Monsters On Screen: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Rick Baker had first worked with director John Landis on the latter's 1973 film Schlock, and the two had agreed to work on An American Werewolf in London, the script of which had already been written and Landis promised would be his next movie. However, American Werewolf did not get made until 1982, and at that time Baker was working on The Howling.

Baker had to leave the latter project, passing the buck to his assistant Rob Bottin, in less than pleasant circumstances, with Landis exploding at him on the phone, 'you bastard, you son of a bitch (...) this is for MY werewolf movie'.

The first monster effects are the four Nazi demons that murder the family of Kessler (David Naughton) in a dream sequence. These are some of the relatively more simple effects of the film (compared to the undead corpse puppets, werewolf suit and transformation props), being just static latex masks. Four masks were created. the most memorable being the decayed, sabre-toothed demon.

The other nightmare demon masks were sculpted by other members of Baker's team who would go on to have lengthy special effects careers; Tom Hester sculpted the bald one, Steve Johnson for the mohawk mask and Shawn McEnroe for the 'wolfman' mask. Craig Reardon was another sculptor on Baker's team who helped with sculpting the main werewolf later on.

Throughout the film, David Kessler is haunted by the decomposing ghost of his friend Jack Goodman; the decomposition was achieved by a serious of prosthetic makeups applied to actor Griffin Dunne, who at first was not happy about the prospect. Dunne felt that the film was going to be his big break, yet now nobody would want to look at him thanks to being coated in the gruesome gore prosthetics. The inspiration for the gore prosthetics came from a photo of a genuine industrial accident; Baker by his own admission hated looking at the photo.

As Jack's decomposition continues, the his skin discolours; the second stage of the transformation had him coated in a green painted prosthetic appliance with the wound having rotted further, while the third stage - only seen at a distance - had his skull visible. Several casts had to be taken of Dunne's face for each makeup, each more decayed than the last.

Baker initially had a problem when it came to the close-ups of Jack's third and final stage of decomposition; corpses become thinner as they decay, yet applying makeup to Dunne's face would give away that there was no actual skull underneath. It was passable to do that for distance shots, but for close-ups it would be obvious.

The solution was that the last form of Jack would be realized as a puppet; Baker took a life cast of Griffin and took a clay press, carving out his own idea of what Dunne's own skull would look like. In the porn theatre scene, Dunne operated the puppet as he spoke his lines on-set.

For Kessler's transformation from man to wolf, Landis was adamant that it would not be the original Wolf Man's method of a time lapse sequence with the actor standing still; he instead wanted the transformation to appear as painful as possible. Baker originally wanted the effect to be in one continuous shot with a full-size animatronic puppet, but Landis' suggestions as well as effects limitations made him decide to have the transformation shown in close-up cuts.

According to Baker, the various shots of Naughton covered in fur were shot first, with the hair being trimmed off between takes, meaning the first stages of the transformation were actually shot last in order to save time. Prosthetic gloves and facial makeup were applied to Naughton with a prosthetic chest also applied as the transformation continued, as well as a more advanced facial prosthetic for the closeup where Naughton opens his now demonic eyes, said eyes being contact lenses.

For the shot where Kessler twists around to find his entire body now resembling that of a monstrous wolf, a prop 'body was applied to Naughton, whose real body was obscured by the set's floorboards; combined with the prosthetics on his face and arms, this created an illustion that his whole body was transformed.

For the shots showing the face, feet and hands transforming, Baker opted out of using bladder effects like he had originally intended (and were used by Rob Bottin) for The Howling, instead opting to use puppetry after having been inspired by the work of effects master Carlo Rambaldi. in team made what they called 'Change-o-Parts' (change-o-heads, change-o-hands, change-o-legs and so on), which were replicas of Naughton's head, hands, etc. Baker had been inspired to work with mechanical puppets after being impressed with Carlo Rambaldi's work.

The change-o-parts' 'skin' was made of an elastic urethane compound (rather than foam latex, which Baker felt would not stretch as well), and the puppets themselves fitted with pneumatic air rams underneath. The puppets were made of acrylic form and had been sculpted as the final transformed shape. The operator would use the rams to force the elastic skin of the Change-o-Part into the monstrous shape of the acrylic form underneath it. The urethane compound was also used for the closeups of Naughton's skin becoming hairier, which were achieved by pulling hairs from behind the 'skin' and filming it in reverse.

The sequence ends with Naughton fully transformed into a 'juvenile' werewolf form that is smaller and with less fur its body than the final one. The juvenile form, or the 'man-beast' as the crew called it, was a rod puppet operated by someone underneath the set, and was created from two different moulds - the body was a recasting of the transformation body mould, whilst the head was a recasting of the final werewolf mould. This was barely used on-screen except for a brief shot from the side.

As for the werewolf itself, Baker originally wanted it to be bipedal (like the ones in The Howling) but Landis insisted the werewolf should be a 'demon hound from hell' or 'four legged hound from hell'. Several of the initial concepts, as well as the storyboards, adhered to this demand, as the werewolf was basically a gigantic monstrous wolf.

Rick Baker's initial art of the werewolf.

One of the initial design maquettes.

Several different designs, adhering to the concept of a monstrous wolf, were thought of, but eventually the inspiration came from none other than Baker's pet Keeshond, Bosco! Keeshonds have a very shaggy mane of fur, something that was added to the werewolf around its furless face. The face itself would never be shown fully except for some brief frames, so Baker made sure to have a vicious expression sculpted for the face so that any shot would catch it.

Three heads were made, with a hero animatronic head (that was able to do snarling expressions) and two stunt heads for the attack sequences, all of the heads were able to have their jaws open and close for the snapping, but the stunt heads were operated by a performer off-camera.

The werewolf being a creature that walked on all fours presented some problems for Baker, namely how to realize it in a way that wasn't ridiculous, 'Can I put two people in a suit, that would be dumb' as he said in one interview. The final result did come from childhood antics though - Baker remembered wheelbarrow races he had done as a kid, and thus decided the werewolf was to be a man on a wheeled board, wearing the main wolf suit. The suit's arms had the actors own inside them, but the back legs were puppeteered.

Thankfully, a lot of the various special effects props for the film still exist today, with the main werewolf suit having been lovingly restored thanks to Tom Spina and you can read up about it on his website, as well as a lot more photos of the suits before and after! Love that the werewolf prop is now known as 'Oscar', thanks to earning Rick Baker an Oscar!