Movie Review: WOLF MAN

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Abbie Bernstein

Posted: January 17th, 2025 / 01:32 AM

WOLF MAN movie poster | ©2025 Universal Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Zac Chandler
Writers: Leigh Whannell & Corbett Tuck
Director: Leigh Whannell
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 17, 2025

With their reluctant monster protagonists, werewolf stories are an obvious source of emotion and metaphor, as well as straight-out horror. Director Leigh Whannell and his co-writer, the late Corbett Tuck (the film is dedicated to his memory), attempt to bring enormous heart and introspection to their take on lycanthropy in WOLF MAN. We can see how their approach is meant to work, and our awareness of the tactics involved may be part of the problem.

In WOLF MAN, per onscreen titles, we learn that a hiker vanished in the woods of central Oregon in 1995. Rumors start spreading through the area of what the previous indigenous locals used to call “the face of the wolf.”

Then we meet Grady Lovell (Sam Jaeger) and his young son Blake (Zac Chandler), who live on a small farm in that sparsely populated region. Grady’s parenting style is strict, with a lot of yelling, but he really just wants to keep Blake safe – and not just from normal forest threats like rattlesnakes and toadstools. Grady and his friend Dan both believe there’s an unnatural menace in their territory, and they are determined to bring it down.

Thirty years later, the adult Blake (Christopher Abbott) is now married to Charlotte (Julia Garner), living in the big city. They are having the sort of low-heat couple troubles that can happen when both parties want to be gainfully employed, but only one (Charlotte) is. Their little daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) is very much daddy’s girl, so much so that Charlotte worries about her mothering skills.

Blake hasn’t had contact with his father Grady in quite a while, even before Grady disappeared years ago. But when Grady is finally declared legally dead, Blake is struck by remorse and guilt. He has inherited the farm and needs to go out there to close up the property. Blake convinces Charlotte to bring Ginger and make the trip to central Oregon a vacation for the three of them.

We can’t fault Blake for not suspecting what we do about his father’s actual fate. Likewise, once the emergencies begin piling up, everybody behaves with as much common sense as panic allows.

Refreshingly, WOLF MAN is a werewolf movie where no exposition is offered or required. This allows for an easy flow of events, as well as a broader choice of weapons, and just general relief that we don’t have to hear what we already know. We also get a wolfish point of view, which is intriguing, though more magical than frightening

So, then, what are the issues? Whannell, who did a first-rate modern version of THE INVISIBLE MAN a few years ago, seemed happily in his element there.

But WOLF MAN requires both a touching parent-child bond and true romance between Blake and Charlotte, and the filmmakers don’t seem as engaged by these dynamics as they need to be to envelop us.

Indeed, for those familiar with studio notes, the results here look more mandated by stabs at formula than organic inspiration.

Abbott and Firth do have charming father/daughter chemistry, but it doesn’t serve as the kind of visceral engine that can sustain the material. We also like Garner’s Charlotte, but we’re not pulling for her and Blake to stay together, much less prove their devotion through the night’s ordeal. Abbott does a fine job putting across affection, alarm, and pained bewilderment.

An attempt to illustrate heightened hearing pays off momentarily, but then seems inconsistent (given how loud small noises sound to the werewolf, human voices ought to be overwhelming).

On the gore side, WOLF MAN has some creditable innovations, including the gradual transformation. The makeup effects here, by Arjen Tuiten, are designed to let us see the agony, exhaustion and internal struggle as performed by the actor. This is a noble goal, and it certainly is an other-than-human visage.

However, the end result looks like there was such emphasis on the notion of the change as a disease versus something supernatural that this wolf man appears more afflicted than lupine. He elicits more pity than dread, to say nothing of terror.

WOLF MAN tries to come at its venerable subject matter from a new angle, which is admirable. It may be that all of the specific pieces here don’t quite gel and if one or two were replaced, the whole might function better. But in this instance, on the road between impactful family drama and werewolf horror, you can’t get there from here.

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A werewolf movie that doesn’t quite fulfill its own ambitions

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