After the low-key success of 2020’s reboot of The Invisible Man, hampered by theater closures during the pandemic but critically acclaimed, Universal and Blumhouse decided to take another whack at a proud member of the studio’s storied classic monsters franchise that also includes Frankenstein and Dracula. In this case, it’s 1941’s chilling The Wolf Man, in which Lon Chaney Jr. played the memorable title character.
Creating a whole new story for a contemporary setting, director and co-writer (with Corbett Tuck) Leigh Whannell is back after so skillfully reimagining The Invisible Man as a female-centric horror tale of domestic abuse, among other issues. That movie for my money was one of the most impressive of all recent horror movies because it not only took a legendary figure of terror but made it pertinent in all kinds of unexpected ways for audiences, particularly with a powerful lead performance by Elisabeth Moss.
With Wolf Man, Christopher Abbott takes on the title role as a family man named Blake Lovell in present-day San Francisco whose devotion to his 8-year-old daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) is unquestioned but whose marriage to the family breadwinner, journalist Charlotte (Julia Garner), has hit near rock bottom in terms of communication between the two. Here is where Whannell dives back into contemporary issues in showing how we change in relationships, and in this instance it is literally.
Before we get into the weeds of Blake’s current life and times, the film offers an opening sequence set 30 years earlier in the Oregon woods in which Grady (Sam Jaeger), the survivalist father of young son, Blake (played at this age by Zac Chandler), tries to immerse his boy in the rough outdoor lifestyle he inhabits. That includes hunting and other kinds of macho madness that Blake rebels against, a divide that never really got healed and a father/son bond that was completely broken when Grady simply disappeared.
Cut to 30 years later when Blake learns his father is deceased and has left the family’s Oregon cabin to him. With keys in hand, he convinces Charlotte that it might help their marriage to go up and spend some time deep in the woods to perhaps rekindle what they have lost. So they head up north with Ginger in the backseat in a rented U-Haul.
It isn’t all as Blake remembered it as a child as he finds himself lost when a dicey-looking local (Benedict Hardie) turns up offering to help, saying he remembers Blake — who doesn’t really recall him — and can direct him to the house. He hops in the U-Haul, but after a horrifying moment when Blake sees a strange creature of some human form in the road, the vehicle careens out of control into the woods, clinging to the edge. The local is dead, and the battered family must walk on foot, soon finding the cabin but also pursued by a deadly beast as they breathlessly try to get inside.
This is just the beginning of the true terror as, in pure Wolf Man fashion, Blake experiences some frightening body changes — first a tooth falls out, then much bloodier effects after nearly being pulled through the dog door by an unseen creature. Soon he begins physically and mentally changing, and the real horror is not just on those prosthetics so effectively created by Jane O’Kane and Arjen Tuiten, but also on Charlotte’s face as she sees her husband morphing into someone she no longer recognizes.
Whannell is too smart to let this all drift into predictable 2025 horror territory but also tries, as he did in Invisible Man, to give his story real relevance. And that is what makes it work as well as it does, even if the frights are a long time in coming. However, when Blake starts chomping off pieces of his body, it all kicks into gear; so fear not, the gore on display is very generous.
We have see numerous variations on all this over the years, including the likes of The Howling, An American Werewolf on London, Teen Wolf, Wolf with Jack Nicholson as filtered through Mike Nichols, and even Twilight. The list goes on and on since the 1930s, and it is to Whannell’s credit that it still works to the degree it does.
Abbott dives into the role with complete relish and succeeds for the most part, as does Garner, such a good actress, who too often has to just look horrified. Firth is an effective young actress and does what she is asked, and Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), in only for the first part of the movie, creates an all-too-believable man who caves into the myths of the barren land he so loves. Production design by Ruby Mathers and cinematography by Stefan Duscio — who worked with Whannell on The Invisible Man — is exceptional, as is the classically influenced music score from Benjamin Wallfisch.
Producers are Jason Blum and Ryan Gosling, the latter attached at one time to star in the pic.
Title: Wolf Man
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 17, 2025
Director: Leigh Whannell
Screenwriters: Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck
Cast: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hendie, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler, Milo Cawthorne
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr, 43 mins