Are we going to differentiate between CGI and Make-up/Mechanical transformations?  I've seen many discussions in various places where people say one cannot be compared to the other. 

If so, I enjoyed the blond gal's change near the end of Cursed.

Perhaps the future of FX, or at least the good ones, is a mix between CGI and animatronics. You can film a "real" mechanical werewolf to create a realistic effect, and then you can add CGI to polish the scene: background, minor changes, hair, fluids (tears, saliva, blood). And that's it, a decent transformation, but a relative high cost for one scene.

@Mymloch: I liked the scene in Cursed, but it was extremely fast, conservative and the beast was not so lupine. They should have dedicated a bit more time and resources on it... God, they had very talented FX crew!! Well, and Christina Ricci turning into a savage beast could have been a must see .

Well, to cover the topic, I am sad to say that the best one was AWIL... 25 years ago. Is someone listening out there?!?!?! Mr Baker kicked your asses with a 25 y/o resources and limited funds .

Totalimmortal wrote:

I thought the blond girl looked kind of...bearish, after her transformation.

Bearish? I don't see it. She looked more like a bipedal version of the american werewolf. I really liked the Cursed beast design.

Case in point:

Still looks nothing like a bear to me.

is a bear.

yeah.
I want to dress it up in novelty Christmas sweaters.
And name it Fluffykins.

I ditto on her looking like an evil teddybear.

It's the ear and eye placement. I mean, floppy werewolf ears? Is this a beagle or a creature who stalks the night ravaging its path?

Viergacht wrote:

You guys are weeeeeeeird. *throws hands up*

Well, yes, but besides that I think FenrirVik has captured it well - the ears are short and wide and look almost rounded (which is bear-like), the face is quite wide, and particularly in the screenshot above - she has quite the rotund and fuzzy body.

If I had to rank the most realistic transformations for myself, it'd probably be...

1. AWIL
2. Being Human (it really is following very closely in AWIL's footsteps)
3. Doctor Who "Tooth & Claw"
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - I didn't enjoy the weregreyhound look, but the tranformation was well done, similar to the Doctor Who episode of course, in that it's all CGI
5. The Howling - while I LOVED the final form of the werewolf (better than the final form of AWIL), all of the bubbling skin, popping out eyes and constant back and forth with the length of the muzzle was irritating. Did not have the elegant simplicity of AWIL.
6. Fright Night - 'Evil's return to human form
7. Wolf - gradual but believable, but only counts up to the 'stretched' mouth look of his final encounter with the bad dude, since his final transformation into a wolf isn't shown.

Most unrealistic:

1. Howling 3's 'Melt-O-Werewolf' - DEAR GOD!
2. Anything from Dark Wolf
3. Blood & Chocolate (though I truly enjoyed the idea of 'taste the rainbow' werewolves.
4. Van Helsing's 'Excuse me while I rip my skin off' transformations
5. American Werewolf in Paris's 'leg anatomy? we don't need no stinkin' leg anatomy!, and let's break their necks too!' transformations.
6. Dog Soldier's 'This is a very convenient table indeed!' transformation
7. Wilderness - simple morph on a computer, kinda boring.
8. The 'Hair of the Dog' episode of The Dresden Files - loved the half way look, but the morph into the CGI was kinda sad.
9. Underworld - werewolfgorilla transformations.

Most bizarre:

1. Have to give it to Melt-O-Werewolf again.
3. The Company of Wolves AWESOME and bizarre transformation where the wolf comes out of the guys mouth... wow.
4. Romasanta (Werewolf Hunter) - loved that transformation though
5. Bad Moon - asymmetrical werewolf! I actually really enjoyed this movie, the final form of the werewolf, and hey, parts of the transformation were pretty cool

Like this!

WolfMontana wrote:

- she has quite the rotund and fuzzy body.

She's cuddly. How else you gonna know she's female? LOL

But yeah, that list is pretty much my feelings on the subject.

I'm gonna have to jump on the bandwagon with this one and say, 'American Werewolf in London'. (how much does it suck that they're remaking it?) <-- haha. answer that in a different topic.

Twilight's werewolves <ducking and dodging tomatoes and eggs>    J/K


Being Human, I don't remember the British versin's transformations. But I do know it'd be based from Howling/American WW in London/Thriller


I feel like that's a director's call now and no one really cares about the transformation b/c most of the latest movies, the transformations have been done really quickly.

Take that back Vampire Diaries Tyler's transformation's was probably realistic.

vampire diaries definitely played up the painful aspect of transformation, so in that sense I give them props for realism even if they didn't show everything.

AWIL will always be the most realistic for me though. no contest for me