Subspecies (film Series) - Production

Production

In 1991, Subspecies became the first American film to be filmed in Bucharest, Romania. Director Ted Nicolaou was initially apprehensive about shooting on location in Romania, but during a four-day location scout he came to love the location thanks to the free rein he had over the ancient ruins and woodland area. Other Transylvanian areas would be used for all Subspecies films, with specific location shootings at Hunedoara, Braşov, and Sinaia. Although, the remnants of communism left in the country, along with cultural differences and the general problems that accompany film productions lent to a difficult experience for the crew while shooting the first Subspecies film.

The subspecies creatures, which were created from Radu's blood, originally began as local Romanian men in rubber suits. The men were filmed on over-scaled sets to simulate the miniature size of the creatures. The performances of the Romanian men, along with the design of the rubber suits, caused director Ted Nicolaou to rethink his approach. Nicolaou brought in animator David W. Allen to assist him in creating "more magical" looking subspecies creatures. Allen went through all of the film footage that contained the Romanian extras in their rubber suits with the film's editor in order to find usable footage before and after the men enter the scene. Allen would use the isolated footage to develop a new background for the animated creatures he would later create. Allen created two puppet types, displayed in front of a bluescreen: a stop motion puppet and a rod puppet. Each of the puppet types were composed of foam rubber, and held similar skeletal systems. Some differences between the two types include tension filled joints for the stop-motion puppet, while the rod puppet was looser. The flexibility of the rod-puppet allowed for faster movements, which were needed occasionally for real time filming.

For Bloodstone and Bloodlust, Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera came on board to create the special make-up effects for the films; they also pulled double duty composing and performing the music, alongside Romanian musicians, for a portion of Bloodstone. The limited budget that Toth and Cabrera had to work forced them to use any location they could find in order to apply the make-up to the actors, as they did not have a separate workstation. Make-up trailers would be created in local resident's homes, cave openings, inside of cars, or just sitting on the side of the road. To create Radu's face, Toth and Cabrera applied four separate prosthetic pieces to Anders Hove's forehead, left and right cheek, and his chin. A cosmetic make-up is applied over his entire face to help conceal those four prosthetics. This was the same process used in the original Subspecies film, although Toth and Cabrera admit to tweaking the coloring of Radu's skin. One major change to the make-up process was to Radu's hands. In the original film, Hove had to wear individual appliances on each of his fingers, but to cut back on the time needed to apply the make-up, Toth and Cabrera created a pair of prosthetic gloves that Hove could slip on his hands. For "Mummy", Radu's sorceress mother, a headpiece was cast from Pamela Gordon, which included her shoulders as well. After the make-up was applied to give the cast a "dry" and "mummified" appearance, it was slipped over Gordon's head leaving only her face showing. From there, Toth and Cabrera applied a separate face prosthetic. The facial appliance gave Gordon near zero visibility, having only a single eye slit for her left eye. The crew had to escort her around sets so that she would not injure herself. Gordon was given a pair of dentures to wear, as well as some prosthetic gloves similar to what Hove wore. The rest of Gordon's body was draped in clothing to conceal it.