by Tim Gordon
Wolf Man, the latest reboot of Universal’s classic monster mythos, arrives with plenty of baggage, cinematic, emotional, and literal.
Directed by Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man), the film tries to blend slow-burn psychological horror with a creature feature payoff, grounding the legendary lycanthrope tale in modern familial tension and inherited trauma. While the bones of a strong horror story are here, Wolf Man ultimately feels torn between two identities, much like its protagonist.
Christopher Abbott stars as Blake Lovell, a writer with a fraying marriage and unresolved paternal wounds. Following the mysterious death of his estranged father, Grady, Blake returns with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger to the remote Oregon home of his childhood, an isolated place thick with pine, secrets, and something far more primal. When an unseen animal attacks their car and the family is forced to shelter in a creaking farmhouse, things go from ominous to outright terrifying. But the true threat may not be what stalks them from the shadows; it’s what’s waking up inside Blake.
Abbott delivers a haunted, controlled performance that slowly frays as his transformation unfolds. His descent into beastliness is less about snarling and more about fraying civility, temper flare-ups, twitchy restlessness, and strange outbursts that tip the audience (and his family) off before the full moon rises. Garner, as always, brings grounded realism to an increasingly unhinged scenario, while Sam Jaeger lends sturdy support as a skeptical neighbor who knows more than he lets on.
Thematically, Wolf Man is less about silver bullets and more about intergenerational violence and the monsters we inherit. There are shades of The Babadook and Hereditary here, horror as metaphor for emotional disintegration, and Whannell’s eye for tension and minimalism serves the first half of the film well. The opening act builds a brooding, unsettling atmosphere, blending folklore with familial fracture. The backstory of Blake’s traumatic hunting trip with his father, the local legends of a “ma’iingan odengwaan,” and a long-buried virus add intrigue, but much of it remains undercooked.
Unfortunately, the second half begins to unravel as the film leans harder into action-horror without fully committing to its own mythos. The transformation sequences are solid practical effects mixed with restrained CGI, but they lack the shock or originality to elevate the film to genre greatness. The climax plays out in expected beats, with a too-predictable final twist that blunts the emotional stakes the film spends so much time building.
In the post-Invisible Man world, expectations for Whannell to redefine the Universal Monsters have been high. And while Wolf Man is far from a disaster, it pales in comparison to his previous outing. The horror is modest, the allegory a little too blunt, and the legacy reboot energy never quite coalesces into something new. It neither leans fully into the operatic tragedy of the original Wolf Man nor does it reinvent the myth with the daring needed to make it feel urgent.
There’s a compelling story buried in here, one about rage passed down like a curse, about men becoming monsters long before they sprout claws, but it’s muffled beneath a screenplay that feels both rushed and safe. Wolf Man howls, but doesn’t quite bite.
Grade: C
