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[Jaeger]

What's interesting is Rick Baker was initially the lead artist on The Howling. As he started working on the project he noticed his designs were looking like what he planned for another project he waa also going to work on (American Werewolf in London). So he backed off and took a supervisory roll instead.

Both The Howling and AWIL set standards for the genre. Werewolves were no longer simply depicted as men with minimal physical changes like fangs and some hairy faces with full sets of clothes on still. But actual beast who would double in size and height with digitgrade legs. AWIL changed how they transformed on film. Painful sequences that involved bones cracking and massive body morphing, versus slight make-up changes over changing frames.

 

[The Iron Yuppie]

A wurwulf?

Thats fascinating.

Especially when they are running through the streets doing...things!

 

[HStallion]

I see there have been several mentions of Dog Soldiers. Good job GAF. A film that seemingly no one has seen but I think is a great horror movie that actually plays up the horror factor of the werewolves in a great way.

 

[More_Badass]

I see there have been several mentions of Dog Soldiers. Good job GAF. A film that seemingly no one has seen but I think is a great horror movie that actually plays up the horror factor of the werewolves in a great way.

Action horror with werewolves from the director of The Descent? It's a shame it's not more widely known

 

[Bamboo]

Love The Company of Wolves. Not sure how well it's known in the US, but it's well worth checking out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Wc2aMmkU4

I love that film!

Also a special shout-out to In The Company of Wolves!

Hey, I was about to post that pic.

(also Company of Wolves)

Great recommendations in this thread. Have to delve deeper into werewolves, I guess.

 

[Jaeger]

I would love to be able to make a werewolf horror picture myself. Low budget would be fine. As long as I was able to use most of it for a quality special effects team. Film in some woods and go from there.

 

[Freddy=Legend]

Talking best transformation, its An American Werewolf in London.

Best Werewolf movie, I tend to lean towards Ginger Snaps. The wolf looks pretty great too.

But best design, goes to Dog Soldiers. Those werewolves were massive and terrifying as hell.

 

[HStallion]

I would love to be able to make a werewolf horror picture myself. Low budget would be fine. As long as I was able to use most of it for a quality special effects team. Film in some woods and go from there.

If you haven't seen it this is actually close to what Dog Soldiers is about. Group of military guys doing some training in the deep woods and encounter werewolves and fall back to a game house to try and last out the werewolf siege.

 

[keltickennedy]

Was David Hayter's movie "Wolves" any good?

My favorite Werewolf movie...."American Werewolf in London". Still amazing to this day.

 

[AaronB]

Came to post "Dog Soldiers" - glad to see it's gotten lots of notice. I own it, and have been trying to find a good time to rewatch it.

I like "American Werewolf in Paris" a lot even though the London film gets a lot more critical acclaim. I liked the Ginger Snaps movies too, although I don't think the sequels topped the first film.

They need to make more werewolf movies - it's been all zombies for years, and vampires before that.

 

[HStallion]

Came to post "Dog Soldiers" - glad to see it's gotten lots of notice. I own it, and have been trying to find a good time to rewatch it.

I like "American Werewolf in Paris" a lot even though the London film gets a lot more critical acclaim. I liked the Ginger Snaps movies too, although I don't think the sequels topped the first film.

They need to make more werewolf movies - it's been all zombies for years, and vampires before that.

Werewolves seem like a much harder creature to bring to life on big screen. Vampires usually just need some pale makeup, crazy contacts and some decent fangs. Maybe you do them up to have ugly demon faces like Buffy the Vampire Slayer did but unless you're doing a giant bat monster, they don't take much in terms of special effects to bring to life.

Zombies take more work as usually you have to make them look a corpse and perhaps show through make up how they became a zombie such as bite marks and wounds or other damage that zombies tend to accrue.

Werewolves on the other hand usually have a lot more work needed to bring them to life even if they just do a really hair guy. It either requires a lot of make up, prosthetics and an elaborate costume for full body shots or a ton of CGI work.

 

[holygeesus]

Cursed properly killed off the werewolf genre (though I actually don't mind it if I'm honest)

 

[Auto-Reply]

American Werewolf in London was the first movie we recorded when whe bought our first shiny new vhs recorder, that and an episode of Count Duckula lol.

So I love that movie beyond it's own qualities for nostalgic reasons.

 

[pantsmith]

Yup, ditto on Dog Soldiers.

The werewolves have a super imposing silhouette that still creeps me out. I love how tall they are.

 

[cr0w]

Dog Soldiers, obviously.

Pretty much everything else has been mentioned, and I was glad to see the Hemlock Grove transformation get some love, though the rest of the series was awful.

Bad Moon had a good one:

I'm personally fond of the half-human/half-wolf look from The Wolfman (original and remake..the remake was one of the few horror remakes to retain the atmosphere of the original to me), Werewolf of London, etc.

The Being Human U.S. tv show also had a great transformation/four-legged version.

 

[kame-sennin]

My problem with the beast-man design in movies like Dog Soldiers and Van Helsing is that it doesn't work on a basic anatomical level. You can't just take a long-snout carnivore's head and stick it on a bipedal ape's shoulders. The entire biting mechanic of wolves (or cats) is based on being quadrupedal with the neck attaching to the back of the skull near the top, not at the base of the skull on the bottom.

There's also the issue of where the heck the mass comes from, with a lot of these designs being eight feet tall.

Obviously it's all fantasy, but I prefer if not plausibility - then functionality.

Edit: Found an image online that shows why this bothers me:

 

[Jesus Carbomb]

Vampire Werewolf from Bram Stokers Dracula has always been a favorite.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Y9eOLfR.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/VamsgX1.jpg[/img]

The movie had great special makeup effects in general. Always like to rewatch just for the makeup.

 

[cr0w]

I watched Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time in a long while recently, when the remastered Blu-Ray came out.

I never realized just how much that movie glosses over pretty much everything. I don't know whether that was because they just expected people to know the story already or what, but it jumps from scene to scene so quickly and without any exposition that if you didn't already know it you'd be forgiven for not knowing what the hell you just watched.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

+1 to Prisoner of Azkaban. I take something like this over the roided monsters out of Master of the Universe action figures that the more comic-booky movies like Van Helsing and Underworld do.

 

[Jaeger]

My problem with the beast-man design in movies like Dog Soldiers and Van Helsing is that it doesn't work on a basic anatomical level. You can't just take a long-snout carnivore's head and stick it on a bipedal ape's shoulders. The entire biting mechanic of wolves (or cats) is based on being quadrupedal with the neck attaching to the back of the skull near the top, not at the base of the skull on the bottom.




There's also the issue of where the heck the mass comes from, with a lot of these designs being eight feet tall.

Obviously it's all fantasy, but I prefer if not plausibility - then functionality.

Edit: Found an image online that shows why this bothers me:

You are right, actually. Some of the better takes (IMO) on the more beastial designs try and solve this issue with more muscle mass around the neck and shoulder area, and a slightly forward tilted head/skull position. Like the one in Cabin in the Woods.

Sadly, the one in Dog Soldiers suffers from this issue alot.

 

[User 479360]

Ginger Snaps has always been my favourite werewolf movie. I don't normally think about my favourite special effects, or have the visual memory to really rank this type of thing.

The Dog Soldiers and Cabin in the Woods ones were pretty awesome, though. Dog Soldiers didn't do as much for me as a movie, as it did for a lot of people. Cabin in the Woods was really good.

The Howling deserves credit, though.

 

[SNIKT!]

You guys should check out Howl if you haven't yet. Pretty damn good imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHm8t9fCxeY

 

[McBryBry]

if I remember right, didn't Lupin have a really creepy half human and half wolf howl/whine or something? Remember it giving me the real creeps.

Anyway, never seen American Werewolf in London. Its on my list... Loved Dog Soldiers though. I randomly caught it in SyFy a few years back, expecting a dumb SyFy movie. It was actually good though!

 

[Joe Spangle]

+1 for Dog Soldiers. Love that film. So many great lines in it. . .

"I hope I give you the shits you fucking wimp"

 

[Jaeger]

You guys should check out Howl if you haven't yet. Pretty damn good imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHm8t9fCxeY

Howl was really good. The "werewolves" were ugly! But I'm sure was design choice was intentional.

The werewolf genre is alive!