Wolf Man review: Can Leigh Whannell best his Invisible Man?

Be it the scorching rays of the sun, the sting of a silver bullet, or a brutal box office thrashing, nothing can truly kill the Universal Monsters. Since they first lurked onto the silver screen in the early 1900s, this motley crew of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, and the creature from the Black Lagoon have risen again and again for a sequel, remake, or re-imagining, for better or worse. 

For worse, this has resulted in the aborted Dark Universe, which flamed out with Tom Cruise’s big-budget flop The Mummy in 2017. For better, there’s been 2020’s The Invisible Man, in which writer/director Leigh Whannell left his supernatural leanings from the Insidious franchise behind for a more sci-fi-rooted horror. His Wolf Man has a similarly grim and grounded approach, abandoning much of the paranormal lore of werewolves in favor of more penetrating real-life fears. 

However, while Wolf Man ditches the lycanthropy tropes of silver weapons and a full moon, Whannell stays true to Blumhouse’s formula. The film brings heralded actors — in this case Poor Things‘ Christopher Abbott and Apartment 7A‘s Julia Garner — into a central location, where horror can be spun cost-effectively from a single spooky concept. For Whannell, that is taking the gruesome and inescapable transformation of man to beast and making it a metaphor for chronic illness, the kind that robs sufferers of control of their bodies, speech, and even the ability to understand the people around them. 

It’s a bold move. But does it make for a satisfying horror movie? 

Wolf Man is a meditation on illness. 

Scripted by Whannell and Corbett Tuck, Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as Blake, a San Francisco family man who is happily serving as a stay-at-home dad to his plucky daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), while his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) works to bring home the metaphorical bacon. However, all her focus on her career has Charlotte feeling disconnected from her daughter and husband. So, when some bizarre personal news offers the family a chance to visit Blake’s childhood home in rural Oregon, they leap at the chance for some quality time, far from the hustle and bustle (and relative safety) of human civilization. 

Of course, as the title teases, there’s something not quite human prowling in the woods near Blake’s old house. And it only takes one scratch from a gnarly claw to infect this loving father with a lycanthropic disease. After a scene of frenzied fleeing through a forest, much of Wolf Man takes place within the walls of the cabin where Blake was raised by his macho hunter/survivalist father, who’s been proclaimed dead after years missing. As such, there’s a home invasion element to Wolf Man, reminiscent of The Strangers. A frightened woman is trapped in a house under siege by a violent and mysterious threat, with no real hope of outsider intervention to save her and her loved ones.

As Blake steadily begins to transform, Charlotte must step up as a mom, protecting her child, and a wife, understanding her husband even as the man she knew vanishes before her very eyes. 

Leigh Whannell wallows in agony in Wolf Man. 

In many stories of werewolves, there is an inescapable sense of doom, whether the cause be a bite or curse. These tales often follow a hapless man (or teen girl) who is irrevocably changed, and will likely die because of it. Whannell leans into this dread by focusing on the distortions Blake suffers, physically and mentally.

Satisfying the body-horror expectations of the werewolf subgenre, Blake’s skin curdles into open sores, which he cannot help but ravage with growing claws and pointed teeth. His luscious hair falls out as his face stretches into a disfigured mockery of his former reflection. His voice vanishes, replaced by a hollow growl. In panning shots, captured practically and enhanced digitally, Whannell reveals how Blake’s family sees him and vice versa. As the camera moves from a weeping Charlotte whispering comfort, the lighting changes, the vision blurs, and her voice becomes an indecipherable warble as the film moves into Blake’s warping perspective. This wolf vision is not intended to give us the sense of a slasher in pursuit or a predator that is targeting prey. It’s a nightmarish perversion of reality, reflecting how Blake feels trapped, even damned, in his mutating body. 

It’s tragic and unnerving, especially as Abbott relishes every bit of body horror. (Whannell counts David Cronenberg’s The Fly as an inspiration.) However, the metaphor between werewolfism and chronic illness ultimately feels obvious and lazy. Yes, both can be inescapable and horrific. The effects of both can be terrifying to those who suffer from them and the loved ones forced to witness. But this analogy ignores the ferocity and brute strength that is still present in even Whannell’s pared-down werewolf lore. Where does that fit into his metaphor?

Essentially, Wolf Man begins as a clever idea that runs out of steam well before the movie ends. Blake’s transformation, slow and grueling across several sequences, begins to feel episodic, as does the grief-stricken displays of his wife and child. And so, even at one hour and forty-five minutes, this Wolf Man drags.

Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott commit but can’t save Wolf Man. 

These two deserve better than Whannell and Tuck’s script. Both their characters are thinly sketched archetypes. Blake is the modern gentle parent, desperate to protect his kid from the childhood trauma instilled by harsh words, fear, and unchecked machismo. Charlotte — well, she sure has a job and cares about it when she’s at home despite Blake’s condescending remarks! Much of the movie depends on caring about characters who never feel anything but vague signifiers of work/life balance.

To his credit, Abbott — who shot this very physically demanding film while still in physical therapy for an on-stage knee injury — is committed to every bit. With child actor Firth, he is gentle, gamely goofy, and sincerely focused. With Garner, he is alert, though his attention is edged with a low-boil frustration that will never get a proper voice. And when he is the monster, he is in turn a pitiable puddle of malleable flesh and a ferocious creature, barrelling after his terrified family. Garner matches him, her hard stare glittering with righteous tears. But with the first act failing to establish these characters in the way The Fly or — to cite another danger-from-within domestic horror film — Rosemary’s Baby did, the rest just doesn’t work. Instead, it becomes a slog of tears, blood, and moping.

In the end, Whannell’s Wolf Man is a maudlin mess, which heaps on grief and grisliness without balancing it with character. While there are a few moments of delicious tension — like an opening sequence where a young Blake goes from hunting to hunted — Wolf Man overall is more one-note than anything. Compared to The Invisible Man it’s a serious misstep for Whannell. Compared to The Mummy, well, that might have been a wreck of a movie, but at least it was occasionally fun.  

Wolf Man opens in theaters Jan. 17.

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