Wolf Man – Review

Universal Pictures has established recent blockbuster success and critical acclaim with hits like Wicked (2024) and Oppenheimer (2023) dominating the box office and award shows, but when it comes to constructing their own cinematic universe, the studio has stumbled quite a fair bit. Their attempt to establish the Dark Universe – a shared movie world of classic monsters including Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man – faltered spectacularly after the failure of 2017’s The Mummy reboot starring Tom Cruise. While the shared element was hastily abandoned, it didn’t prevent the studio from sticking with the genre, as subsequent ventures such as Renfield (2023) and Abigail (2024) found modest success but failed to ignite the kind of fervour that builds franchises.

Surprisingly, 2020’s The Invisible Man demonstrated that there was still life in Universal’s main monster catalogue. Written and directed by Leigh Whannell (Saw, the Insidious movies), the film transformed its 1933 predecessor into a chilling allegory for domestic abuse and the societal tendency to dismiss female victims. Following its unexpected success, expectations ran high for Whannell’s next foray into the Universal Monsters roster with Wolf Man. 

As with his previous work, Whannell reimagines a classic creature through a contemporary lens. Unlike the Gothic traditions of its predecessors, notably George Waggner’s (Man Made Monster) 1941 original about a man cursed to shift into a werewolf that also inspired the 2010 remake titled The Wolfman, this reboot removes many of the classic werewolf clichés such as full moons, silver bullets, and gypsy curses. Instead, the story shifts to the Pacific Northwest, where a hiker’s mysterious disappearance and subsequent infection with an animal-borne virus, known to local Indigenous people as the ‘face of the wolf’, sets the tone. By stripping away the mythic elements, Whannell roots his tale in a grounded, contemporary setting, focusing on the impact of the lupine infection on a single family.

Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott, It Comes at Night), an unemployed writer in his thirties, takes his distant wife Charlotte (Julia Garner, Inventing Anna) and their young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth, Subservience) to his late father’s Oregon farm. The trip serves as both a retreat and an obligation of clearing out the family home after his father’s recent legal declaration of death. Flashbacks reveal Blake’s strained childhood under his paranoid, survivalist father, who was obsessed with protecting him from perceived threats lurking in the surrounding woods. One haunting memory resurfaces – a fleeting, terrifying encounter with a werewolf-like creature during a hunting trip, which shaped much of Blake’s life and fears.

The family’s journey takes a sharp turn when an attack in the forest leaves Blake with a mysterious scratch, signaling the beginning of his transformation. What starts as a fight against an external threat quickly spirals into a claustrophobic horror as Blake’s condition worsens. The family takes refuge in the isolated farmhouse, attempting to barricade themselves against the beast outside, only to discover that the real danger lies within. 

From here, Whannell cranks up the suspense. Set over a single mist-shrouded night, the story tightens its grip as Charlotte is forced to make rapid, life-or-death decisions to protect herself and their daughter. Garner delivers moments of genuine terror, grounding the high-adrenaline sequences while Abbott effectively portrays Blake’s alarming transformation. Whannell and co-writer/wife Corbett Tuck (Insidious) narrow the scope to the fractured relationship between Blake and Charlotte, exploring how their partnership is tested under extreme circumstances. The choice to confine most of the action to a single night heightens the immediacy, though the script doesn’t delve as deeply into psychological underpinnings as The Invisible Man managed to do.

Even so, when Wolf Man leans fully into its horror elements, it functions as a solid mid-tier Blumhouse entry. Stefan Duscio’s (Upgrade) frenetic cinematography keeps viewers on edge, employing disorienting angles and kinetic camera movements as he transforms the Pacific Northwest forest into a nightmarish landscape alive with unseen threats. The sound design amplifies the atmosphere, with Benjamin Wallfisch’s (It) orchestral score rumbling like a primal force. Practical effects are prioritised over computer-generated imagery (CGI), and Blake’s metamorphosis is revealed in unnerving steps thanks to the prosthetics’ palpable grotesqueness. While the body horror doesn’t quite reach the visceral heights of genre classics like The Fly (1986) or An American Werewolf in London (1981), it’s effective enough to elicit a wince or two. 

Echoes of The Shining (1980) surfaces in the family’s ominous journey to the Oregon cabin, a visual parallel to the Torrance family’s arrival at the Overlook Hotel. Yet, unlike Jack Torrance’s intrinsic descent into madness, Blake’s lycanthropy feels more like an external affliction than an intrinsic reflection of his character, dulling the emotional resonance of his downfall. A more compelling version of the story might have focused on Blake’s descent as a father, drawing a stronger parallel between toxic parental instincts and monstrosity. 

As it stands, the film only lightly touches on these ideas, leaving its emotional core underdeveloped and its bite less impactful than it could have been. Some visual choices also fall flat, particularly when Blake’s altered perception renders Charlotte and Ginger as cheap-looking luminescent figures, a distracting effect that feels out of place.

Compared to the Oscar-winning makeup of the 2010 version or the innovations of the 1941 original, Whannell’s reboot feels uninspired, offering little beyond surface-level scares and a few gory set pieces. We’re basically left with a lukewarm home invasion thriller masquerading as a monster movie. To top it all off, the film’s final moments leave no lasting impression, and what should have been a feral, biting exploration of man’s inner beast instead feels like a defanged attempt at reinvention. It’s a reboot in search of a howl, but all it musters is a faint whimper, lost in a forest of wasted potential and uninspired execution. 

If this is the future of Universal’s Monsters, one can only hope the next instalment doesn’t follow the scent of mediocrity quite so faithfully.

Natalie

Natalie is a big fan of anything related to movies, TV shows, and anime — you name it. When she’s not reading or being a dedicated cinephile, she’s probably playing gacha and tabletop games, or daydreaming of Sylus from Love and Deepspace.