Monsters On Screen: The Howling (1981)

Along with An American Werewolf in London, The Howling set a new standard for werewolf effects in film; the directors of both films wished to do an entirely new method of werewolf transformation, and both of them had turned to the same special effects artist; Rick Baker.

Baker had originally been assigned to American Werewolf, but due to the project haven't not yet materialized in the decade since Landis had written the script. Baker was apprehensive when director Joe Dante and producer Michael Finnell approached him about The Howling because of his previous agreement to Landis' film, but as it hadn't yet been green-lit he took the Howling gig.

Unfortunately, when American Werewolf did turn out to have been green-lit, Landis was furious at finding out Baker was working on another werewolf film, and verbally exploded at him over a phone call. Baker decided that he would he would only remain on Howling as a designer and consultant, with his protege Rob Bottin handled all the work.

As for the werewolf transformation itself, it was decided that the old-fashioned method of time-lapse dissolves, a la the original Wolf Man, was a no-go. Miniature effects and stopmotion animation were potential methods, but both were dropped, and the executives still needed to be convinced that the film's special effects were worth funding. Baker and Bottin devised a 'change-o-head' - the sort that would be used to great effect American Werewolf in London as well - as a demonstration.

According to this Instagram post by sculptor Danny Wagner, the test mask made it into the final film, to show TC Quist transforming before he is shot. Bottin had previously worked on Airplane a year before and had been responsible for the sequence where Leslie Nielsen's nose grows Pinocchio-style; his methods for how to realize Eddie's transformation more or less utilized the same techniques.

The transformation of serial killer Eddie Quist from man to wolf would prove to be the film's special effects highlight; while TC Quist's death utilized the test change-o-head, he was only a minor character, requiring only a brief shot of transforming; much more advanced effects would need to be utilized for the film's piece de resistance. To start off, makeup prosthetics were applied to Robert Picardo to imply his character's supernatural nature, the first being a full facial appliance showing his head with bullet holes

Late scenes after Quist had been burned with acid, would involve more gruesome facial prosthetics applied to Picardo, giving his character an undead appearance.

Eddie Quist's transformation, like David Kessler's transformation in American Werewolf, would be devised in stages. The early stages of the transformation, depicting Quist's muscles bulging as they reshape themselves, were air bladder effects; Baker got the inspiration from Dick Smith, who had utilized similar effects for Altered States. Howling's air bladder makeup appliance were designed by Greg Cannom, who used condoms to act as most of the air bladders placed on Picardo's legs, chest, shoulder and neck, and placed under prosthetic skin. The air bladder on the neck (which was actually a hot water bottle) proved to be a hazard, as Picardo would not be able to breathe when they inflated.

The later stages of Quist's transformation were realized with change-o-heads; three were sculpted and constructed, with Bottin sculpting them and the internal animatronics supervised by Bottin and Doug Beswick. The change-o-heads were operated off-camera, and could perform up to fifteen actions, with editing tricks also helping. The first stage puppet, taken from a casting of Picardo's face, showed Quist's human face but distorted from the transformation. The early stage was also complemented by a puppet hand that showed the nails growing longer.

The second change-o-head depicted Quist now with more lupine features as the face reshaped into a more lupine one.

The third and final change-o-head was almost entirely wolf-like, with mechanisms inside showing that the transformation was still ongoing, pushing the latex from outside.

Several prosthetic makeups were also made to show other werewolves in various stages of transforming, only briefly seen in quick cuts. Air bladder prosthetic were also applied to Elisabeth Brooks, similar in design to the ones applied to Robert Picardo.

(Note; The last of the barn sequence's prosthetic makeups, visible in the last two images, was kept by Greg Cannom and was then reused, over a decade later, in the X-Files episode 'Shapes', worn with one of the suits from the 1987 Werewolf series that Cannom worked on.

The mask was redressed with fur on the sides to match it better with the reused Werewolf suit, and was applied on the Canada shoot by Stephen Prouty, with Toby Lindala overseeing it. )

The reused Howling mask as it appeared in X-Files 'Shapes'.

Another animatronic puppet head was needed for Dee Wallace's transformation at the finale. Wallace's werewolf makeup is very different in design to the other werewolves, being described by Dante as looking like a Pekinese dog more than a wolf; this was intended as a way to show she was repressing the wild creature inside. The 'Pekinese' werewolf sequence was shot right before the film's prints are made in the studio offices, hence why it's in such a closeup - there was no set!

Bottin and Dante were adamant about not doing Wolf Man designs, wishing to have a werewolf that had never been seen on-screen. The inspiration for the design woud come from sixteenth-century woodcuts, as they tended to depict werewolves as large bipedal wolves. However, this proved to be a bit of a problem as several different werewolf designs were sculpted before settling on the final design - Bottin himself had a hard time settling on the final werewolf design, having made ten or so different sculpted heads.

Rick Baker sculpting an unused werewolf design, early in production.

The final design, ironically enough, was one of Bottin's earlier sculpts. When they thought they had settled on the final design, which was realized as an animatronic head and suit, it turned out the budget was not high enough to be in line with Dante and Bottin's expecations and both of them loathed the first full werewolf suit, relegating it only to the cabin attack sequence where it is out of shot. Other early tests had only a werewolf head in close-up, which again was simply not that convincing an effect in the eyes of Dante and Bottin.

According to Steve Shank, 'The problem with the suits was the dimensions were modeled on a werewolf's scale and not a man's (...) too big in the wrong places. Ideally, a werewolf should be large enough to appear formidable, but svelte enought to be wolf-like. Most of the early suits had bodies resembling black bears'. Another early idea of Bottin's was to have the wolf head over the performer's 'like a stove hate', but this did not result in a convincing effect, and was scrapped.

Another example of the film's many unused werewolf effects was for a brief sequence during the finale where werewolves would be seen leaping from the burning barn's window, achieved with full-sized dummy werewolf props being launched out of the window via rockets. The final result looked comical and was scrapped from the final film.

Bottin requested an increased budget to realize the effects to his liking, and decided to ditch the 'man in a suit' method entirely, instead deciding the werewolves would be realized as a rod puppet, similarly to those in Japanese theatre. The eight feet tall puppet was designed and constructed by Jeff Shank (along with Steve Shank), and impressed Dante and Bottin; the puppet had a clearly wolf-like frame, rather than clearly being an actor in a suit. The rod puppet however was rejected thanks to not being able to walk (as Dante wanted the werewolves to be seen walking) and also having potential problems they weren't sure they could sort out before finishing, meaning it was never used in the final film. Bottin wished to have another puppet built for close-ups, but this was shot down by Shank and Dante.

The failure of the rod puppet meant a return to the suit and animatronic head method, with Shank persuading Bottin to go back to the suit method; Shank designed the final film's suit based on his rod puppet, with collaboration from Dale Kuipiers. There was some minor alterations from the rod puppet design; it was more furless around the face, with the cable-connected animatronic head capable of more advanced facial movements; Shank also changed the shape of the mouth, as as he wanted 'a much more menacing mouth, one that would open a lot wider'.

Other masks, with static faces, were sculpted for scenes with multiple werewolves such as the car attack. The suits had a sculpted torso in a similar shape to the rod puppet, akin to a wolf's ribage, but these aren't seen much in the final film thanks to the moody lighting. The performer inside - who was none other than Jeff Shank - was shot from the waist up in order to not give away that it was someone in a suit, implying it still had the large wolf haunches of the rod puppet design. Shots of the legs standing were achieved with props shaped like the werewolf's feet, the prop legs built by Erik Jensen.

Several stopmotion animation sequences by David W. Allen (who had previously supplied stopmotion segments for Equinox, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Flesh Gordon and Laserblast) that were left on the cutting room floor. Allen was originally hired as the production team felt it was impossible to have the werewolf puppet be realized by an actor in distance shots thanks to its spindly frame. Several stopmotion sequences were made, in particular the finale where several werewolves are burned alive in a barn fire; sadly the style of film between the live-action and stop-motion segments was very different, something that Dante felt the audience would find jarring. Only one brief shot of the stopmotion werewolves exists in the final film, something that Allen was not very happy about, stating in one interview that it was why he never did work for Dante again.