Director Steven C Miller on ‘Werewolves’, creatures, and working with icons: “It’s fun, it’s wild, it’s bananas, all at the same time”
As promised by the title, director Steven C Miller’s action horror Werewolves is, in fact, about werewolves. Not just any regular old run-of-the-mill lycanthropes, though, but the result of a genetic mutation triggered by a supermoon that transforms huge swathes of the human population into hulking and hirsute beasts with nothing on their mind but their next meal and mayhem.
Originally titled Year Two because it unfolds during a second supermoon – not ideal when the first one caused a billion werewolf-related deaths – Frank Grillo’s Wesley Marshall faces the double-pronged threat of not only trying to keep his family safe from the ravenous hordes at their door but navigate his way through the dangerous streets and survive long enough to get there in one piece.
It’s a suitably high-concept premise, and it’s been a long time coming. Werewolves was first announced in early 2022 and shot the same summer, and it’s finally set for release on December 6th. For Miller, it’s been a labour of love and one he can’t wait for audiences to see on the biggest screen possible.
“It’s a huge relief,” he admitted. “I love that it’s finally coming out. It’s been a long time coming, like you said. We worked really hard on it. It’s a little bit surreal because you’ve worked on it for so long and it’s finally coming out, and for it to get a theatrical release makes it even more exciting. So it’s definitely nerve-wracking. It’s fun, it’s wild, it’s bananas, all at the same time.”
For viewers of a certain disposition, the first thing that will pop into their heads when they hear ‘Frank Grillo’ and ‘werewolves’ being used to describe the film is a simple ‘Fuck yeah’. It’s a match made in genre-bending heaven, and Miller felt exactly the same when he first boarded the project.
“I mean, Frank Grillo was the first choice,” he revealed. “And he’s just one of those guys that jumps in with both feet. He gets really excited. He loves the project. He knew he wanted to do Werewolves. He was the first one to talk to me about the werewolf design. He was really involved all the way through the project, and I remember him being on set with the werewolf for the first time, and he was just loving it. He was like a kid in a candy store. He had so much fun in this movie.”
In an age where CGI is the usual go-to, what differentiates Werewolves from the pack – pun sort of intended – is that the titular beasts are created almost entirely the good old-fashioned way: with guys in suits. From Miller’s perspective, it was non-negotiable.
“I really wanted the movie to lean into practical as much as possible,” he explained. “I really wanted the audience to feel them onscreen. I wanted to feel them on set. I wanted my actors to feel them on set. I wanted to be able to push what we could do with them on set and really push how many we could put in a scene together. So that was really important for me.”
To realise his vision, Miller set his sights on the very top. The werewolves were designed and created by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr, who between them have worked on the practical effects and creature designs for movies like Pumpkinhead, Starship Troopers, multiple Alien and Predator movies, Death Becomes Her, and The Terminator to name just a few.
“To be able to work with him and to create a werewolf was a really exciting time for me,” Miller said of his close collaboration with certified legends of the monster business. “I mean, I was totally geeking out with these guys because they’re just so cool.”
Miller has made action movies and horror movies, but Werewolves feels like the first time he’s gone 50/50 and planted one foot firmly in both worlds. Lycanthropic cinema has never really gone away, but it feels like a while since there’s been a bonkers, balls-to-the-wall marriage between both with the toothy critters front and centre, and the director welcomed comparisons to Neil Marshall’s cult favourite Dog Soldiers as a spiritual companion piece.
“That was always a big deal for me,” he agreed. “I love mixing genres, and I felt like mixing horror and action, to me, is always the right place that I like to be. It fits my aesthetic of being super kinetic. Dog Soldiers is one of my favourite werewolf movies of all time, so to take on that monster and try to give the audience something as great as Dog Soldiers was always the idea, and to really try to push the audience to watch something that isn’t slow-burn. And so, to me, it felt like a great mix. It was a lot of fun to create.”
Needless to say, tone is always key for a movie like Werewolves, especially one literally called Werewolves. Lean too far in one direction, and there’s the danger of winking at the audience, but lean too far in the other, and there’s a risk that the film’s ludicrously sky-high premise will end up taking itself too seriously for its own good, a challenge that Miller was fully aware of from the beginning.
“I looked at movies like Blade for that, that really ride the line for me, that are fun action popcorn movies, but they’re also horror infused, and they know when to take themselves seriously and when to not,” he offered. “I wanted the audience to have a great time, and I didn’t want to wink at them too much, but I definitely wanted them to know that we’re a werewolf movie, and we know we’re a werewolf movie, and we know we’re a Frank Grillo versus werewolf movie.”
One scene sums up Miller’s approach to ‘riding the line’: at one stage, a werewolf appears, and it’s clear that it used to be a biker because it’s sporting a pierced ear and a leather vest. It’s exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, which is precisely why the director was so keen to keep it in the movie.
“I remember when that was on the page, and the producers looked at me and said, ‘We’re not going to do that, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course we are’. That’s something that I loved about it, was being able to separate these wolves and them having their own personality, and to have what we called our ‘punk rock princess’ in the movie, to me, is what separates it from any other werewolf movie of its kind,” he continued.
Not only did Miller have to shoot multiple action sequences for his film, but he also had to do it while wrangling multiple performers wearing full werewolf costumes on a production that shot in Puerto Rico during the summer months. If that wasn’t enough, several of these scenes take place in the pouring rain, which can’t have been comfortable for the folks inside the suits.
“It was really difficult,” the director continued. “There were times when the animatronics didn’t work. There were times when the rain caused the suits to be even heavier. So, all of those elements combined, and then throw in the fact that you have five or six of these guys in suits at one time in Puerto Rico heat. It’s just nasty, and so it would definitely take its toll on the actors. It would take its toll on the crew, but everyone was having so much fun that we pushed through it together and really just leaned into the craziness of the movie.”
Curiously, Miller shared over a decade ago that he’d love to make a werewolf heist movie called Bad Moon Rising. He made a non-werewolf heist flick with 2016’s Marauders, and now he’s made a werewolf movie. He’s scratched both of those itches individually, but does he still harbour dreams of combining the best of both worlds?
“I’ve always had the dream of doing a bank heist movie with werewolves,” which sounds so batshit insane that it needs to happen. “I always thought that would be a lot of fun to see these things trying to rob banks. So if that ever comes up, if anyone decides they want to make that script, I’m down.”
Not to put ideas into his head, but this writer suggested that since he’s never directed any sequels to his movies, Miller could have it all by helming Werewolves 2: Bad Moon Rising. He noted: “I think that would be a fun opening scene for the next movie if they’re robbing banks, and then we get cut right into the movie.”
“Everybody already knows these things are happening,” he pondered as the gears continued to turn. “So maybe we get some that get more intelligent as they go. Maybe we get some that talk. I think having that kind of a world would be a lot of fun.” If it happens, then Far Out will be patiently awaiting its cut of the royalties for initially planting the seed in Miller’s brain.
Few actors in Hollywood work as hard or as often as Grillo, who’s racked up a remarkable 26 feature credits since the beginning of 2021 alone. He never seems to stop working, and as the leading man and an executive producer of his first time working with Miller, the director was thrilled to feed off the boundless energy the prolific star brings to every project.
“Frank’s the man. He is a force. He knows what he wants, he knows what he likes, and he goes for it, and he has no problems telling you what he likes,” Miller said. “I love that in an actor because that allows me the freedom to have great conversations with him and great talks about how things are going to work in the movie. He’s just one of those guys who understands how the movie works and how his character is going to work. He’s just easy to work with.”
Miller “had a blast” alongside Grillo, and the duo were “always on the same page” from the beginning of the process to the very end. If anything, it seems strange that it’s taken them so long to work together when they travel in many of the same circles regarding the actors and producers they’ve collaborated with, and it wasn’t lost on the director.
“Definitely, you’re right,” Miller said. “Me and Frank on the side had spoken several times like, ‘Hey, when are we going to find a project to work on together?’ So when this one came up, it was something we both jumped on. And to work with Frank is a dream. Anytime Frank needs me, I’m going to be there.”
Grillo is far from the first established action star Miller has worked with, and he found an early supporter in Bruce Willis. The two partnered up for Extraction, Marauders, and First Kill in quick succession, and it was the Die Hard icon who recommended the director as somebody he wanted to share a set with again, which was a pinch-me moment for somebody who’d grown up as a huge fan.
“It’s a total geek-out moment, really,” he acknowledged. “You have to hold yourself back from geeking out too much because it’s Bruce Willis. He was a guy that I grew up watching daily. He was exactly how I thought he would be. He was a lot of fun. We had such a blast on set together, and it was really because of him that I kept making them because he kept asking me to come back. He’s one of those personalities that I’ll always remember as one of my favourite points in my career.”
Besides Grillo and Willis, Miller has worked with many icons from different eras, including Sylvester Stallone, Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and Malcolm McDowell. If there was one name at the top of his wish list that he’d love to direct the most one day, he knows exactly who it would be.
“I’d really like to work with Jake Gyllenhaal,” he confirmed. “I love Jake’s attitude. I love the way he works. I love how he’s a chameleon. He could be anybody he wants to be in different roles. He picks really interesting movies. I really feel like me and him will have a good time making something kind of crazy.
It couldn’t go unmentioned that Miller also directed 2017’s Arsenal, which surprised everyone when it was confirmed to be a direct sequel to 1993’s Deadfall. After almost a decade and a half, Cage decided that it was the ideal time to dust off the manic character of Eddie King that he’d played in his brother Christopher Coppola’s bizarre crime story, an unexpected decision that he was in on from the ground floor.
“That all fell into place once Nic came on board,” Miller confessed. “Once me and Nic started talking more and more about it, we kept thinking, ‘Man, this feels more and more like it could be a fun Deadfall sequel’. And the more we talked about it, the more ludicrous it got, and the more we just really leaned into it. We both knew the movie was going to be what it was, and we just wanted to make something completely outlandish and ridiculous and throw it out to the fans to see if they even got it. And the fact the fans got it and really responded to it was really cool.”
Throughout his career, Miller has specialised in genre films, albeit of a different flavour. From the twisted Home Alone-style shenanigans of The Aggression Scale to the terrors of Under the Bed and his festive slasher Silent Night, and onto the AI-tinged smart home nightmare of Margaux and the creature feature styling of Werewolves. “I’d think I’d really like to lean into straight comedy at some point,” he hinted at a potential future port of call. “I love comedies. I love that they’re just a totally different genre, and they have their own thing. For me, it would be really fun to jump into that space.”
Audiences are about to discover how Grillo gets on going up against a city overrun with werewolves. Still, when Miller was pressed to name which actor that he’s worked with would fare the best if they were dropped into that world to fend for themselves, he wouldn’t get the nod. “It’s got to be Dave Bautista,” he adamantly stated. “Dave Bautista would destroy all of these fools. He would totally take out some werewolves. I’d love to get him in one of these.”
Werewolves marks Miller’s 13th feature since he debuted with 2006’s impressively lo-fi horror Automaton Transfusion, which was shot in nine days for less than $15,000. Spitballing at the opposite end of the cinematic spectrum, what movie would he make if he was given the leeway to make anything he wanted with complete creative freedom and as much funding as he wanted, needed, or demanded?
“Oh, man, that’s a good question. I think I would probably make a Bad Boys film, and I think that’s because I grew up loving that franchise. I’d really love to take a stab at creating something with those guys because I just love their energy. For me, that would be the ultimate movie to take on.”
