For those of us who love their old-school horror, Werewolf by Night was a welcome throwback to classic B-movies. The brand-new Marvel Studios Special Presentation, which just landed on Disney Plus this past Friday, embraced the campy, over-the-top tone of its inspirations and influences. It offered a major treat for those MCU fans who have been patiently waiting for some horror content. Even better, the title character’s monster form wasn’t realized with CGI.
The Halloween special kept the lupine alter ego of Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal) out of the limelight for much of its runtime. When the Werewolf by Night did finally make himself known, we were in for a pleasant surprise as he was portrayed using classic make-up and prosthetic techniques, resembling the classic Wolfman from Universal’s movies. Now, director Michael Giacchino has explained why he was adamant about resurrecting the old ways.
While speaking to IndieWire, the long-time composer, first-time filmmaker revealed that it was important to him to ensure Jack’s inner humanity was still visible. “I wanted to make sure you could see the face because that’s the human part of it, the eyes and his facial features,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose that.” Giacchino then stressed that he felt they had a better shot of tricking the audience into believing in a werewolf if the creature was tangibly there onscreen. He elaborated:
“A CG werewolf has been done and done great, but I didn’t think we were going to improve on what has been done and I wanted something real that was in front of us. It’s already enough to ask for someone to believe werewolves are real, but I felt like we would have a better chance of pulling it off if it actually was a real person on set in the costume.”
The MCU often receives flak from fans for its over-reliance on CGI, with more of Marvel’s movies created in post-production than audiences probably realize. It’s great that Giacchino insisted on making Werewolf by Night a practical creation, as it certainly fits the tone of the piece to a tee. Obviously, the special’s other starring monster, Man-Thing, is still a fully CG-character, but that’s forgivable as it’s kind of hard to bring a giant plant monster to physical life.
Werewolf by Night is available to stream now on Disney Plus.