 genre that we've seen people desaturate and pull the fun out of."
Maybe that love of the fun and ridiculous best comes out in Wolfcop's infamous sex scene. Yes, kiddies, Wolfcop features a hazy softcore sex scene straight out of a late night Cinemax flick between a woman dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and a nude (and very hairy) Wolfcop. It's silly....and also hilariously awkward.
"That’s the thing," said Dean, "I thought it would be really funny and we hoped it would be funny, but I have yet to be in a screening where anybody laughs in that scene. They just go quiet. They only start laughing when they’re smoking after it."
Clearly, shooting a werewolf-on-woman love scene was not without its complications. "You know, I felt oddly at home shooting that sex scene," Dean commented when asked. "I don’t know what that says about me. It was one of the scenes I was thinking about before there even was a script. I was thinking, we had never seen a woman and a beast. It’s either two humans or two beasts.
Dean has seen it first hand. "It’s like a mathematical equation," he says. "The later the screening has a correlation to the enjoyment. I’m sure liquor’s involved too."
But it's not just just drunken Canadians who are grooving to Wolfcop. The film also went on a highly successful European festival tour that had UK audiences, in particular, howling.
"It’s actually, knock-on-wood, shocking the response that the movie is getting outside of Canada," said Dean. "I’d actually argue it’s getting a better response outside of Canada than within Canada.... Maybe in the UK, a small Saskatchewan town is oddly bizarre and charming."
LEO FAFARD
Speaking of "bizarre and charming," two words could not be more endearingly apt to describe lead actor and the man under the fur: Leo Fafard. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Fafard has more camera and technical credits to his name than acting roles, but you wouldn't take Fafard for anything but a seasoned and hardcore character actor for the way he brings Lou Garou / Wolfcop to life. It takes an actor with true dedication, and that special blend of "bizarre and charming" quirks we mentioned, to endure the hours of makeup required to make Wolfcop a reality on set and then endure the same process to promote the film in full makeup by jumping out of airplanes, scaring up interest on the streets of Canada's major cities, or shaking hairy palms at horror conventions. We caught Fafard just before he underwent his Wolfcop transformation for Fan Expo 2014 to ask him about becoming one of the most recognizable indie film characters in the Canadian genre scene. Given the popularity of Wolfcop through online social media, does it translate into the real world? Do people recognize him on the street?
"Pretty rare that anyone puts the two together," Fafard tells us."I guess Lou Garou is just not that recognizable in person. Because I pretty much look exactly like him most of my day-to-day life. My hair is the same. I’m usually unshaven and mostly unkempt. But you know, it does happen and it’s kind of weird, and not just in our hometown of Regina either."
Wolfcop's definitely a wild man. There must be some kind of catharsis in being able to lose oneself in the character and, perhaps, act in ways one couldn't in normal life, don't you think?
."
EMERSEN ZIFFLE
As Fafard said, the mad scientist responsible for bringing out his nner wolf is none other than Emersen Ziffle. Ziffle helped create the look of Wolfcop for the original pitch trailer and stayed on the project to work closely with Lowell Dean to reshape Wolfcop's look for the final feature.
"We really loved the trailer and how angry and scary he was," Ziffle explained, "but we really wanted to bridge the gap between that and what Leo brings to the table as a character. We did about 10 designs and gradually whittled it down to something that retained a bit of humanity but kept it kind of scary."
The original look for Wolfcop was decidedly more feral and frightening, with black eyes and deep cracks in his face. What inspired his initial look?
Ziffle explains: "I tried to do more dog-like features. If you’ve ever seen in a dog’s mouth they have this weird black lip thing that goes from fur to that and is just like this flappy fold of skin. I tried to incorporate that."
Such attention to detail and Ziffle's willingness to experiment, work on the fly, and fuse Lowell Dean's vision for Wolfcop with Leo Fafard's take on the character made him an invaluable asset to the success of Wolfcop. In fact, we had to wrap up our interview because we were going to lose both Ziffle and Fafard to the makeup chair where Ziffle would transform Fafard into the beast in full view of the Fan Expo audience before unleashing him on a murderous rampage of photo opportunities. Clearly, practical makeup effects were at the heart of what made Wolfcop so great. So we thought we'd pose writer/director Lowell Dean one parting question:
If he were given this Faustian deal -- 200 million to make WOLFCOP 2 but Wolfcop had to be computer generated -- would he do it?
"That’s a really tough question," Dean said after a pause. "How the hell do you turn down 200 million dollars? Maybe Emersen can design the CGI model? Honestly, if we had a budget of 200 million, I would be fighting and pushing really hard to do as much practical as possible. I think there's a real resurgence of practical effects. Look no further than the new Star Wars films. All you hear is that they're trying to do as much in camera as possible. I don't think that's by accident. I’m sick of movies with no stakes. I’m sick of a thousand digital ships fighting a thousand digital ships. Practical is grounded and it's real and it usually keeps things more intimate, as a rule."
Of course, Leo Fafard had to have the last word.
"If you had that budget," he deadpanned, "you could make Lou CG and Wolfcop practical."
"If you had that budget," he deadpanned, "you could make Lou CG and Wolfcop practical."
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Come experience Wolfcop for yourself this Saturday at FRIGHT NIGHT THEATRE. 9:30pm. $10 advance, $12 at the door, or $15 on a double-bill ticket with LATE PHASES at 7:30pm.
The Staircase Theatre - 27 Dundurn St. N., Hamilton, ON
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* HAMMER CITY RECORDS (cash-only): 228 James St N Basement @ Rear Off Robert St. Hamilton, Ontario
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* HAMMER CITY RECORDS (cash-only): 228 James St N Basement @ Rear Off Robert St. Hamilton, Ontario
* CRASH LANDING (cash-only): 1189 Cannon Street East. Hamilton, OntarioQues: Here is a review left by a customer on a product. Would you say he was satisfied or dissatisfied? Title: Not comparable to Jurassic Park Review: Given, Jurassic Park was an outstanding book, so because The Lost World didn't compare to that is not why I'm rating this book low. The lack of creativity is clearly obvious, this book lacked a good plot entirely. Plus, for fifty or so pages, I was lost, had I remembered to refer to the map, I may not have been lost so much. All though this may have dimmed down my interest, it still was only exciting for the first 100 pages.
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