Wolf Man Review: Leigh Whannell Transforms Universal Monster Into Family Drama

Wolf Man begins with a father and son on a hunting trip in which the latter decides to share with his boy some advice about the way of the world. “Dying isn’t hard. It’s the easiest thing in the world,” the dad (Ben Prendergast) warns his son Blake (Zac Chandler). “At every minute it’s closing up behind you.” Given the intense warning, and the cold distance in papa’s eyes, it’s no surprise that when we again meet the adult Blake (Christopher Abbott) 30 years later, he’s living not in the Oregon wilderness of his father, but in San Fransisco. Nor is it a surprise that the otherwise kindly Blake gets way too intense about warning his daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to be safe.

That early juxtaposition seems to signal Leigh Whannell‘s intentions for the Blumhouse update of Wolf Man. We’ve been trained by modern horror movies to read every tooth and claw as allegory for some social ill, to expect scary movies to lecture us about trauma with each slasher’s attack. While Whannell elegantly married scares and substance into his reimagining of The Invisible Man, he doesn’t overburden Wolf Man with thematic concerns. Outside of an occasional clunker line about daddies accidentally scarring their kids when trying to protect them from scars, Wolf Man doesn’t devote undue time to its ideas about parents passing their trauma onto kids.

In fact, Wolf Man eschews most expectations viewers bring to it. Wolf Man follows Blake as he takes his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) to his late father’s home. He’s there in equal measures to work through his feelings about his estranged dad and to repair his strained marriage. No sooner do they arrive outside the wooded homestead, however, than the family is attacked by a beast that seems to walk on two legs. The attack leaves Blake wounded and acting strangely toward his wife and daughter.

From that description, you might think you know what Wolf Man is, especially if you’ve seen other werewolf movies and Whannell’s previous directorial outings, Upgrade and The Invisible Man. You expect Blake to turn into a werewolf and terrorize Charlotte and Ginger, with Whannell depicting the conflict with the visceral imagery and flashy camera moves he used earlier.

Those things do happen in Wolf Man, but not at all in the way viewers expect. Whannell keeps his camera largely still until the end of the first act, the first bit of bravado occurring when the family tries to escape their moving truck, overturned by the creature’s attack. And yes, Wolf Man has an impressive transformation sequence, the highlight of every werewolf movie going back to the overlapping dissolves on Lon Chaney Jr.’s face in 1941’s The Wolf Man.

Instead of a single sequence, the transformation happens slowly in Wolf Man with Blake changing a little bit at a time over the film’s second act. Make no mistake, the practical effects impress just as much as the great Jack Pierce makeup in 1941 or Rick Baker’s work in 1981’s An American Werewolf in London. But Wolf Man takes the time to keep focused on the loss of the man instead of just celebrating the coming of the wolf.

Abbott uses his natural puppy-dog eyes to convey Blake’s loss of self as his body changes, his sharp teeth and extended jaw robbing him of the ability to speak. Whannell’s most impressive camera moves come when he swings it around from Charlotte, talking to her husband in recognizable English, to Blake, hearing her voice as muffled gibberish but seeing her with heightened lights and colors.

As these moves suggest, the horror of Wolf Man comes first in the loss of communication and connection within a family unit. The opening scenes establish Blake as a caring father, a man desperate to avoid the mistakes of his own dad, and he and Charlotte as both sad about the spark they’ve lost. The family wants to come together and find new ways of connecting, and Blake’s transformation steals forever that possibility.

For some viewers, the emphasis on tragedy will disappoint. Although Whannell proves as adept as ever with blocking and composition, tension comes second to character work. And while Whannell got his start as a writer, co-creating the Saw and Insidious universes with fellow Aussie James Wan, dialogue was never his strong suit. Not even an assist from co-writer Corbett Tuck can prevent Whannell from having the characters occasionally declare their feelings or the movie’s themes, as when Charlotte just looks at the camera and says she has trouble connecting with her daughter.

For that reason, stripping Blake of his speech abilities helps the movie overall, as it gives Abbott, Garner, and Firth space to communicate through facial expressions and body language. Blake looks increasingly helpless the more lupine he becomes while Garner lets Charlotte slump in defeat and desperation, even as she needs to be strong for her daughter.

Moreover, the focus on family drama grounds Wolf Man in the classic Universal tradition. Most of the great Universal Monsters were tragic heroes, romantic figures who lamented the way their otherness separated them from society. The horror came less from, say, Frankenstein’s Monster lumbering toward a townsperson than from the way they would shriek in fright, forcing him into the threat they feared.

Blake follows in the footsteps of those greats, which creates an interesting dynamic for the chase sequences that make of the movie’s third act and underscore the central theme without having to shout it. We understand that Blake may prove his father correct. He taught his family that the world is fundamentally dangerous, a terrifying thought that echoes far longer than even the most bone-chilling howl.

Wolf Man opens in theaters on Friday, Jan. 17. Learn more about Den of Geek’s review process and why you can trust our recommendations here.

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