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 film's 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.