Full Sail Stories

Full Sail grad and Hall of Fame inductee Steven C. Miller recently directed Werewolves, an action-horror movie that uses practical special effects to show off the frightening creatures.

In Werewolves, a supermoon triggers a mass mutation that causes humans to turn into werewolves. Scientists race to find a preventative treatment before the supermoon rises while their loved ones barricade themselves in their homes. When things go haywire in the lab, protagonist Dr. Wesley Marshall (Frank Grillo) must fight his way across the city to protect his sister-in-law and niece. Actors in sinister werewolf suits stalk and attack Wesley during his journey.

Seeing the suits come together was a highlight for Steven as a director. Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., who helped make suits for creatures in movies like Alien vs. Predator, Pumpkinhead, and 2018’s Prey, came on board to bring the werewolves to life.

“We just had a blast creating the creatures and really getting it fine-tuned. The werewolves started out with a ton of hair and then we kept shaving them down to get them more muscular and more human-looking, but at the same time being a wolf. And what was really important to me was that it felt more like a humanoid wolf. It was important that the werewolves were scary, that they were brooding, that it felt like a mutation. And they really did a great job creating the suits,” Steven explains.

Working with the werewolf suits and the animatronics every day had its share of challenges, but it was well worth it for Steven.

“There's so many people running the animatronics [for the suit] and the head, the face, the nose, the teeth, the drool. Everything you could think of was moving,” he says.

“So we had to get all of that to work together with the performer in the suit who has me in their ear. And then when you had seven werewolves on set trying to storm the house, that sequence was difficult for everyone because it was such a choreographed dance for everyone to be in sync,” he continues. “But we had just such a talented crew of performers, a talented crew of guys running the remote controls. It was easy to rely on them and to trust them, so that helped tremendously.”

Having a reliable team to operate the suits helped Steven get multiple creatures onscreen at once. According to him, that strong werewolf presence is part of what makes Werewolves stand out.

“I think what makes this movie really special is that the werewolves are onscreen a lot. I just don't know that we've seen a werewolf movie like this [in a long time] that has this many practical werewolves on screen for this amount of time. It's not like it's a slow-burn werewolf movie where I'm trying not to show it. This is a movie that really takes the audience, drops you in, and shows you everything you need to see and really allows you to experience the world.”

Audiences can check out Werewolves when it’s released on December 6.