Sometimes you just run out of time in the middle of what you’re doing. This has been the case for Monster Sketch Monday the last couple of weeks, and yet I didn’t want to just bail yet again. So please bear with how the sketch goes from detail to extreme noodley-ness (totally a word). I think I’ll have to do another version at some later day.
ANYWAY. Excuses aside, I was thinking about werewolves again today. While I profess to like the werewolf design in The Howling more, there’s no beating the transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London. (I go back and forth about which movie I prefer as well.)
As Kane notes in his That Scene From ‘An American Werewolf in London’ post, Rick Baker won the first Oscar for Makeup effects, and looking at the scene you can instantly see why. It’s just so believable. Unlike every werewolf transformation sequence before this one looks painful. You can see David’s agony and hear the bones stretch and creak. It’s an incredible feat, and that Baker has had to semi-retire because CGI has replaced practical effects to such a degree is a bit of a crime.
I had hoped this sketch would capture the two elements that strike me the most from the seen – David’s pain and that incredible moment where his face begins to elongate. I don’t think I quite got it – it just looks a bit muddled – but I had to try!
So what do you think of this scene? And – though I may have asked already – what’s YOUR favorite werewolf? Much as I love this scene, I still like the gangly, two-legged werewolf design in The Howling slightly better.
