Bad Moon (1996)

Eric Red's adaptation of Wayne Smith's novel Thor had its werewolf realized by Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc, with Johnson himself acting as supervisor for the special effects. Johnson's inspiration for the werewolf's design came from Warren Publishing's magazines such as Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella; according to Johnson, one story had a werewolf which was 'human in its lower body, waist down, but its upper body was wolf-like. Johnson doesn't specify which issue this was; I wonder if it was the famous Creepy cover by Frank Frazetta?.

Another reason for Johnson's push to have a werewolf with a human-like lower half was that it would be easier for the performer to move, without the need for leg extensions or shooting only from the waist up. Johnson also wished for the werewolf to have a longer, sloped neck to give it a hunch like a real wolf's neck, meaning the animatronic head was facing in front of the performer's face. The head animatronic was designed and sculpted by Bill Corso, who emphasized the wolfish aspect rather than previous werewolf designs - in fact,the werewolf suit was so wolf-like that it intimidated most of the german shepard attack dogs used in filming, making them unwilling to attack the werewolf performer!

Facial prosthetics were sculpted for Michael Pare for the sequence where he transforms into the beast; a more subtle 'wolfman' makeup for his initial stages, and a more grotesque 'halfway' prosthetic appliance designed in a similar manner to the 'uneven' Evil Ed werewolf appliances Johnson had designed for Fright Night. Image editing software was then used to blend the footage of Pare into the various makeups, and eventually the werewolf suit, to do a continuous transformation without requiring quick cuts a la The Howling or American Werewolf in London.

The digital transformation was an experiment with the latest in then-current digital technology; similar techniques were utilized for Anthony Hickox's Full Eclipse and Mick Garris' Sleepwalkers. Unfortunately, the results in Bad Moon (and the aforementioned films) were loathed; both Steve Johnson and Eric Red regret going digital, to the point Red's director's cut completely trims out the transformation sequence.

Getting much less screentime than the werewolf is the monstrous form that lovable dog Thor takes in an all too brief nightmare sequence, realized as a puppet.