Review: ‘Wolf Man’ Reimagines And Reinvigorates The Classic Horror Movie Monster

This isn’t The Wolf Man you remember. Forget about Larry Talbot, because he’s barking up another tree. Instead, Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man forgoes the remake template to howl up its own perfect (and original) storm. Mild spoilers for Wolf Man follow.

In this version of the story, Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) takes his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to Oregon after his father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), is declared dead and he inherits the Lovell farmhouse. For Blake, he sees it as an opportunity for the family to reconnect after he feels they need to make the most of their time on Earth. On the way to the farmhouse, the Lovells suffer an accident and Blake gets clawed by a mysterious creature that’s on the hunt. The family barricades in the house, but there’s danger lurking outside – and seemingly inside too.

Leigh Whannell uses space and sound to haunting effect

After directing The Invisible Man and his history with the Insidious and Saw franchises, Leigh Whannell has more than confirmed his place as a modern master of horror. Whannell knows when to utilize a jumpscare to jolt the audience awake and when to leave them alone with their own fear of what’s in the shadows. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score plays a pivotal role in accentuating the latter, as the eerie and dissonant score scratches at the nerves and furthers the unease of what may or may not be there.

What Whannell also does exceptionally well is to heighten the danger of Wolf Man. With one creature roaming outside and another one transforming on the inside, the Lovells find themselves trapped and with nowhere to go. They’re isolated in the middle of nowhere, their communication to the outside world is nonexistent, and they don’t even have the tools to defend themselves. They’re trapped, as the claustrophobic terror runs rampant for a hefty chunk of the film’s 103-minute runtime.

It’s all in the family

To the average viewer, Wolf Man plays out like a typical werewolf horror where a family needs to escape the danger of one of their own who is shifting from man to beast. However, there’s a powerful theme that might go over the audience’s head on the first watch: Generational trauma surrounding fear and loss. Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck’s script holds many hidden metaphors in the conversations between characters, especially in the early stages of the film. For those who pay attention, they’ll understand how these discussions both reveal the fears and futures of many of these characters. 

For example, take the relationship between Blake and Grady. Grady loves Blake and reacts angrily when he thinks his son might be in danger. For Grady, he’ll do anything to protect Blake, but this ends up driving them apart as Grady becomes obsessed with what he perceives to be his job: Protecting Blake from every possible harm. Realistically, that’s impossible to do.

Blake’s relationship with Ginger is doomed to follow a similar path here. While Blake catches himself in the moments in which he becomes like his father, he tells Ginger that his job is to protect her at all costs. Like his father, he loves Ginger with all his heart, but in trying to keep her safe, he actually does the opposite by taking her back to the place in which he ran away from to begin with. Blake wants to be different from his father, but he becomes him.

Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner sink their teeth into this film

Christopher Abbott isn’t exactly an A-list star in Hollywood, but he deserves to be in the conversation for one of the best working actors today, especially after stellar performances in underrated films such as Possessor and It Comes at Night. After Wolf Man, though, Hollywood executives need to be fired if they aren’t rushing to his agent with blockbuster offers. Abbott doesn’t only play a man in this film but also a beast. There’s a primal physicality to his performance that’s often only found in classically trained actors. Abbott doesn’t just rely on the prosthetics or special effects to sell his transformation into a creature; instead, he changes the way he moves, reacts, and even engages with his environment in stages. It’s phenomenal to watch him in action and to take in every nuance.

For Julia Garner, her role as Charlotte is all about the conflict within her. She loves her husband dearly and knows that Ginger adores her father – perhaps even more than her. As Blake starts to succumb to his curse, she fights an internal battle: Asking herself whether she can still save her husband or if she must accept he’s lost and focus on Ginger’s safety. Garner’s Charlotte takes the audience on an emotional rollercoaster that sees her silently ask herself if she’s becoming a monster too.

‘Wolf Man’ demands multiple rewatches

For those looking for a horror packed with scares and a classic cinema monster, Wolf Man more than brings its end of the bargain. Yet, this is the kind of film that shows more depth with each passing watch, so don’t look only at the surface story. 
In terms of the elephant in the room – the final werewolf form – it looks a lot better than the social media images shared from Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. (Oh, who could have foreseen that the internet would overreact over nothing? What a shocker!) Sure, the monster doesn’t look as fluffy or furry as Lon Chaney Jr. and Benicio Del Toro’s versions of the character, but there’s something more monstrous and grotesque about the Wolf Man‘s practical depiction that deserves to be judged on its own merits.