Wolf Man review | A gnarly monster movie

wolf man christopher abbott
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Director Leigh Whannell follows The Invisible Man with a much more generic, traditional creature feature that is nevertheless still fun. Here’s our Wolf Man review. 


Big, expensive studio horror has endured a pretty well deserved poor reputation over across the last decade or two. Big budgets don’t always guarantee good films, and horror seems to particularly suffer when produced at a more costly level. In that sense, Leigh Whannellā€™s The Invisible Man could have been a total car crash, but instead, the Saw scribe offered us an ambitious, thoughtful film about abuse. It helped he found a way to make it for a mere $7m, buying himself a lot of creative control as he did so.

Whannell tries to repeat his success with Wolf Man, with reasonable results. Here, the writer-director tackles another classic Universal monster, but instead of The Invisible Man’s high-concept approach, Whannell goes for a more contained, intimate creature feature. 

The setup introduces Christopher Abbott as Blake, the son of a farmer from Central Oregon whoā€™s moved to the city to be a family man. After Blake’s father is pronounced dead, he takes his family to a remote farm for some much needed time off, mostly to work on his relationship with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner). 

You can guess how well the move goes. En route to the house, Blake and his family not only crash their truck, but also encounter a strange creature that scratches Blake, who later begins to notice some disturbing physical changes. Danger is not far behind.

wolf man julia garner
Credit: Universal Pictures

Itā€™s little secret that Wolf Man’s road to the big screen has been riddled with delays and changes in both director and star. It takes a little bit of a toll. The final result isn’t quite as sharp as it perhaps could be, but still: Whannell’s take on such an enduring movie monster is certainly fascinating and different. 

Previous films about the titular creature have focused heavily on the transformation, but here, going spoiler light, Whannell takes his time. He sets Blake as at once the prey and the predator, the hero and the villain. Charlotte thus emerges as the most sympathetic character, but Whannell’s contained take also means we never really get to know her before we’re expected to be scared for her. 

Whannell wrote Wolf Man with Corbett Tuck (the pair are also married) right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, thus in the midst of several lockdowns. The associated fears of isolation and infection have bled through into their eventual film. It’s certainly a smart choice to treat Blake’s transformation as a spreading infection rather than your usual werewolf stereotypes. It creates a specific, relatable tension that carries the feature. The overall mood and atmosphere of Wolf Man works, as does the body horror. It’s achieved with practical effects and the result is pleasingly gnarly and hard to shake from the memory. 

Even though The Invisible Man wasn’t exactly an ensemble piece, Wolf Man is even more contained with its setting and cast. Only a handful of actors appear ā€“ Whannell popping in to provide a voice on the radio ā€“ but casting someone of Abbott’s calibre (and lower profile than Ryan Gosling) really helps Wolf Man. Abbott has been a bit of an indie darling for a while now, with superb turns in films like Possessor, It Comes At Night and Poor Things. Here, he gets the chance to bring that same intensity that we witnessed in the aforementioned pictures, albeit on a bigger canvas with bigger reach. 

Thereā€™s still something missing here, though. Despite excellent tension and practical effects, Wolf Man never quite surprises. The beats feels familiar and, honestly, a little staid. It’s genuinely a good film and I had a great time with it, but it lacks the sheer flashiness of Upgrade or the ferocity of The Invisible Man.

Still, this is another welcome piece of work from Whannell, who continues to prove that he’s not just a smart writer, but also a skilled director. 

Wolf Man is in UK cinemas 17th January. 

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