Silver Bullet (1985)

The cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's novella Cycle of the Werewolf was plagued with production problems, a lot of them stemming from Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis' interference. De Laurentiis brought in the famous special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi to realize the werewolf form of the reverend Lowe, but was unimpressed with the initial design, forcing Rambaldi to reject it and start once over.

Stephen King with the rejected werewolf head.

Carlo Rambaldi with the rejected werewolf head.

A very fuzzy image showing what the rejected head looked like in colour.

Rambaldi was forced to revise the werewolf's design but this still did not please De Laurentiis, causing production to fall behind schedule. This was not helped that Rambaldi was working with little money, something De Laurentiis insisted was only right as 'Rambaldi owed him a favor'. The head itself was entirely animatronic, and according to cinematographer Daniele Nannuzzi, had small holes under the muzzle to allow actor Everett McGill to see. McGill, who portrayed Lowe in the film, was not originally meant for the werewolf suit; he was chosen when De Laurentiis got difficult about the dancer originally hired to wear it. The animatronic head's expressions were controlled by levers that were connected to the mask via 'cables going out of the wolf's ass' as Nannuzzi so colourfully put it. The bodysuit and head were both coated in bear fur.

Rambaldi was only responsible for the main werewolf suit, with the rest of the film's effects overseen by Michael McCracken; this included Lowe's transformation sequence. The transformation prosthetics were sculpted by Jeff Kennemore, with radio-controlled 'change o heads' a la The Howling and American Werewolf in London; the earlier stages required Everett McGill to be in prosthetic makeup, and casts taken of his face for the change-o-head transformations.

McCracken also supervised the church transformation scene, which required, according to Nannuzzi 'thirty or forty makeup artists' for the 'almost one hundred wolves'. Of particular notice is the nursing mother werewolf, cradling a baby werewolf that itself was realized as a puppet! The various transformed churchgoers were achieved with facial and hand prosthetics.

Behind the scenes shot showing the air bladder mechanism.

Sources:

- Daniele Nanuzzi's segment in the 2011 special effects documentary Sense of Scale.

- Portalville's interview with Silver Bullet's director Dan Attias.