An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Part 2: Jack Goodman's Ghost

Continued from the Part 1 article on An American Werewolf in London which focused on the dream demon masks.

One of Landis' aims for American Werewolf was that it would be thoroughly gruesome, as he explained in Fangoria #13; 'This is definitely a bloody film. It's very realistic; if someone is being savaged, it looks like he is being savaged'.

One of American Werewolf's most famous images was the scarred visage of undead werewolf victim Jack Goodman, half his face and throat torn off in the lycanthrope's attack. The first stage makeup, when he visits David in the hospital, was his 'freshly dead' look.

Baker recalled the first stage makeup's grim inspiration; 'The torn up throat was based on a horrible photograph that one of the guys (at EFX) had of a man who got his hand caught on a circular saw. I had such a hard time looking at that, I'm actually very squeamish'.

Baker elaborated on the first stage makeup's design, 'The initial test I did on Griffin, I had blood and dirt all over him, and thats one thing where John had something to say about it; he wanted him to be perfectly clean, other than the wounds. He wanted to make sure it was Griffin there.'

Griffin Dunne found the assorted undead makeups he wore to be repellant, but especially the first-stage makeup. As Dunne remembered;

'I saw it was gonna be really gruesome. Quite an unsettling experience. I became depressed, because you got a very strong sense of what you would look like when you were dead. My mother was ill at the time, and I thought my mother can't see this, it will freak her out!'

Baker was less sympathetic; 'I could see that it wasn't going down well with him. I ask 'What's the matter Griffin?' He goes, shaking his head, 'This is my big film break, and nobody's gonna look at me 'cause I'm so hideous!'. I go, 'Did you read the script? Didn't it say your neck was torn out? Your neck is torn out!'. 'But I didn't imagine I'd look like this!' 'Well *I* did!'

One particularly gross aspect of the first stage makeup was the little strand of flesh that wobbles every time Jack talks. According to Baker, this was an accident;

'People always remember that there's a piece of flesh that wiggles on his neck. They always stare at it! We didn't plan to do that! It was just this little piece that I put on there, and because it was wet, every time he talked it would move.'.

The first stage undead Jack makeup in the film. 

 

When Jack returns to haunt David once more, he is in a more decayed state, with discoloured skin, rotting wounds that have deepened, and sunken eye sockets.

Baker stated that the second stage makeup's inspiration came from photographs he had of mummified heads, as well as dissatisfaction at the zombie makeups in George Romero's films;

'I always thought the zombies (in Night of the Living Dead) could have been cooler. They were just people with dark circles around their eyes. I thought, why couldn't they be really shrivelled up? That's why I was excited about Griffin's continued decomposition'.

Baker elaborated on the second stage Jack makeup's design; 'It was pretty sick as far as appliances go, but I really wanted the neck (wound) to have some depth. I wanted to see the thyroid, cartilage and stuff. (Dunne) was basically all covered in appliances at that point.'

The sculpt of second-stage Jack hand makeup. 

 

Griffin Dunne once again did not find the makeup pleasant, albeit for different reasons; 'I had to get up at four in the morning as opposed to five. I could appreciate it, and I could appreciate how exciting it was for everyone else putting it on.

But to be the guy sitting in the chair from 4 in the morning for 6 or 7 hours? The thrill of that wore off pretty quick! I would just sit there patiently, trying not to go out of my mind. (...) They glued it to your face, and the heat would make it constrict. It was like being eaten alive by ants!'

Jack Goodman's next scene had the character realized as a puppet instead, with Baker explaining the choice;

'The process of makeup is an additive process; you add to someone's face. It's easier to make someone look fatter, but it's very difficult to make them look thinner, as you can't subtract from what's already there.

As you're decomposing, you become very skull-like. It's very difficult. Usually when you do a makeup like that you, end up building the cheekbones out, but it gets big. I thought, why can't we make it a puppet? If we do a puppet, we actually can subtract.

So what I did was have a lifecast of Griffin Dunne, that I did a clay press of. And I actually sculpted basically what Griffin's skull would look like, and we were able to make a much more emaciated dead-looking character that way'.

The sculpted skull had a half-face appliance placed over it, along with a neck appliance and body both made of polyfoam.

Dunne was apprehensive at first; 'I was very threatened by that puppet. I wanted to do the scene, but they'd been working on the puppet for five years or something. I mean, John dreamed of using a puppet all his life, I guess. When I knew there was gonna be a puppet, I thought, 'Well, there's one less scene I'm gonna be in'. I didn't want a puppet playing me, and so me and the puppet started off immediately on bad terms'.

The sculpt of the skeletal puppet's arm. 

 

A compromise was made that allowed Dunne to still play the character; as one of the puppeteers! Working as part of the six-person team that operated the puppet, Dunne handled the puppet's mouth as he read the dialogue out loud.

'I was always pretty insistent about operating the puppet, cos I wanted it to at least act like me - if it's not gonna be me, I wanted it to at least move like me. So I did the scene on videotape, and then we made the dummy do the exact same scene. I ran the eyes and the smile, the mouth - as many things as I could grab onto. There was another guy who was my arm. And I gave him arm directions'.

For distance shots, the puppet's half-skull design was replicated with a mask, worn by Griffin Dunne again. In the final film, this makeup is only seen in a distance shot.

Judging by one behind the scenes photo, three of these masks were made, with the look completed with a makeup appliance around the neck, and a fake eyeball

The skeletal mask being sculpted. 

 

Despite the film's violent scenes, very little gore makeups were made outside of the first-stage Jack Goodman makeup. A set of slash wound makeups were made for Geoffrey Burridge, Brenda Cavendish and Michael Carter as the undead spirits of David's victims.

Cavendish remembered a humorous detail about taking breaks while still in the makeup;

'We did have a terrific time, when we were covered in blood and scabs. We were having our lunch, and we had been asked to move to one side, because people were put off because we were covered in blood and scabs! As we were eating our lunch, bits of our faces were falling into our meals, and we were having to pick the bits out!'

Another gore makeup was the throat slashing appliance on David Naughton, fitted with a tube to squirt fake blood during the Nazi nightmare sequence.

Note the torn shoulder appliance on Brenda Cavendish. 

 

Michael Carter in a torn throat and slashed cheek appliance. 

 

Extra gore work for EFX included a decapitated dummy head for the police inspector's death, and at least two bitten off dummy hands for the aftermath of the suburban couple's killing.

(I wonder if the 'guts' that the Kessler Wolf is seen chewing on in the porn theatre were actual food dyed in the fake blood?)

Baker's EFX crew with the Jack puppet and masks (and more!). 

 

Can you spot the severed hands and head props? 

 

Sources: 

• 'Beware the Moon: Remembering An American Werewolf in London' (2009)
• Fangoria #29
• Archive of American Television interview with Rick Baker

Read more on An American Werewolf in London's special effects in the 'Part 3' article, covering the famous transformation sequence.