And we'll know soon enough if he achieved that goal.
"I really hope that people walk away from this film unable to forget the imagery," he says. "It's not the Wolf Man that you've seen before."
Wolf Man is in theaters everywhere January 17. Get tickets at Fandango.
