Scary Monsters

My creature designer (Daniel Byrd ) and I almost went into cardiac arrest when we saw how they were doing the werewolf transformation for the series "Hemlock Grove". It was very similar to the concept we're working off of. Fortunately, there are two very big differences that I think will put them worlds apart. The first being that we are going 100% practical with our transformation F/X.

The second difference is the focus of tonight's rant.

Why are scary monsters becoming an endangered species in movieland?

I saw this posted on Facebook from Horror Central, and I really couldn't have illustrated it better myself:

Horror fans and supporters, this is my promise to you: The creatures in Predatory Moon are not wolves, huskies, or any hybrid of the two. They are FANTASY MONSTERS. Yes, I know that the purists will argue that a traditional "werewolf" is a bloke who turns into a wolf on nights of the full moon, but I was brought up in the 1980s. We didn't have pretty specimens of just-out-of-adolescence men running around half-naked in the woods and morphing into specimens of perfect lupines. We had The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. (And before that we had The Wolf Man.)

There are a few critters out there that are beautiful because of their method of attack. Vampires, Incubi, Succubi, Mermaids/men ... they all depend on enticing their human prey with their seductiveness. Some witches can get away with that too. But do we really have to beautify everything? Since when did every fantasy creature have to look like it belongs in an adult fantasy?

Screw that, I'm going old school! I don't want anyone to drool over the werewolves when they see them in Predatory Moon.