The title "Year 2" confused some people who thought this was a sequel. But the title refers to the year after (i.e. second year) an event that leads to people becoming werewolves.
In a 2024 interview with Rue Morgue, Steven C. Miller spoke about the werewolf design and the importance of keeping the effects mostly practical: "We were prepping the wolves for months and months before we even got to preproduction on the movie-just going through different designs, asking questions like, Will the designs have elongated arms? Will the actors be on stilts? How can we have suits that fit well but allow the creatures to move and run the way we want them to? We went through all these different variations because whatever we needed to do with the werewolves, I wanted to do without green CGI screens all over the place. I knew we would have to do some of that, but I didn't want it there if the wolves were on screen. I didn't really want to touch them after the fact, you know? And I'm proud to say that every wolf you see on screen, that's a practical werewolf. That is how we shot it. There's no touchup, no cleaning them up in post. I was adamant about that."