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‘Wolf Man’ Review: Woof

By Lindsay Traves | Film | January 16, 2025 |

Wolf Man
Header Image Source: Universal Pictures

It’s tough out there for Universal Monsters. The iconic collection of timeless frights scream for readaptation as much as they do homage, but even with the greatest of lore, nothing is guaranteed. This millennium saw a varied collection of shots at The Mummy, Dracula and his cohorts are everywhere you look, and Frankenstein promises to dominate this coming year. When Leigh Whannell gave us The Invisible Man, many believed Blumhouse would be teeing up for a new spin on the Dark Universe that dragged these villains into the new decade with creative spins on the iconography. So now there’s Wolf Man and, look, they can’t all be bangers.

For his latest adaptation, Whannell took on the dated tale to craft another emotionally spiked version of a man transformed into a canine hybrid. Christopher Abbott leads as Blake, a grown-up version of a scared kid emotionally scarred by the fears of his overbearing father. Adult Blake lives in the city with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), the young family hitting the usual speed bumps that come with being busy parents desperate to protect their child. Blake doesn’t want to be the fear monger his father is, and Charlotte favors her career and fears she isn’t a good mother. Trying to reconnect as a family, they take a trip to Blake’s estranged father’s farmhouse. Blake’s threat-obsessed father has been missing for years and was finally declared deceased, so Blake takes the need to clean up the farm as a way to spend time with his family away from the demands of the city. But before they can even absorb the “no cell phone service and closed roads” of it all, they’re attacked by a strange beast who leaves Blake ill, and the family marooned.

What follows is a collection of action horror sequences you expect from Whannell, the guy who made Upgrade and The Invisible Man, but they’re so unfortunately struggling to prop up a film lost in its familial trauma messaging. The initial truck crash might bring some early heat, but what follows fails to bring the film back up to pace. The story seems to want to justify its existence by bringing something new, but the tale of inherited trauma and becoming just like the parents you resent gets so lost in the messiness of underdeveloped characters and playing the rest so straight. The movie is mercifully under two hours which makes sense for a story of a one-night slow transformation, but time is wasted on an overlong cold open and barely explored conversations which makes it difficult to appreciate the gravity of the film’s reveals and ultimate themes. Charlotte is criminally underdeveloped, her arc having limited payoff beyond her being forced to become a protector, and Blake’s role becomes quite limited to a (very well executed) physical performance while he slowly seems to lose the ability to protect his daughter from himself.

This adaptation, moving the story to a one-night-in-the-woods place, ends up reading more rural horror than monster movie. City folk are lost on country roads, facing off against a spooky redneck with a gun, and are left with nothing but a rusty rifle and an old pickup. But aside from a moment of Charlotte declaring herself an employed modern woman, it doesn’t pay off, her having no issues boosting a car or using a firearm. It suddenly becomes a cabin-in-the-woods fright where they’re managing a spooky infection. The contagious disease of the wolf scratch adds a zombie element which sometimes works, especially as it pertains to the body horror which is truly where the film shines. The body horror spin on the werewolf (can I say that word when discussing this movie?) transformation is a successful thrill, and the canine reaction to the wounds was the catalyst of my theater audience’s audible gasps and winces. The ultimate transformation scene is gory, gross, and great but is completely unsatisfying as it’s but a small part of the night-long slow transition and doesn’t do much to alter the stakes. Plus, by then, we’ve already gotten a good look at a fully formed wolf man.

This newest monster tale has some delightful modern takes on a classic, and its best relic of its predecessors is in the “monster lover” long glance scenes between Charlotte and her wolfen husband. But by trying to string together something about parenthood, mothers, and inheriting and passing along our worst traits, Wolf Man sacrifices its own scares and gore for a flimsy theme and unclear horror stakes.

Wolf Man hits theaters Friday, January 17, 2025