Wild Country (2005)

Craig Strachan, director of Wild Country, had always intended for his film to rely on practical effects. 'CGI has taken the movie industry up a blind alley. (...) Animatronics are far more important to me, because An American Werewolf in London got it exactly right and created the best cinematic werewolf in history'.

Bob Keen, already a veteran of Hellraiser, Nightbreed and Dog Soldiers by that point, showed interest in the project despite its low budget. The film's producer Ros Borland recalled;

'The design of the werewolf was something that we knew was going to be the centrepiece of this film. Bob Keen of Image FX came to see us two and a half years ago. We knew that we had to have something really frightening, and he had done the werewolves for Dog Soldiers, so we knew he could do the job. But we were on a very limited budget, much less than (Dog Soldiers), and we had high demands for this beast!'

Originally, Keen's fee was too high for the Wild Country production team to afford. According to Borland, 'When I told that to Bob, his reaction was, 'You know what? I love the script, so I'll do it for what you can afford'. Bob thought our little movie was well worth investing his company's time in, and did us a massive favor.'

Strachan was adamant that the werewolves should be four-legged, a design element that Keen eagerly went along with; 'I found Craig's story fascinating because it seemed so real. While Dog Soldiers was a fantasy, Wild Country is rooted in the everyday. We had done the standing-up wolf really well for Dog Soldiers, and I didn't want to go that route again.

Nor did that concept work in context, because it had to be a moorland creature. So I designed a mix of the Beast of Bodmin and a humpbacked hyena-like animal, because it utters a sinister chuckle as it closes in on its prey'.

Dave Bonneywell, also a veteran of Image FX's Dog Soldiers team, acted as supervisor on the makeup effects. Peter Hawkins handled the animatronics (and would also wear the werewolf suit). Bonneywell explained in detail on how the suits were made.

'Once we decided this was the path we were going to go down, that determined its size, because it's a big old beast. As it was sculpted and designed, we kept the prehistoric look to it but I wanted to make it look meaner and nastier, so we looked at hyenas to give it big powerful front shoulders and a sloping head. (...)

We kept the human aspects in the sculpt, so it's a cross between a wolf, a hyena and a man. If you look at the original sculpt it has very man-like hands and feet, it's limbs are very human-like. I mean, obviously this is to accommodate the fact that it is a man in a suit, but also hopefully to suggest that this was once a human being.

The werewolf suit sculptures.

I sculpted the thing in full size, from head to foot, in WED clay. That was then moulded, its body from the head back is urethane foam which is then all chopped up by (Image FX's) fabrication team and turned into quite a complex suit.

The head is made of foam latex, which is a lot softer and more malleable than urethane, allowing the mechanics to stretch the foam when it snarls and blinks and opens its jaws.'

The foam rubber werewolf heads being painted.

The werewolf head's underskull.

Bonneywell explained how the heads were mechanized. 'We made a decision to use some radio-control and some cable-control for the creature. I was determined to get a big mouth movement on this thing, rather than the tiny mouth movement such creature suits usually get. I wanted this thing to be able to bite someone's head off!

So the jaw mechanism is cable controlled. The rest of the mechanisms - its blink, its frown, its sneer - are all on (radio-controlled) servos. The problem with the cable is we always need someone within 10 to 15 feet of the thing. That brings its own problems, but I think in the end you get a better look.

On set we have four of us, including Pete in the suit. One man operates the servo controls in the face. One man operates the (cable-controlled) jaw. And I'm usually running around screaming directions'.

The female werewolf head.

The male werewolf head.

At least two full body suits were created, to represent the male werewolf (named the 'Shadow Beast'), and the female werewolf. Bonneywell explained how they differentiated the suits.

'During the fabrication process, we made the male body bigger and much heavier in the shoulders, to make him appear even bigger. The biggest difference between the two (suits) is the colouration. The female has browns and lighter colours. The male, a more aggressive creature, is big and black, and has much bolder markings on his face, and he's got a kinda cool scar on his lip.'

Keen also explained, 'The main creature is a combination of two techniques; a large puppet manipulated by four guys on set, and a sophisticated suit with both arm and leg extensions. Pete Hawkins is the man in the suit, and he watched a lot of animal documentaries to get the stalking behavior right. There's a lot more for him to do than attack - there are many moments where the Shadow Beast sits and waits'.

The black-furred male werewolf suit.

Hawkins said about the experience, 'It's like wearing a big, tight furry coat really. It gets really hot when the head's on. When we did a test, Dave, the supervisor, had to keep swiping the sweat out my eyes. cos I couldn't see fromsweating so much!'

Bonneywell elaborated on the torments of wearing a werewolf suit on location during gloomy Scottish weather, 'It's incredibly difficult. He's on stilts, both on his arms and on his legs, so he's basically performing a permanent pushup whenever he's in the suit!

That combined with the terrain and weather, and the five kilo head he's got on, it's incredibly difficult. Problem is with things like this, once we get him suited up, people tend to forget that it's a man in a suit. Everyone's oohing and aahing at how lovely it looks, and forget there's a human being inside screaming in agony!'

The brown-furred female werewolf suit.

The film's twist ending required a werewolf cub puppet to be made. The puppet had mechanisms that could allow the head to twitch, and the tail to wag! Bonneywell explained,

'We tried to make a cute little baby Shadow Beast! He has markings similar to the female, but it could go either way. He could get darker if he turns out to be a fella!'

Image FX also handled the film's other makeup effects. Most of it went to the gore - which included a severed head and a bitten corpse body - but the Image team also had to fabricate a human baby puppet for safety reasons.

Keen explained, 'We had two puppet babies constructed, one with waving arms for the action scenes. (...) We couldn't put a 9-day-old baby out on the moors.'

The severed dummy head.

The gored farmer body prop.

The most grisly gag on Image FX's to-do list was the shot of the Shadow Beast bursting out of a cow's body in a shower of fake blood and sculpted fake organs. Keen explained;

'I designed an animatronic cow carcass from photos Ros sent, and we molded it with a sprung rib cage with mysteriously undulates as the teens get closer. Suddenly, the werewolf bursts out in a blood shower - it has been eating the cow from the inside - and bits a farmer in half.

We had to change the movements a bit when the Shadow Beast was made bigger than we had planned. The crew will have to wear protective clothing when we film that sequence!'

Bonneywell stated during the shoot, 'The infamous exploding cow gag, we'll achieve by placing a large funnel inside the dead cow (prop). The funnel is connected to an air mortar, which is loaded with fake blood and various nasty bits and pieces, and hopefully blow out on camera.'

The dead cow prop - before being eviscerated!

Craig Strachan was pleased with Image FX's work. 'I think the effects of the film have a sort of retro, mid-80s feel to them. From before CGI took off, and you still were using puppetry and animatronics. I'm quite pleased about that! (...) When (the Shadow Beast)'s massive in the frame with its heads and shoulders looming, I think it holds its own with the best.'

Sources:

• Wild Country: Making Of DVD featurette
  
• Fangoria #279 'Scream For the Wild Country' by Alan Jones.
  

The X-Files (1993) - Season 7

Continued from The X-Files - Season 6

Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf continued working as the makeup department's head, with John Vulich's Optic Nerve Studios continuing to supply the special makeup effects.

It was during the seventh season that Montesanto-Medcalf earned her second Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup on a Series, thanks to the episode 'Theef'.

'Hungry'

Optic Nerve designed the makeup worn by Chad Donella's turn as the brain-eating mutant Rob Roberts. The makeup was a head appliance with specially sculpted ears, a forehead appliance and nose appliance, and completed with shark-like dentures and contact lenses.

A pair of false ears were also made for the shots of Roberts removing his disguise. Vulich explained the aim of the makeup's design.

'The character had to be passable as a human being and the disguise had to look slapped together. The makeup was complicated in its level of subtlety. We had to get something that was a dynamic monster, but at the same time, we had to do a little tweaking so that he would look like a human being.'

In another interview, Vulich elaborated, 'The hardest part about (the makeup) was hiding his ears. We had to hide his ears underneath a bald cap, and still put (false) ears on top of that, without making his ears look giant. There's a lot of little tricks, every illusion we could pull to make it not look like huge giant ears, we did.'

(A gross detail; the shot of the brains on the cooker did not use rubber props, but actual cow brains! No wonder they were frying so well...)

'Rush'

Optic Nerve supplied a grisly dummy head with a smashed in head, representing the aftermath of a high-speed collision.

'Orison'

This episode was a sequel to the second season's 'Irresistible', featuring the return of demonic serial killer Donnie Pfaster. Optic Nerve had to recreate Toby Lindala's makeup design for Pfaster's demon shape. Bryan Blair wore the makeup.

To recreate Lindala's design, Vulich requested Lindala send him photographs. Before receiving the photos, Vulich also searched the internet for photos of the demon's appearance, often finding them hosted on X-Files fansites!

'The Amazing Maleeni'

Optic Nerve were tasked with the severed head effect in this episode. Vulich explained in a behind the scenes interview; 'We had to do a head cast of Ricky Jay, we had very little time to do this effect, maybe four or five days tops, which really isn't an adequate amount of time to do a fake head like that. Especially with the level of detail.

We had to do this on cue, so we did it with electromagnets. You can't see it but there's this metal plate hidden by all this gruesome stuff. And on the other stump is a very strong electromagnet, that would really hold while you shaked it. We just hit a switch (that turned the magnet off) that allowed (the head) to fall on cue, which worked surprisingly well!'

'Signs and Wonders'

Optic Nerve made a grotesque blistered skin appliance for Michael Childers to wear after his character was bitten by snakes. The appliance was fitted with tubes underneath that would squirt out goo, to show the venom being expelled from the sores.

'Chimera'

Optic Nerve supplied a prosthetic makeup that never made it past behind the scenes photos of performer Bullet Valmont; this makeup is different to the one that actually appeared in the episode, which was barely seen regardless.

The test makeup on Valmont was credited to Greg Funk, one of the Optic Nerve team. As of now I am unsure if there was two separate makeups or not!

'Brand X'

Optic Nerve sculpted a ripped face corpse head.

Despite the more outlandish makeup effects in the season, it was actually Billy Drago's subtle makeup in the episode 'Theef' that earned a second Emmy award for Montesanto-Medcalf! She spoke about how proud she was of the makeup in an interview;

When the Emmys came around, back in the day we were up against Buffy and there's a lot of big monsters and I said 'I want to put up Theef!' and they were like, 'Really? The makeups great but it's not like a big monster thing, we've done episodes with monsters in them!'. I said, the fine detail of making Billy Drago look that creepy and that realistic, I'm willing to risk not getting an Emmy because everyone else loved it so much. Luckily everyone also loved it too.'

Sources:

• All Things: The Official Guide to The X-Files Volume 6 (Marc Shapiro, 2001)
  
• 'X-Files Fan Retrospective' interview with Cheri Montesanto
  
• Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
  

Continued in The X-Files - Season 8

The X-Files (1993) - Season 6

Continued from The X-Files - Season 5

When production of The X-Files moved to Los Angeles, the series' makeups were overseen by Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf, who would act as the series' makeup department head right up until the end of its original run in 2002.

X-Files was not Montesanto's first brush with horror, as she had previously did makeup work in 1982's Fear No Evil and 1988's The Lady in White. Montesanto explained how she got the X-Files job in an interview with Classic-Horror.com.

'I had worked with one of the producers, (Bernadette) Caulfield before. I worked for her for fifteen years on and off. Bernie’s specialty was TV movies.

She introduced me to one of the executive producers of X-Files. Well, I was working on a television movie at that time, and I guess he was looking for people to do character makeups and prosthetics.

I flew to Utah to meet him and Rick Schroeder to do a makeup test. I guess they were a little surprised when they saw me, because as soon as I walked in the room I got the feeling that they thought, “She won’t be able to do this.”

I guess they thought that a man would do it. You know, I’m an ok-looking girl, and here I come in with my red lipstick on, and everything. Well, anyway I did the makeup test and they loved it.

After that, I just went on and did some other things. In fact, I was working on Forces of Nature at the time. Bernie called me and said that she was working on X-Files and that they really wanted me to do the series.

I was kind of like, “You know, I’m doing a movie right now, and I really don’t know if I want to do TV.” I had never really done a television series. I told them, “I’m sorry, I’m not available.” She said, “They really, really want you to do this. They saw some of your film reels and they really want you.”

I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m working right now. The only thing you could do is to have someone else start it and then I’ll come later.” She said, “No, you gotta start it.”

I talked to some of my friends in Los Angeles and they were saying, “You gotta do it. It’s huge. Everyone in Hollywood would love that job.”

I was like, “I’m working on a movie right now, though. I can’t just leave.” To make a long story short, I ended up getting heat exhaustion while I was in Georgia on the movie, and I had to leave anyway. So I had to take the job at X-Files. It was all meant to be I think.'

While Montesanto was head of the X-Files makeup department, her 'hands on' duties mostly were on 'straight makeups', such as the burn makeups in 'Two Fathers', the 'de-aging' makeup on William B. Davis in 'One Son', and the period-accurate 1940s makeups in 'Triangle'.

The special makeup effects - ie mutilated corpse props and creatures - were contracted to John Vulich's Optic Nerve Studios, whose previous television experience included Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

'The Beginning'

The season's opening episode is a bit of a mess in terms of crediting the makeup effects, partly for its recycling of one of Amalgamated Dynamics' (ADI) 'long clawed alien' suits from the feature film X-Files: Fight the Future.

The alien costume that appears for most of 'The Beginning' was almost certainly loaned from ADI. It can be assumed that Optic Nerve was allowed to use the ADI suit's mold to cast a 'hollow' copy for the shot of it shedding its skin underwater.

The skin shedding shot would require closeups of the 'long clawed alien' hands and back flaking away as the Grey underneath is exposed, and to further complicate matters this shot would be done underwater.

Vulich explained; 'We have an alien with the skin of another alien on top of it, and have it dissolve underwater on cue. We got an actress, Wendy Cook, who I had worked with on Cocoon when I worked at Greg Cannom's. She was very waif-like, very skinny.

We just did makeups on her, very minimal makeups, just finger extensions and coloured and airbrushed her to look like the Grey alien. We had one of our guys who was scuba certified, I think Greg Solomon. He was in there with a squirt gun underwater, actually squirting the pieces of the (ADI aliens') skin off on cue, which worked surprisingly well'.

The final shot of the fully fledged Grey was realized as a puppet, shot underwater in a water tank. However, the episode credits Thomas R. Burman for the special makeup effects, and the below image was taken from an archive crawl of the Burman Studios website.

What makes matters more complicated is that the Grey alien's design was one that Optic Nerve used for later episodes with Greys as well. So who originally made it? I reached out to Rob Burman, who puppeteered the Grey alien on the shoot, and he had this to say;

'(Burman Studio) may have inherited the mold from Optic Nerve for the alien. They didn’t have the job long enough to have made it in shop if I remember correctly. So probably no sculptors at The Burman Studio (made the alien)'.

So, perhaps Burman Studio was called in to help out Optic Nerve given their considerable experience with puppetry? Or perhaps Burman Studio made the puppet from an Optic Nerve sculpt? The latter is more likely, as the design was echoed with the Grey masks made for 'One Son', 'The Unnatural' and 'Field Trip', but I can't be sure.

It can be assumed that the gore effects in 'The Beginning', such as the mutilated corpse of the long-clawed alien's host, or the shot of a translucent puppet hand, were Optic Nerve's work.

'Dreamland'

The Burman Studio also worked alongside Optic Nerve on this episode, fabricating the puppet body meant to represent a couple fused together after exposure to alien technology. These photos were posted by Rob Burman on Instagram.

'How the Ghosts Stole Christmas'

Optic Nerve made the Mulder and Scully corpse dummies, as Vulich explained; 'We had to do mummified corpses, one of Scully and one of Mulder. For this, we requested the lifecasts (of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny) that Toby (Lindala) in Canada had originally made of them previously for some other makeups he'd done.

From that we made clay replicas of them, and just carved away at their faces. We wanted to retain a subtle amount of their features. Initially in a meeting with Chris (Carter) he wanted them to be initially recognizable as them. Then he wanted them to be kind of a 50/50 thing where when you first saw them you didn't quite recognize them.

Then, you kinda see 'Oh! That is them!', so we had that dramatic beat. Which worked well from a dramatic standpoint, but from a design standpoint made it difficult for us to find that balance.'

'Terms of Endearment'

A demon suit was required for the opening sequence, realized as a fully sculpted foam rubber suit and prosthetic facial appliance. This demon is only seen more clearly thanks to being used on the cover of Fangoria #186, where many images in this article originate from.

'Two Fathers / One Son'

Despite being the episode that won Montesanto-Medcalf her first Primetime Emmy Award, much of the makeups were never seen! Montesanto-Medcalf's 'de-aging' makeups on William B. Davis as a younger verson of the Cigarette-Smoking Man were seen as unconvincing, and so much of the footage involving him was left on the cutting room floor.

Another suspected casualty is this makeup supposedly for 'Two Fathers', as quoted by a Fangoria issue. The same photo is on the website of Optic Nerve Studios' successor, Alchemy FX Studios. Yet I don't remember this in the episode, and it isn't from Babylon 5 or Buffy.

Was this mystery alien possibly meant to be Optic Nerve's update of the Toby Lindala alien hybrid makeups seen in '731'?

Optic Nerve also got the chance to update another Lindala-Schminken makeup design, in this case the faceless 'alien rebel' appliances.

Optic Nerve also handled the shots of the faceless aliens having the faces ripped off in the follow-up 'One Son'. The effect of the faces ripping off was achieved by creating a specialized appliance,that was two masks on top of each other, separated by a layer of gelatin.

The Grey aliens that appear in 'One Son' were achieved in a similar manner to those seen back in the second season's 'Duane Barry'; children wearing masks, finger extensions and painted onesies. Director Rob Bowman recalled;

'It was freezing cold outside. The hangar doors didn't open very quickly, so they waited in their coats and sweaters with their mommies and daddies. When we yelled 'action' they peeled off all their outer layers, handed them to their parents, and ran inside'.

'Arcadia'

Optic Nerve's Ubermenscher monster suit was, much like the bug monster that Lindala-Schminken made for the previous season, instantly derided by cast and crew, and all footage involving it was digitally edited in post-production.

David Duchovny himself recounted on Reddit how embarrassing the shooting experience was; 'We had a bit of a crowd watching, just because we weren't locked up in a McMansion, and I hadn't seen the monster. I shot my reactions of being terrified first and girding myself to battle it, and then the poor guy came out in the monster suit.

Michael Watkins had the best line because I said "That's not a scary looking monster" and he said "He looks like the guy who fucked Mrs. Butterworth." '

The Ubermenscher suit earned many other unflattering nicknames from the crew, such as 'Gumby on steroids', 'Mr Butterworth', 'Fecal Fred', and 'The Shit Monster'

Assistant director Bruce Carter gave this thoughts as to why the Ubermenscher suit was unsuccessful; 'The problem was that although the basic concept was good, no one could really envision what this strange bast - a psychologically manifested compilation of garbage - should look like. Should it be a conventional monster, a creature that has somehow grown muscle and sinew through the force of Gene Gogolak's personality? Or should it really be made of garbage, covered with banana peels and coffee grounds and old bedsprings?'

Vulich explained how the suit was made, 'It was basically a foam rubber suit. We poured urethane foam on it to give it a sort of bubbly appearance, then glued on some shredded rubber and coated it with gunk. Roger Morrissey wore the suit.'

The altered 'bubbly' suit head behind John Vulich.

'Trevor'

Several charred and dismembered body parts were made by Optic Nerve for this episode, the most memorable (and horrific) being the dummy head with its face burnt off.

'Alpha'

Optic Nerve was responsible for all the 'complex' gore gags in the season, including the severed hand of a mauling victim. I suspect the wolf puppet used for the attack scenes in 'Alpha' was a rental from another effects house, or a stock prop.

'Milagro'

Optic Nerve supplied the severed hearts which were rubber props.

'The Unnatural'

Optic Nerve made a Grey mask with animatronic mechanisms, said mechanisms controlling the masks mouth and eye movements. Walter Phelan wore the Grey mask, with neck appliances and finger extensions, blended in with grey makeup.

'Field Trip'

I'm not sure if the similarly mechanized Grey mask worn by young Cody Weselis in this particular episode was a reuse of the masks made for 'The Unnatural', or a new mask made from the same mold. It was worn with finger extensions and a sculpted chest appliance.

'Three of a Kind'

Optic Nerve also made a dissected torso appliance for the autopsy sequence.

'Biogenesis'

Optic Nerve supplied a severed dummy head made in Michael Chinyamurindi's likeness.

Sources:

• The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to The X-Files Volume 5 (Andy Meisler, 2000)
  
• Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
  
• Classic-Horror.com 'Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf Interview'
  

Continued in The X-Files - Season 7