A new look at Blumhouse’s upcoming creature feature Wolf Man gives us a longer look at a couple of scenes.
Leigh Whannell has dubbed his upcoming werewolf project for Blumhouse as a ‘straight-up horror movie’ and we’re very much behind that idea. Whilst twisting the classic Wolfman tale in the direction of comedy or drama has given us some interesting and enjoyable takes on the hairy monster over the years, one of the things we love about Whannell’s films is how he commits to the bite.
Perhaps 2018’s Upgrade is the best example of this, an old-fashioned action thriller with a gloss coat of splatterpunk violence applied, but a film that is entirely unironic in its presentation and an earnest take on the material. Considering Blumhouse’s January releases can veer wildly in tone – from the comic silliness of M3GAN to the schlocky mock drama of Night Swim, we’d really appreciate a straight-up horror for once.
As such, we’re keen to see Universal’s classic monster taken seriously as a horror icon and we don’t have too long to wait to see if the film has turned out in this fashion. Set to arrive in January as Blumhouse’s annual early year release, Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner and what looks to be a pretty slim cast, suggesting that the marooned locations we’ve seen in the trailers so far will contribute to a fairly self-contained horror story that plays out largely within the confines of a young family.
The new trailer still wisely hides the creature, but does give us a more developed look at two scenes in the film. Note to studios out there: this is how trailers should be put together, giving us a developed sense of a film’s tone without spoiling plot details. Thank you Blumhouse for illuminating the right path forwards.
Here’s the film’s synopsis:
Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth; Hullraisers, Coma)
But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.
Wolf Man releases on 17th January.
