Wolf Man review

WOLF MAN: 

LEIGH WHANNELL’S AMBITIOUS BUT MISGUIDED SECOND TAKE ON A CLASSIC UNIVERSAL MONSTER! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Julia Garner and Matilda Firth in Wolf Man (2025)

 

            Director Leigh Whannell (Insidious: Chapter 3, Upgrade, The Invisible Man (2020)) returns to the world of Universal Classic Monsters with his take on Wolf Man. This isn’t the first time 1941’s The Wolf Man has been remade as there was already The Wolfman in 2010 directed by Joe Johnston and starring Benicio Del Toro which was kind of a mixed bag amongst critics and audiences, but the makeup effects in that movie are spectacular. 

            After failed attempts at breathing new life into the classic Universal monsters like Dracula Untold and the infamous 2017 version of The Mummy, it seemed like Universal finally struck gold with Leigh Whannell’s version of The Invisible Man in 2020 which took the concept of the Invisible Man and utilized it in a story about domestic abuse and stalking. I thought the 2020 Invisible Man was brilliant and downright terrifying, one of the best remakes I’ve ever seen and one of the best horror movies in recent years. 

             With The Invisible Man being a critical and commercial success (Despite being released shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began), Leigh Whannell was tasked with bringing another Universal monster back to life in Wolf Man which I was very much looking forward to. I think Whannell is a brilliant filmmaker especially in horror, I thought Upgrade was an awesome sci-fi action/body horror movie about an artificial intelligence controlling a man’s body (It is also a much better Venom movie than the actual Venom movies!) and need I mention the 2020 Invisible Man again? 

            I was onboard for this movie since the first trailer came out and…wow, this was kind of a letdown. There are some impressive things in terms of the filmmaking and scares but compared to Whannell’s other movies this felt like a more competently-made Dark Universe movie than a film coming off of a horror remake groundbreaker. 

            The film follows Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott-A Most Violent Year, Poor Things, Kraven the Hunter), a San Francisco husband and father who inherits his childhood home in rural Oregon after his father vanishes and is presumed dead. Upon arriving to the home with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner-Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Americans) and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth-Disenchanted, Hullraisers, Subservience), they are attacked by an unseen animal and take shelter in the house, but Blake begins to act strangely as if he’s slowly transforming into…a monster! 

            The film also stars Sam Jaeger (Lucky Number Slevin, Inherent Vice, The Eyes of Tammy Faye) as Blake’s estranged father Grady Lovell. 

            Overall, Wolf Man (2025) is certainly an interesting take on the story and there are some good ideas being explored here but compared to Whannell’s Invisible Man movie which set a huge standard for Universal Monsterremakes, this one felt rather empty.

Much like how the 2020 Invisible Man dealt with an abusive spouse, Wolf Man does something like that with parental figures and not to repeat the same sins as your parents. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea for a story like this as if your childhood trauma that was caused by a parental figure is what’s making you turn into a monster and I guess it’s not too far off from the 2010 Wolfman which attempted to do something similar with Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins’ characters. 

            The family dynamic is stronger here as a fair amount of time in the beginning is devoted to Christopher Abbott trying to be the best dad he can be with his daughter and doing his best to not repeat the same mistakes as his father when he was younger. The father/son dynamic between Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro felt somewhat rushed in the 2010 Wolfman and wasn’t really focused on that much until the third act where they both turn into werewolves and fight each other, I guess to give a family vendetta aspect to Benicio’s character in the end. 

            I actually really like how the Wolf Man transformation happens on a subconscious level and is shown from Christopher Abbott’s perspective where he can’t understand his wife when she speaks to him or the sounds of a spider crawling on the wall sounds like gunshots to him. I admire the more psychological approach that’s shown from the POV of the person transforming into a monster, it sets it apart from other Wolf Man movies and are easily the best parts of the film. 

            However, despite appreciating the film’s ambition in terms of the storytelling and showing the transformation from the perspective of the person becoming the monster, the pacing is really sluggish. The movie is not very long (1 hour and 43 minutes), but it feels longer than it actually is and by the halfway point, the film’s novelty starts to wear thin and you’re just waiting for the monster to finally show itself. 

            The movie had strong buildup and an interesting perspective on monster transformation, but it often doesn’t feel like you’re watching a werewolf movie and even then, it takes a long time for the Wolf Man himself to actually show up fully transformed. The 2020 Invisible Man wasn’t exactly a direct remake of the Universal Invisible Man as it was a fresh take on the character and themes, but there was a lot more weight to what was happening and the ideas it was getting across. 

            Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man just felt like he was trying to recapture what he did with The Invisible Man and either didn’t have a strong grasp on what he was adapting or the studio interfered a lot. It’s hard to tell, Whannell is a talented director nonetheless and to his credit, the film is shot well, the makeup effects are impressive (Even if he looks more like a zombie than a Wolf Man), showing it from the perspective of the person turning into the Wolf Man is great, and there are some suspenseful scenes in it, the movie just doesn’t have a good payoff in the end as it kinda dull. 

            Sadly, Wolf Man is Leigh Whannell’s worst movie though I wouldn’t say the film is terrible because as I said before, there are some impressive and thought-provoking things about it. Just not all of it comes together very well and you’re left with a misguided re-imagining of a classic monster.