Werewolf by Night, Marvel’s answer to a Halloween Special, is coming to Disney+ on October 7th. The big announcement for the film came at D23 when the trailer was released as well. Werewolf by Night looks like a title you might see playing in front of the Mystery Science Theater team, except it’s genuinely scary. That’s a big step for the MCU, considering that Disney isn’t typically known for making movies in the horror genre. The director of Werewolf by Night isn’t even known for making scary movies. Michael Giacchino is, first and foremost, a composer.

Giacchino has scored a lot of famous movies and might be one of the most recognizable names in the business, save for John Williams. He has written the scores for The Incredibles, Jurassic World, and every MCU title since 2016. Interesting that such an accomplished artist would now change his movie medium from composing to directing. And interesting that his movie would draw on an aesthetic so recognizably visual instead of auditory. It looks like Werewolf by Night checks all the right boxes. It has all the right tropes and clichés. It even harkens back to the days when movies were still projected on film. If the trailer is to be believed, Werewolf by Night will be amazing. But how could a composer make such a moviemaker’s movie?

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Michael Giacchino Loves Classic Monster Movies

     Universal Pictures

Werewolf by Night, in the comics, tells the story of a hereditary curse by which one Jack Russell was turned into a werewolf. His ancestor attempted to kill Dracula but was bit by Dracula’s werewolf, thus becoming one himself. The curse remained dormant as he passed the lycanthropy down his bloodline. Jack Russell awakened the curse one day when he read a passage of the Darkhold (the deadly book of magic we saw in Multiverse of Madness) and became a Werewolf by Night.

In the film, we are set up with several Marvel characters being called to this strange location to hunt down a werewolf. Having a group of people in a room and telling them that one of them is a werewolf is not unlike playing an actual game of Werewolf. But Giacchino’s movie looks like something between an Agatha Christie novel and a 1930s chiller movie. These classic monster movies made things like mummies, Dracula, and Frankenstein scary before they turned into the cliches they are in today’s cinema. Werewolf by Night is inspired by some of these old monsters.

In an interview with IMDb, Michael Giacchino said that he was inspired by these types of movies and often spent his Saturdays watching Creature Double Feature, a television segment that played from 1973-83, showing exclusively monster movies. He had a fondness for this type of cinema since he was a kid, and it deeply influenced his style. He also said that he wanted to make an experience that would genuinely scare his viewers to the point that they would remember it forever.

On the first day of filming, he called all his cast members in and asked what had scared them as a child. Giacchino wanted to create the sort of fright that would stick with someone long after seeing the movie, like moments we can still remember from childhood. He cited specific experiences like hearing a noise underneath your bed or seeing Poltergeist for the first time.

Giacchino Always Wanted to Make Movies

     Marvel Studios

Knowing how to score a movie isn’t the only skill Michael Giacchino has in his repertoire. In the interview with IMDb, he revealed he had been making movies since he was a kid. Though they had been clunky amateur films either done with poor stop-motion or featuring his friends, it has been a passion throughout his life. When he grew up, he went to New York’s School of Visual Arts and graduated, majoring in film production. His career from there expanded into composing music for Disney on some of their video games, and he has only climbed the ladder since.

Michael Giacchino always had a passion for directing, and now it’s found room to grow in the MCU. The trailer for Werewolf by Night shows how the movie will use a greater deal of practical effects. It features a strange corpse-like doll whose deficient puppetry and silly puns make him a callback to the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt. The trailer also contains a cue mark from the days of film. A cue mark was a small dot in the corner of the screen that signals theaters that it’s time to change reels. Fight Club called them cigarette burns.

Even the intro to Giacchino’s “Special Feature” is a reference to 1970s television, when a company would put some colorful graphics along with their logo at the beginning of a program. It seems this composer always wanted to be a full-on filmmaker, so we can probably expect the best of all Giacchino’s skills in this thriller of a new Marvel movie.