The photo accompanying this post is from the short-lived 80s television series WEREWOLF. The villain of the show, Janos Skorzeny, was replaced later on due to star Chuck Connors’ declining health and his contractual demands, but the replacement villain, Nicholas Remy, never measured up to Skorzeny. A grizzled one-eyed pirate werewolf who exulted in his evil? What a character! And Connors was mesmerizing in the role.
Rick Baker provided the FX for the show, and his werewolf creations were horrifically gorgeous, among the best visual depictions of werewolves ever seen on film. The Skorzeny beast in particular was terrifying. And the jaw-dropping transformation sequences were pure innovation. Skorzeny’s wolf snout would poke out his human mouth, and then he would grab his face and pull it up and over his wolf head like it was a mask. I saw the “werewolf snout poking out from a character’s mouth” approach to shapeshifting used in the film COMPANY OF WOLVES and in the SWAMP THING comics by Moore, Bissette, and Totleben, but if anyone has ever had the werewolf pulling off its own face like a mask, I’m not aware of it.
It’s such a shame this show didn’t last longer, and that Skorzeny didn’t last longer in it. He ranks as one of the best werewolf villains of all time. Fight me.
rick baker did this effects? no longer it looks so good. look at those teeth!
He did. Some of his best werewolf work, in my opinion.