Lobo (Werewolf/Wolfman Transformation)

Someone’s finally done the right thing—they hired a good-looking guy as a werewolf and actually showed him transforming into one!

I’m referring about the first episode of Lobo, an Argentinean telenovela that finished airing a year ago. It’s about a tall, dark, good-looking guy who turn into a real beast-man, thanks to a curse that kicks in when he turns 30. He's played by the already wolfishly handsome Gonzalo Heredia.

However, it should be said that what he transforms into is a wolfman-style werewolf. I know wolfman transformations are not everyone’s favorite, but when done well they can accentuate the idea of humanity gone feral. By keeping a more humanoid face, the wolfman shows humanity at the very brink of slipping away, but not yet fully bestial.  And because the wolfman's face is still humanoid, with features like overgrown sideburns and eyebrows and excess facial hair, it heavily suggests the metaphor of lycanthropy as puberty gone haywire into adulthood. Anyway, enough blabbing from me, here's the clip:




The wolfman in Lobo reminds me of the one in the Tales From the Crypt episode “Werewolf Concerto.” Both monsters partake of the wolfman form, though with their hyper-masculine faces and torn open-shirts they look like more like debauched rockstars than Lon Chaney Jr.  The wolfman in this episode is played by Timothy Dalton, and the transformation is short but features familiar, beloved standbys like claws tearing out of shoes (Lobo throws in two shots of this!) and the beast’s humped back ripping through his shirt. Personally, I'd rather see a younger actor doing the transforming--not that I have anything against Dalton's acting (he was the best James Bond since Sean Connery). He certainly acts with brio in this scene:




Getting back to Lobo… for those curious about behind-the-scenes details, the effects crew was instructed to design a werewolf that “should retain the physiognomic characteristics of the actor.” In the first stage a mold was taken to copy the features of the actor and his teeth. From the resulting sculpture came the werewolf suit, made of latex and imitation leather, with fur added “hair by hair.” Applying the costume and makeup to the actor took two and a half hours (for a video of the process, click here),  The transformation itself was CGI, created with software like Maya and Mudbox. The press materials brag that the effects are on par with those of American TV, and I would agree. Though there should have been some shots of  Heredia’s face shifting, the stretching fingers and ears and growing chest are smooth and lifelike and don't compare badly to the effects in the recent Wolfman remake.

Unfortunately, Lobo never surpassed its first episode, and the show was cancelled after a rather short run (by telenovela standards) of 53 episodes. Perhaps viewers were disappointed by the lack of werewolfishness—the remaining transformations are disappointing and grow progressively shorter, dribbling out after episode 21. They're also partial and repeat effects from the first transformation. I have links to three of the later TFs, but be warned that they're disappointing:

Partial Transformation 01
Partial Transformation 02
Partial Transformation 03

Lastly, here's a bonus scene. It has no TF content but gives a fuller view of the werewolf...and of Mr. Heredia's posterior, for those of you into beefcake...