Wolf Man Review: Leigh Whannell's Half-Effective Fright Fest Will Leave You Feeling Torn In Two

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For as long as we've been telling one another scary stories in the dark, the monsters lurking just beyond the light of the campfire and dancing on the very edge of our imaginations have never been mere monsters. Whether it be the Baba Yaga waiting to snatch misbehaving children away, dragons heralding the final challenge for gallant knights to prove their chivalry, or bloodthirsty vampires representing the darkest and most insatiable lusts within ourselves, each one has a very specific tale to tell about ourselves and the frightening world around us.

The vaunted rogues gallery that makes up the classic Universal Monsters franchise is no exception. That probably helps explain why Hollywood refused to let even a monumental train wreck like the aborted Dark Universe experiment derail their plans to make this happen, one way or another. After spending years (and ungodly amounts of money) begging audiences to give a you-know-what about Van Helsing spinoffs, Dracula origin stories, and, yes, that disaster of a reboot known as "The Mummy" in 2017, the studio finally settled on their soundest strategy of all: Let Leigh Whannell cook. Okay, in reality, it was more like letting several individual filmmakers come to them with ideas on how to reinterpret specific characters as they saw fit. Fittingly, Whannell kicked off this new phase with 2020's acclaimed "The Invisible Man" and helped make way for all sorts of varied approaches, each one standing leagues apart from the other. As disparate as these have been — a comedic take on Renfield, an adaptation of a single creepy chapter of Bram Stoker's famous novel, and even a secret riff on the daughter of Dracula — they've all been united by the same instinct that drove our earliest storytellers of old.

With "Wolf Man," Whannell returns to the scene of the crime with another fresh, modernized spin on a fundamental archetype: the werewolf. And just like in "The Invisible Man," the Australian director understands the deeper, almost primeval appeal that makes this such a timeless fable in the first place. Here, he reinvents the title character and its accompanying curse as a moody, atmospheric thriller that cares just as much (if not more) about the family at the center of this tragedy as the actual scares. Unfortunately, his attempt to invest viewers in both of these two halves never quite comes together as satisfyingly as we'd expect. Though an unsettling and unnerving watch with plenty of heart, "Wolf Man" can't help but leave one with the feeling of being torn in two.

Leigh Whannell reimagines Wolf Man as a cautionary tale of generational cycles

"Wolf Man" begins on an eerie note that instantly calls to mind horror staples like "The Blair Witch Project," with on-screen text informing audiences of a missing hiker in 1995 suspected of succumbing to a type of "hills fever" (which local indigenous populations rather unsubtly refer to as "Face of the Wolf"). This extended prologue leans hard on the idea of the Wolf Man as an urban legend haunting the forests of Oregon, despite treating the actual werewolf phenomenon almost like a biological disease. Here, the film traps viewers in the claustrophobic perspective of an overbearing father and his timid son Blake, caught up in a fraught encounter with this hidden menace. Thirty years later, we meet the grown-up Blake now played by Christopher Abbott, who has moved to New York City and raised a young family of his own. Soon, he hears word of his estranged father's death back in Oregon and decides to return to the old family homestead — ostensibly to put his possessions in order, but mostly as an excuse to bring him closer together with his distant wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and rambunctious preteen daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth).

If there's anything Leigh Whannell has proven uniquely adept at throughout his two directing efforts for Universal, it's finding a thoroughly modern angle into these monsters while staying faithful to what came before. Granted, the original 1941 "The Wolf Man" took on more overtly gothic stylizations compared to this stripped-down, minimalistic thriller. Yet the basic framework, where our basest and most animalistic urges tear apart (quite literally) our main character from the inside out, remains the same in Whannell's retelling. What he and co-writer Corbett Tuck add, however, is a potent family drama where the typical werewolf "curse" has less to do with outdated notions involving Romani fortunetellers or full moons, and more to do with the struggles to escape generational cycles of abuse and neglect.

More than anything, Blake is terrified of becoming his father and it isn't long before this fear is made manifest in surprising ways. His own run-in with the dreaded Wolf Man on a remote forest road leads to a horrific car accident, the first of the film's many breathlessly-executed action set pieces. Left with a traumatized wife and child, a telltale scratch on his arm, and a rapidly ticking clock as the beast within him threatens to burst out, the rest of the movie unfolds over the course of one agonizingly long night and culminates in a drawn-out home invasion — to mixed results.

Wolf Man is heavy on body horror, light in scares, and occasionally effective with emotions

Like its monstrous title character, "Wolf Man" can't escape the impression of a movie that exists halfway between two very different worlds. Those bracing themselves for a viewing experience as visceral, intense, and culturally incisive as "The Invisible Man" would be best advised to lower those expectations. In all fairness, both movies are attempting to pull off extremely different goals with characters utterly unlike one another. Yet even with that caveat, there's no getting around the uncomfortable reality that a few deeply-ingrained narrative and creative issues hold "Wolf Man" back at one too many turns.

The problems begin with the casting, surprisingly enough. Christopher Abbott has firmly established himself as one of our most reliable character actors with a gifted eye for choosing the right projects. And, in this instance, his ability to turn himself into a nervous, sweaty, but well-meaning wreck of a man is the perfect prelude to his disturbing transformation(s) later in the story. Once the Wolf Man finally makes a proper appearance, Abbott's physical performance is only bested by his deeply sad and horrified eyes peeking out from behind the monster he's become. Julia Garner similarly makes full use of her unparalleled presence as a performer, bringing a brittle courage that her character hardly even knows she possesses. Yet the dynamic between the two, upon which so much of the emotional heavy-lifting relies on, never feels as convincing as it needs to be. The dialogue does them no favors, either, cornering the two leads with awfully stilted and unnaturally direct lines that feel at odds with the rest of the picture. (After this, I never want to hear a bad word about M. Night Shyamalan's dialogue again!)

Whannell almost seems distracted by his efforts to make us care for these protagonists, coming at the expense of making "Wolf Man" as terrifying as it could've been. There are a handful of effective jump scares and no shortage of nausea-inducing body horror to keep us on our toes, but otherwise the film depends heavily on the foreboding tone and brilliant sound design — all credit goes to the entire sound department, along with composer Benjamin Wallfisch's score that frequently evokes the imagery of stomping feet chasing after our heroes — to supply the tension. Whatever else might be said about it, however, this is a true sensory experience in every sense of the phrase. This extends to the camerawork and oftentimes abstract lighting by cinematographer Stefan Duscio, which works hand in hand with Whannell's innovative choice to show us the world through the eyes and ears of the Wolf Man during several key moments. Horror fans will appreciate the use of practical effects and careful VFX enhancements in the various iterations of the eponymous creature design, but even this fails to live up to the hype.

By the time "Wolf Man" wraps things up with an ending that's just a bit too neat and tidy, viewers will be left to reflect on the opportunities missed rather than the bold roads taken. Fortunately, even a modest Whannell misfire is well worth a watch, particularly when so much care and effort has been poured into every facet of its construction. There's still plenty of enjoyment to be had here ... as long as you don't expect this monster's bite to match its bark.

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

"Wolf Man" opens in theaters January 17, 2025.