Film Review - Wolf Man
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Leigh Whannell’s latest film Wolf Man - a spiritual follow up from 2020’s The Invisible Man - again takes the classic Universal monster and offers a new spin… this time, the man is visible. This newest iteration offers viewers a fresh perspective on the idea of the werewolf to the point where some might even not view it in the same category as classics like Dog Soldiers, American Werewolf in London, and The Howling 2: Your Sister's a Werewolf. Where the idea of lycanthropes has run its course thanks to Underworld and Twilight alike, Whannell attempts to go deeper into an integral element - transformation not just in a physical sense, but an emotional one too.
Stay-at-home dad Blake (Christopher Abbott) decides to try and save his faltering marriage by uprooting wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), moving the family to his old family cottage in the woods, but they get more than they bargained for when a long-rumored beast of the mountains rears its fuzzy head. Along with this comes intensified family drama, and a trite exploration of the sins of the father. It's a shame because The Invisible Man has only grown better in mind since watching it, whereas Wolf Man is souring rapidly - Upgrade remains unequivocally goated though.
Where Invisible Man had us fearing negative space, Wolf Man instead feels like it's packed with a bit too much stuffing, choking out any room to delve into the meat of the film by instead giving us unsubtle reminders of the film’s themes and already-familiar story beats. Where most werewolf films focus on one or two disgusting transformation scenes, the film instead opts to slow down and explore a gradual decomposition akin to The Fly, an idea that sounds truly awesome on paper, but is just kind of cool in execution. There's a neat part where Abbott’s Blake begins gnawing at a wound like a dog, and another scene later that offers as a double-entendre Saw reference (which Whannell also wrote and co-starred in), but it does seem a bit hampered by budget and dim lighting.
Blumhouse needs a real win right now and it pains me to say that Wolf Man isn't quite the home run it very well could have been. There's a lot to like, but it just doesn't quite hit in a way that resonates, as much as it feels like it should. Changing the rules of the werewolf is one thing, if only they added something meaningful to the experience. The transformation doesn't quite go hard enough, and the end result is a mixed bag, feeling like we're missing a third and final stage to really sell this new iteration. Christopher Abbott remains committed as ever, it's just that the script doesn't particularly serve him or even Julia Garner for that matter. As far as January horror movies go, you could do worse, but howling about Wolf Man, you will not be.
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Wolf Man is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.