Writer and director of Wolf Man, Leigh Whannell, has proven himself to be one of the most reliable creators in horror.  Saw and Insidious are clever and scary. He also wrote Dead Silence, which is an underrated gem. After 2020’s The Invisible Man, I understand why anyone would trust him to update a classic Universal Monster.   However, early on, there were signs that Wolf Man was looking less encouraging.

• Directed By: Leigh Whannell
• Written By: Leigh Whannell Corbett Tuck
• Starring: Julia Garner Christopher Abbott Matilda Firth

The Preview at HHN

At Halloween Horror Nights in October 2024, Universal debuted a Wolf Man character to promote the movie. The response was not entirely favorable. I tried to stay optimistic; it was for an event after all, maybe they were avoiding spoilers. Soon after they released the first trailer.  When I saw it, the last of my hope dissipated. Since I’m starved for good werewolf content, I dragged myself to the theater anyway.  As an extra special treat, H³ decided this was the one horror movie he was going to go with me to see.

The Problem

Wolf Man is not exactly a werewolf movie; it’s an infection movie dressed up in a vaguely wolf-shaped suit. It’s not exactly a bad movie. It has some flaws, but there’s also quite a bit done right. My main issue is there is nothing about this specific story that necessitated being a werewolf story, much less a reboot of 1941’s The Wolf Man. 

There are some commonalities in the two stories. There is a complicated father/son relationship in both, and a son returning to his family home.  Past that, this is a brand-new story that trades Romani myths for an illness named by the native population of Oregon as “The Face of the Wolf”.

Review – Light Spoilers Ahead

Blake Lovell is a father trying his best to recover from his isolated childhood after being raised by a paranoid, emotionally abusive dad. He’s got a close relationship with his daughter Ginger, but things aren’t so great with his wife Charlotte. We’re given some hints as to why things might be strained between them. He’s between jobs, and Charlotte seems much more successful; Ginger deeply favors her dad, while Charlotte struggles to relate to her, but nothing is directly said.  Blake learns that his long estranged, and apparently missing, dad has been finally declared dead. The family gets a truck and heads to Oregon for some bonding time and to clear out the house.

Before I get too far into this, I will say I like Blake as a character. It’s clear he’s trying to not be his father. He’s open and communicative with Ginger and Charlotte. When he makes mistakes, he admits to them and apologizes. It’s kind of a problem, but only because it undercuts some of the thematic points the movie may be trying to make later. This isn’t the story of a man fighting against his impulsive anger or anything.  He’s just, sadly, a dad who gets sick, but we’ll get to that.

On the way to the house, Blake must swerve off the road to avoid hitting a man. The truck wrecks, the wolf attacks. Blake is infected and the plot has fully kicked in.  From here on out, things start to play out like a pretty decent infection movie. There are some almost-nice body horror moments, but they are few and far between. Blake loses one tooth and has a dissolving arm that he somehow doesn’t notice for, like, hours.

Good Moments

There are also some nice transitions in point of view. Up until now, the movie has been through his perspective. As part of his transformation, Blake gradually loses the ability to understand human speech. As he does, we switch to Charlotte’s perspective and back again; the transition between the two gives us a tiny glimpse of what Blake is experiencing. It’s also one of the few truly horrific moments in the movie. Words that are understandable turn to gibberish, and the image sharpens and focuses on light.  Moments like these are the kind of smart, effective filmmaking I expect from Whannell. Which is why the rest of Wolf Man is so disappointing.

After Blake starts his long, slow transformation inside the house, the monster that attacked them lurks outside the house.  Charlotte starts to realize that Blake isn’t getting any better, steps up, and plans an escape using Blake’s dad’s old truck.  In one of the better visual moments, we finally get a good, clear glimpse of the creature effects.

Bad Wolf.

It’s not great. Look, for a Blumhouse budget, I expected a proper wolfman. At best, I got a hyena with mange.  The movement of the actors is great and there are some really great scenes and jump scares with the creature. It just looks bad. Making a werewolf without hair is a decision; I’m just not sure that it’s the right one. Okay, I’ve got it all out of my system. That’s the last I’ll say about that.

Blake as a werewolf, he’s not really good at that either.  Continuing the “doing too much” theme, the movie makes a point of highlighting Blake’s super werewolf senses. He can smell beef jerky in a sealed room, and hear a spider’s footsteps in a closed, upstairs closet,  like drumbeats. This is never used to his advantage. He fails to hear or smell predators approaching when it would be advantageous to do so, especially when they would have made noise. It didn’t need to be established, since it wasn’t used.

As Wolf Man heads to its inevitable confrontations and conclusion. I found myself appreciating Charlotte’s character, as well as Ginger.  I’ve been hard on kids in horror in the past (sorry, Nosferatu kids). Ginger is fantastic; she’s likeable and is given more to do than just stand around and scream for her parents. This is especially shown in a pivotal moment when the strength of her bond with her dad is used in the best way possible. Don’t worry, no one is saved with the power of love here, this is all about emotional growth.

Too Much Story, Not Enough Scare

The problem comes from thematically doing too much and not being able to follow through on any of it. Wolf Man touches on the sacrifices of parenthood and breaking patterns of generational abuse, or at least bad parenting, but these things are discussed in dialogue and then moved away from. We never really wrap them up or explore them in any depth. There are so many elements introduced that don’t serve a narrative or thematic purpose.

Why does it matter that Charlotte and Blake are struggling in their marriage? There isn’t anything that happens once they get to Oregon that is affected by that plot point. Same thing with Blake’s childhood and relationship with his father.  Blake laments that he has unfinished business there, but rather than giving him space in the script to explore that, we move on. Or Charlotte struggling to relate to Ginger; as soon as things get bad, none of that matters – and it should have. There are glimpses or moments where it feels like the movie wants these things to matter. Overall, it struggles to balance all these elements and a werewolf story.

Which brings me back to my biggest complaint. Why werewolves?  Wolf Man could have been any infection/monster story. There’s nothing in its core theme, lore, action, or creature design that makes it need to be werewolves. If this was a zombie movie, for example, it could’ve been pretty compelling. I get wanting to tell a different type of story, but there is such a thing as moving too far from the source.

What Is a Werewolf Story:

Thematically. the original Wolf Man tackles the conflict between our civilized self and our animalistic aggressive desires. It also deals with the randomness and cruelty of fate. Most werewolf movies follow these themes in different ways.  Dog Soldiers, for example, takes soldiers and drops them in a bad situation, then adds werewolves. They use the monsters to slowly chip away at the discipline and structure of the unit and the rigors and expectations of the military. It’s a different type of werewolf story, but still has something new to say with a familiar subject.  

We don’t get much of Blake’s internal struggles, because this is an illness not lycanthropy. By the time things have progressed to the “really bad” stage, that’s the body horror part, we’re solidly in Charlotte’s point of view.

I don’t think you need the standard lore tropes to make a werewolf story: full moon, silver bullet, that kind of thing. But, I do think it should NEED to be werewolves. Wolf Man doesn’t fit that requirement.

Final Thoughts

H³ had a lot more issues with Wolf Man than I did. He could probably add another several hundred words on logical inconsistencies, questionable acting choices, and just silly things.  I’m more willing to suspend disbelief and honestly, just happy he didn’t walk out.  If this has been titled anything other than Wolf Man, I probably would have been more okay with it. As it is, I’m still waiting for a decent werewolf movie.

Wolf Man is in theaters now.

Check out my other recent horror movie reviews here:

• Exhume
• Nosferatu
• Last Straw