The Love Death + Robots crew has put up short YouTube videos highlighting the animation in the various segments. The one for “Shape-shifters” is here:
(CONTENT WARNING: Gore)
It’s a pretty awesome werewolf design, all in all, and the fight scene is just knock-down, drag-out violent.
I love werewolf movies, and one of my writing goals is to do a variation on the lycanthrope theme that goes against most common tropes. One day, maybe…when I have time to switch my brain from SF to urban or dark/horror fantasy for a while.
My favorite werewolf design from a movie is still this, though:
That’s the wicked “hound from hell” design for AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, a movie that also still gets my vote for Best Transformation scene. The fact that it was all done with practical effects in 1981 and still holds up speaks to the genius of Rick Baker, who won the very first Best Make-up Academy Award for his work on that movie.
I generally dislike CGI werewolves because most of them are too fake-looking or Uncanny Valley when they’re inserted in live-action. It’s only in recent years that CGI has gotten good enough to do a convincing werewolf. (Number 2 on my list are the creepy-looking werewolves in DOG SOLDIERS, which–surprise–are also practical effects and costumes.) But when they’re CGI wolves in an all-CGI film like Shape-shifters, they can work very well indeed.
What is your favorite werewolf design on the screen? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll check them out if I haven’t seen the movie/show in question yet.