Xtro (1982)

'To do the most disgusting things that we could possibly get away with' was director Harry Bromley-Davenport's imperative when making Xtro. To this end Davenport hired newer actors from theatre and television rather than star actors, to let the budget mainly go to the effects.

Francis Coates was credited under 'creature effects' and had previously worked as a sculptor on various episodes of Doctor Who (as part of the various freelance firms contracted by the BBC's VFX Department) and Star Wars (on the R2-D2 suits). Among the effects team was Richard Gregory, who provided puppets and makeup effects to episodes of Doctor Who and Space Precinct.

Coates and the effects team worked from designs by Christopher Hobbs. Hobbs, primarily a production designer (on Derek Jarman's films, Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance, and the 2000 Gormenghast miniseries), had supplied the flesh-bubbling burning effects for Ken Russell's The Devils and storyboarded the effects sequences in The Company of Wolves. Hobb's work on Xtro went to visualizing the film's transformations.

Family man Sam Philips returns to Earth as a scuttling alien. It was decided that the alien would be realized as a performer crabwalking in a suit. Inside the monster suit was mime artist Tim Dry, who together with Sean Crawford were the music duo Tik & Tok. Crawford also starred in Xtro as the giant Action Man, realized as Crawford wearing a static mask and gloves.

Preliminary sculpt of the monster suit by Francis Coates 

 

At the film's climax Sam and his son Tony transform back into their alien forms, the skin sloughing off to reveal the alien underneath. This was achieved via prosthetic makeup; the first stage makeups consisted of latex applies on Philip Sayer, giving his face a discoloured, sunken appearance with pieces stuck on to imply his skin was falling off and the alien skeleton was showing.

The second stage makeup was more heavy in order to give Sayer a further decomposed appearance, with fanged dentures giving him a bestial look. An appliance was also worn on the chest to imply his ribcage was opening up.

Simon Nash early stage makeup as the transforming Tony were minimal, but the final stage consisted of a discoloured face mask - presumably taken from a cast of Nash's head, but cannot be sure - that was cut up around the jaw and painted to have a decaying appearance.

At the film's climax, Sam has fully transformed into a skeletal, biomechanical alien, seen only very briefly in close-up shot. The final alien was realized both as a mostly immobile full-body puppet for distance shots.

Sources:

- 'Xtro Xposed' interview with Harry Bromley-Davenport

- Fangoria issues #19 and #24

- Famous Monsters of Filmland issue #191

- Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine, December 1982

- Francis Coates' official website: http://www.scopedesign-uk.com/

Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)

The sequel to Waxwork again had its special effects supervised by Bob Keen, who also did some second unit directing. Among his special effects team was Paul Jones returning from the first film, as well as new names such as Stephen Norrington, future director of Death Machine and Blade. Like the first film, many of Waxwork II's sequences were loving pastiches of horror films.

An earlier sequence parodies Frankenstein adaptations, though the depiction of the monster owes more to its description in Mary Shelley's original novel; prosthetics were applied to Stefanos Miltsakakis to make them have a more brutish appearance, with a heavy jaw and cheekbones.

One sequence required a maiden being transformed into a 'panther woman'; the earlier stages of the transformation were realized as a latex facial appliance. Minimal air bladder appliances were also used.

The fully transformed panther woman was a mask fitted with animatronic mechanisms allowing the mouth and eyes to open.

The most elaborate of Waxwork II's pastiche segments was a spoof of Ridley Scott's Alien; naturally a facehugger parody was required, and realized as a squid-like animatronic puppet with mechanisms allowing the eyes to blink.

The sequence's parody xenomorph was realized as a man in a scuklpted suit just like the original Alien's monster, with a head fitted with rod puppet mechanisms (to allow the mouth to shoot in and out) in a similar manner to Carlo Rambaldi's original Alien head puppet.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)

The Lycan suit moulds from Underworld: Evolution were reused for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, in order to craft a new batch of suits. These new Lycan suits were given a slightly different paint job, as well as longer fur being applied to give them a more 'wild' appearance.

Rise of the Lycans introduced 'proper' werewolves. The werewolf suits and heads were reuses of the William werewolf moulds from Evolution, with the William suit's head itself being repainted and used for closeup shots of the werewolves. One of these suits was expertly restored by Tom Spina, allowing the suit to be seen in full; the story of the restoration (and recreation of its missing hands and feet) can be seen on his website.