Following the critical and box office success of 2020’s The Invisible Man, writer-director Leigh Whannell has returned with another modernized take on a classic Universal Monster, Wolf Man. The Australian filmmaker, famously known for co-creating the Saw and Insidious franchises with James Wan, found himself in a unique position when Jason Blum of Blumhouse offered him another go at the Universal Monsters IP. Universal Pictures was ready to further distance themselves from their well-documented, failed “Dark Universe” franchise, but a director had not made more than one successful Universal Monster movie since Stephen Sommers‘ two Brendan Fraser-starring Mummy blockbusters in the early 2000s. The pressure placed on Whannell’s shoulders could not have been higher.
Despite initially declining the offer to direct Wolf Man, Leigh Whannell eventually found a way to navigate these high expectations. While he once again committed to telling a modernized story, similar to The Invisible Man, his interpretation of the titular creature itself was completely unprecedented. Wolf Man follows Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) and his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner), who take their loving young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) away from the busy metropolitan streets of San Francisco to the dense, beautiful Oregon forests. With Blake’s estranged father recently declared deceased, going up to his old family farm to collect his dad’s belongings seems like the perfect excuse to escape from Charlotte’s workaholic lifestyle and possibly heal their troubled marriage.
However, as the family of three travels deeper into the woods, they discover something sinister is hunting them. This is how Leigh Whannell introduces his version of the werewolf, which borrows a bit from traditional lore but is ultimately a brand-new interpretation. Moreover, like Whannell’s past works, from Saw to the sci-fi thriller Upgrade, there’s an unforeseen depth to the horrors of Wolf Man.
Enter Makeup Guru Arjen Tuiten
In our previous exclusive Wolf Man interview with Leigh Whannell, the filmmaker revealed that he wrote the script with his wife, Corbett Tuck, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is how the story shaped itself around the theme of isolation with a small family trapped in a lonely farmhouse in the middle of the forest without help. In the movie, Blake falls ill with an inexplicable sickness — i.e., the werewolf infection after coming into contact with the beast — and his loved ones are forced to watch helplessly as his body decays. The pandemic allegories could not be clearer in the screenplay, but this required a new design for the titular Wolf Man, something more feral and sickly looking.
‘Wolf Man’ courtesy of Universal
Enter Dutch-born prosthetic makeup artist Arjen Tuiten. In keeping with the Universal Monsters film tradition of prioritizing practical effects, going all the way back to 1941’s The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr., Tuiten came on board to bring Whannell’s bold vision for the iconic creature to life. In addition to boasting credits on Pan’s Labyrinth, Maleficent, and many other beloved films, Tuiten previously won the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for his work on 2017’s Wonder. If that wasn’t already impressive, Tuiten got his start in the industry working under VFX and special effects makeup legends Stan Winston and Rick Baker.
A Diseased Animal
In getting the chance to sit down with Wolf Man director Leigh Whannell for a second exclusive interview, he tells us that his main goal for this new werewolf design was for it “to feel like a disease rather than something where he’s suddenly covered in fur.” As it turns out, it didn’t take long for Arjen Tuiten to nail this look.
Leigh Whannell: “When I met Arjen Tuiten, the makeup artist who was the main designer on this film, he and I got in sync about making the design more of a disease. He told me, ‘Let me just build a model out of clay to show you,’ and I honestly didn’t know what he would come up with. After he finished the model, he covered it in a sheet to finally show me. When he ripped the sheet away, that first Wolf Man design I saw was actually what we went with. We didn’t have a lot
Credit: discussingfilm.net
