Leigh Whannell was once mainly known for his involvement alongside his friend James Wan in creating the horror franchise, “Saw.” In 2015, Whannell became a director with his debut film “Insidious: Chapter 3.”
In 2020, 5 years after his directorial debut, Universal Pictures released Whannell’s own reimagining of a classic movie monster in the form of “The Invisible Man.” It’s been another five years, and Universal Pictures released Whannell’s retelling of “Wolf Man.”
While the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score does not reflect the expectations of his other films like “Upgrade” (2018), the film is just fine with how it plays out with its story and characters.
“Wolf Man” tells the story of Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott), his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) as they journey from New York City to the wilderness of Oregon to clean out Blake’s father’s house after he passes away.
Unbeknownst to the Lovell family, the Oregon woods at night are a live hunting ground for a wolfman creature. However, they soon realize they are going to have to find ways to survive while Blake slowly becomes less like his human self.
“Wolf Man” greatly exceeds in its atmosphere and tone. The beginning prologue shows a young Blake and his father, Grady Lovell (Sam Jaeger), hunting in the woods until they come across the beast. They retreat into a nearby deer tower and only hear noises such as the wolfman’s howls and grunts and it running through the leaves and bushes.
The scene automatically sets up a brilliant antagonist without fully showing the monster except for a few quick shots from far away. Whannell later uses this same technique when Blake and his family arrive at Grady’s now abandoned house at the midpoint of the film.
An element that may make many people watching the film turned off and lead to its negative reviews is Blake’s transformation into becoming a wolfman. There have been a lot of memorable transformations in the history of lycanthropes on the big screen. However, it is treated more as a disease rather than an instant change from human to wolf in “Wolf Man.”
The audience gets to see Blake lose who he is, and his wife and daughter become more and more terrified of what he has become. Blake does not fold immediately into being evil. Instead, he holds onto his humanity long enough so his loved ones are not harmed.
The characters are brought to life very well by all of the actors. Abbott plays a convincing father figure who only wants to protect Charlotte and Ginger, and the latter two do a good job conveying how their feelings change about Blake as he slowly loses his humanity.
There are some moments where Firth’s acting is not all that great, but she almost soon recovers by the next scene. There is a spousal drama between Blake and Charlotte, and it is set up at the beginning of the film quite well.
However, it could have been fleshed out just a bit more to further emphasize how they never got to resolve their issues when Blake turned to the dark side. The second best aspect this film focuses on is Blake’s descent into illness and madness.
Whannell makes a clever move by showing Blake’s perspective as he becomes the wolfman. His sense of hearing becomes heightened so much that the steps of a spider on a wall sound like thunder strikes, and how he sees the environment around him is all in night vision.
Blake’s final form as the wolfman resembles more of the iconic design that is in the original “The Wolf Man” (1941), just with less fur compared to other contemporary werewolves.
The film does a decent job with its pacing in the first and third acts; however, it does feel like it drags on long in some parts in the middle when Blake and his family are at Grady’s home. Luckily, the tension will still keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
“Wolf Man” does not deserve all the bad reviews it is getting. It is not perfect by any means, but it does offer a fresh take on the wolfman story many have experienced over and over again in cinematic history.
Rating: 3/5
