9 Things We Learned from Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ Commentary Track

Following a successful reinvention of The Invisible Man, writer-director Leigh Whannell set his sights on another classic Universal monster with Wolf Man.

Among the special features on the newly released physical media editions is an audio commentary by the ever-jovial Whannell, with much of the insight directed toward aspiring filmmakers.

Here are nine things I learned from the Wolf Man commentary track…

1. Blue Velvet influenced the opening shot.

The opening shot of the movie, in which ants attack a wasp, proved to be difficult both logistically and practically.

“Quite difficult to wrangle insects. We had to get an insect wrangler in New Zealand,” which stood in for Oregon. “And of course, these ants are attacking this wasp, but this wasp has to live. You have to free the wasp. It was definitely one of those shots that you have to fight for in a movie.”

Whannell was inspired by the opening of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. “I wanted to set up this undercurrent of the animal world and the ruthlessness of nature.”

2. The farmhouse was built from scratch for the production.

Whannell was unable to find a location that looked like a classic American farmhouse in New Zealand, so the production built one from scratch on a vacant lot near a pine tree farm.

“This whole farm, the greenhouse, the barn, the paddocks, the fences, the house, everything was constructed from scratch. Even the landscape, those hills, had to be dug out. It was actually a lot of work to build what looks like a fairly simple set.”

Whannell praises production designer Ruby Mathers and her team for pulling it off.

“The rub with a set like this is that if you did your job right, it should look like you just found it, like it’s an existing farmhouse, but it takes a lot of work to build something that looks authentic and lived in and real.”

The interiors were shot on a set.

3. Whannell knew he couldn’t top An American Werewolf in London.

The “subjective wolf transformation” excited Whannell about the project, as he knew An American Werewolf in London‘s iconic transformation was unbeatable.

“Rather than the moon comes out and Chris changes into a wolf, which we’ve seen done brilliantly — most brilliantly, I believe, in American Werewolf in London. Shout out to Rick Baker! I felt like I’m never gonna top what Rick Baker did in Werewolf in London, so I would slow down the transformation.” The colors gradually shift and sound subtly changes as Chris starts to transform.

For the final transformation scene later in the film, Whannell “tried to do the opposite of what Rick Baker did. Instead of this huge transformation, I just tried to make it more subtle.” Practical effects were utilized as much as possible.

4. The film has an animal motif.

From production design and wardrobe to real wildlife, an animal motif recurs throughout the film.

“In this movie, I was thinking about animals, and you’ll see throughout the production design’s continued references to animals,” Whannell explains.

“If you look at Matilda’s hoodie, it has those ears on it. That was built, that was made. We didn’t find that. The costume department stitched that for us.” He continues, “You’ll continually see these animal references, hopefully woven into the fabric of the movie.”

For the scene in which Chris finds a spider in the farmhouse, a huntsman spider had to be imported from Australia.

“They don’t have spiders like that in New Zealand,” he notes. “[Huntsman] don’t spin webs. They go and hunt for their food; hence the name.”

5. Moving the camera between two worlds motivated Whannell to make the film.

“When I hit upon this idea of the camera moving between the two worlds — seeing things from his perspective, from hers — that was the thing that made me go, ‘I think I wanna make this movie,'” Whannell explains.

The “wolf vision” that shows Chris’ perspective as he transforms was largely accomplished in-camera rather than with CGI.

“When you see the lights change here, that is happening in-camera. They’re actually changing the lights with dials. Not all of it; obviously, there’s a little bit of CGI. You can see her eyes light up there, and there’s these little molecules floating in the air. So there is a little element of CGI, obviously, but a big part of it was in-camera too. That was fun to do, just try things in-camera. It’s really energetic for the crew to try things in-camera.”

6. One scene made Whannell sick.

Whannell is no stranger to stomach-churning horror movies, but the scene in which Chris scratches at his gory arm wound got under the filmmaker’s skin.

“I made myself sick with this scene, that scratch. I’ve never done that before. I’ve been involved with the Saw movies, I’ve done a lot of gory stuff, never once have I made myself sick. The first time I saw this in the edit room, I couldn’t watch it. I’ve gotten used to it now, but when he was scratching, I had to turn away. I said to Andy Canny, the editor, ‘I’ve hit rock bottom. I can’t even watch my own film.'”

He adds, “You know you’ve hit a new low — or possibly a high — when you can make yourself sick.”

7. A crew member makes an unexpected cameo in the film.

When Charlotte is trying to get the old pickup truck to start, a member of the film’s crew can be vaguely seen through the dirty windows behind Chris. This was a happy accident.

“A crew member walked in the back of this shot and we ended up using it in the movie,” Whannell points out. “It should have been a mistake, but we ended up using it. I was like, ‘That will scare the hell out of the audience!’ These mistakes do happen.”

8. Whannell included an homage to Saw.

Whannell paid tribute to his roots with a reference to Saw when the transformed Blake is forced to gnaw his own leg off to free himself from a bear trap.

“Saw homages! This is one of the more broad ones. I think, for a Wolf Man movie, the idea of him chewing his leg off was exciting to me, but I do love the Saw homage of it all.”

The interior of the prosthetic leg was made out of chocolate so actor Christopher Abbott could eat through it.

9. The script was inspired by The Fly.

Whannell and his co-writer/wife Corbett Tuck were inspired by David Cronenberg’s The Fly when it came to the film’s body-horror transformation and use of practical effects.

“I was very inspired by The Fly when I was writing this film with Corbett, and just being able to point the camera at these amazing prosthetics,” which took six hours to apply in its final form.

“There was a debate about how much hair should be on the Wolf Man.” Whannell adds. “Arjen [Tuiten, special makeup effects designer] and I, we just felt that we needed to do something different, not the Wolf Man you’ve seen before. You might piss some people off if you do that, but you gotta do it.”

Wolf Man is available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.

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