Interviews
‘Wolf Man’ Creature Design and Effects Were All Practical; No Digital Transformations Allowed [Interview]
Despite a recently released featurette from Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man seemingly giving away the werewolf transformation, the truth is that Whannell’s reimagining of the 1941 Universal Monsters classic doesn’t feature a transformation at all, at least not in the conventional sense.
That’s because the entire film, set over the course of one harrowing night, centers on a man grappling with a long, painful transformation. Instead of turning into a wolf by the full moon, Christopher Abbott’s Blake instead finds himself losing his humanity as strange DNA brutally reshapes his body. Bringing this monstrous, body horror-fueled vision to life on screen was Prosthetics & Special Makeup Effects Designer Arjen Tuiten (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Pan’s Labyrinth).
Tuiten’s task was daunting: designing a Wolf Man that looks nothing like his cinematic counterparts, and one that would slowly transform in stages over one night. Whannell envisioned his Wolf Man as more diseased than canine. Luckily, Tuiten understood and connected with this unique take right away.
“I’d heard about the project lingering around,” the artist told Bloody Disgusting of his early involvement with the project. “I got to talk to Leigh, and he expressed how he was seeing this film, and, based on reading the script and what he was saying, I’m like, ‘I think I know what you’re looking for.’ I did a pass, I think, that night or the following day, and I sent it to him.
“He wrote back the following evening, and he said, ‘You know, I’ve been working on this four years, and you’re the first one to get it, concept-wise.’ He was so relieved, in the sense of what this would look like.“
Prosthetic Designer Arjen Tuiten on the set of Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell.
It’s the story’s tragic quality that Tuiten grasped straightway. “I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a classic tale.‘ But when I read the script, I understood that this is a modern take like Invisible Man, which I loved, and I got it. It’s not the fantastical. It’s the tragedy, the sadness of it. That’s actually something I put in my design. I tried to capture the tragicness of the story, and we connected on that heavily. I like that; it’s something fresh.”
One obvious difference in Tuiten’s interpretation of the Wolf Man is the distinct lack of fur. ‘The hair thing was something Leigh was very adamant about in the beginning, too,“ Tuiten says of his Wolf Man’s lack of fur. “Like, ‘I don’t want to see a whole lot of hair. I don’t want to see what we’ve seen before,‘ and he was adamant about this being an infection. We very much went back and forth about what references we looked at, too. The Fly is a big reference, obviously, where it’s two anatomies trying to mix rather than it becoming a full-blown, beautiful creature where it becomes fantastical. This was something where human anatomy meets the wolf or dog-like anatomy, which is a painful mix.“
Because it’s a long, slow transformation that spans many hours, Christopher Abbott’s physical transformation from family man Blake into something monstrous happens in stages. Tuiten breaks down the stages involved, but more impressively, he notes that Whannell insisted that everything about the character’s metamorphosis happens in camera.
Prosthetic Designer Arjen Tuiten on the set of Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell.
Tuiten explains, “He did say from the beginning, ‘I want everything to be in camera.‘ With films like this, in this day and age, 99% of the time, you’re gonna have a digital transformation. It is so rare that this happens, and he’s asked for that. Every time we see Christopher in the makeup, he looks different, and he slowly starts to transform into this beast. I love that about the story. I think there were about [five stages] on Christopher. I think we did five different complete builds of wigs, teeth, lenses, prosthetics, hands, and chests. I mean, it was endless, really, because everything is in camera. It was a lot of work.”
“Prosthetic makeups quickly look like prosthetic makeup or look fantastical because they’re sculpted,“ the artist says of the sleeker design of the prosthetics. “They’re created by an artist; sculpted. They’re molded. They’re painted. This needed to look real. It needed to look raw and not [like] prosthetic makeup. I understood what he was asking for. I was careful not to carry it too far. And Christopher is such an amazing actor. I needed his emotions to also come through and not be covered by an inch of rubber, where it becomes too rubbery if that makes sense. He’s such an actor’s actor. I didn’t want to do that to him. At the same time, I hope we found the right balance to tell this story.”
Arjen Tuiten, a horror and Universal Monsters fan himself, knows the legacy attached to the character well. That added pressure, which was compounded by time constraints. Luckily, he had support from another SFX Legend who deeply understands the legacy as well: Rick Baker, who was behind the practical work in 2010’s The Wolfman. Baker loaned him a rare gift in support of Tuiten’s work on the film.
Tuiten shares, “The biggest challenge was convincing myself that I did something that people watching the movie will love and grow into over time. I spoke to Rick Baker about it. He’s a good friend of mine, and he’s like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be very different.‘ He actually lent me Jack Pierce’s makeup case, which he has, and it sat in my office during the build with the hopes that I did something right. That I was following in the footsteps of some very important people.“
Prosthetic Designer Arjen Tuiten on the set of Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell.
There’s no question that the bold new take on the classic monster will be divisive, but Tuiten and his crew put in commendable work in delivering a multi-stage transformation, all handled in camera via practical effects.
“I think I’m most proud that we were able to make the film with the transformation working throughout the film as a whole because that was something that we all weren’t sure about,“ Tuiten answers when asked which part of his design instills the most pride. “We don’t see a digital transformation. Every time we see him, his makeup looks different. Did we get that right? Is the pacing right? I think we achieved it.”
He continues, “The other one is that we actually ended up building a mechanical head as well, an animatronic head and a hand that grows and changes within the camera, and that alone is so rare these days. Any studio would have chosen to do that in post. I can guarantee you that. [Whannell] fought hard to get that in camera, and we did, so it’s in the film.“
Wolf Man howls its way into theaters nationwide this weekend.
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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