Wolf Man (dir. Leigh Whannell)

by | Jan 18, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 103 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 17 January 2025

WHO’S IN WOLF MAN?

Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast, Benedict Hardie, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly, Milo Cawthorne

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Leigh Whannell (director, writer), Corbett Tuck (writer), Jason Blum (producer), Benjamin Wallfisch (composer), Stefan Duscio (cinematographer), Andy Canny (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A family man (Abbott) transforms into a terrifying creature…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON WOLF MAN?

So much happened in the first few months of 2020 that most of us tend to forget that around the same time, writer-director Leigh Whannell not only revitalised the Universal Classic Monsters franchise – doing what the Dark Universe ultimately couldn’t – but gave it all-new life with his terrifying take on The Invisible Man. That film, in many ways, was an update that added new layers to the classic story, while also recontextualising certain themes to fit a modern message that needed to be told.

It’s such a shame, then, that Whannell is unable to replicate that magic for his new version of another classic Universal monster. Wolf Man is, sadly to its detriment, less thematically strong than The Invisible Man, with Whannell largely foregoing depth and commentary for a routine checklist of standard werewolf movie tropes, which despite some strong filmmaking choices leave it with far less bite than one might have hoped.

The film begins with Blake (Christopher Abbott), a writer and stay-at-home father, receiving news that his estranged father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has been officially declared dead after going missing years earlier. He also receives the keys to his childhood home deep in the Oregon woods, and decides to relocate there with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) in a bid to save his flailing marriage. However, on the way over, Blake has a terrifying encounter with a mysterious and deadly man-like creature, resulting in an infection that slowly transforms him into an animalistic monster, much to the terror of his family.

As the events unfold over the course of a single night, it quickly becomes clear that Wolf Man, unlike The Invisible Man, doesn’t have nearly as strong a foundation to stand on when it comes to its storytelling. Whereas the latter film tackled unique and often emotionally taxing themes like abusive relationships and psychological torment, and did so with an underlying suspense that lasted all throughout, this one is much more straightforward as Whannell and Corbett Tuck’s script makes it very clear what their film is all about – in this case, the mannerisms and traumas we inherit from one generation to the next – amidst a series of standard werewolf shenanigans that come and go as they please. It comes off as a bit hollow, since you’re watching something with so much potential to dive deeper into genuine human drama, only for much of it to be squandered for things you’ve seen many times over.

Whannell, though, is at least a good enough filmmaker to bring out the eeriness that a woodland-set werewolf movie suggests. The cinematography, provided by Stefan Duscio, captures the dark isolated natured of this forest atmosphere, while also finding ways of establishing suspense via the framing of certain shots and the lack of lighting in certain parts of these woods. Meanwhile, Whannell pays close attention to the transformation itself, as Abbott’s Blake slowly but surely succumbs to his newfound curse via some rather excellent practical make-up effects, which start off subtle before gradually erasing the outward human appearance into something much more unnatural (and, indeed, hairier). There’s also a neat camera trick that shifts to Blake’s perspective from that of other characters, marked by a warped vision where everything looks like he’s on the wildest of mushroom trips, and all the while it’s sold by the actor’s physical performance, which impresses the further he hides beneath the make-up, even well after he’s able to enunciate any dialogue.

But despite its filmmaking strengths, there’s just not a lot of weight to this script, with its characters, themes and stakes all suffering from the overall emptiness. Take, for instance, the central theme about generational trauma, for beyond an extended prologue, which even then only skims the surface, we don’t get to know that much about the relationship between Blake and his stern survivalist father, and by the time it reveals a fairly predictable twist there’s little reason to still be invested in how that plays out. Certain characters, like Garner’s Charlotte, initially start out as though they’re about to go through a heavily emotional arc, only for that to be stopped in its tracks as it becomes nothing more than a cost-effective home invasion movie (did I mention that Jason Blum is the producer on this?) that happens to feature a werewolf. There are also some glaring inconsistencies with the characterisations, as people will go from feeling sorry for this poor bloke to being utterly terrified of him, sometimes within the same scene, confusing the viewer as to whether we should fear or pity this creature.

Again, the film’s biggest disappointment is its inability to actually do anything with its premise, other than just the same old werewolf tropes that have already been done to death. Whannell has proven with films like Upgrade and, once more, The Invisible Man that he has it within him to find new and interesting ways to tell stories that might otherwise feel familiar in lesser hands, and to see him settle for an arguably safe approach with Wolf Man is disheartening, to where you almost wonder if this was indeed the film he originally set out to make before other producers and studios got involved.

Of course, it’s nowhere near as catastrophic as what ended up happening with the Dark Universe, but it’s no less disappointing to see the potential of this Universal Classic Monsters property go largely to waste. Other than some neat filmmaking, there’s nothing to really howl about here.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Wolf Man is a disappointingly hollow update of the classic movie monster, which sees director and co-writer Leigh Whannell neglect to add the thematic and narrative depth of The Invisible Man to a much emptier film that relies on overly familiar werewolf tropes, despite some strong filmmaking and impressive make-up effects.

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