Philippe Mora is a French movie movie director, though he was raised in Australia. In addition to directing Mora has also served as a writer, producer and actor in several of his films. His first genre film was the 1982 monster movie The Beast Within, which was based on a novel by Edward Levy. Like his predecessors Joe Dante and John Landis, Mora employed air-bladder special effects for the creature's transformation scenes. This style of effect became a standard for many directors following Dante and Landis' respective works on The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. In fact, Philippe Mora would go on to direct the first two Howling sequels, The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf and The Howling III: The Marsupials.