Wolf Man | 2025
Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott in WOLF MAN.
The Universal Monster series was essentially the first cinematic Universe. Beginning with Dracula in 1931, the overlapping series ran until 1948 with the Abbott and Costello parody, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Of course, Creature from the Black Lagoon would come along in 1954, but it never shared the same space as the core five - Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Wolf Man.
1941's The Wolf Man was something of a reset for the Universal Monster franchise, introducing a new character to greater mythology and providing the glue that would hold the monsters together for the remainder of its run. Lon Chaney, Jr.'s Larry Talbot was a more tortured soul than his monstrous counterparts, constantly at odds with the evil inside him that he could not control. That dichotomy of light and dark made the Wolf Man one of Universal's most indelible characters.
Efforts to reboot the series have mostly fallen flat. 2004's Van Helsing was poorly received, as was 2010's The Wolfman starring Benicio Del Toro. Universal's planned "Dark Universe," designed to capitalize on the popularity of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe, also died quickly after the failure of the Tom Cruise vehicle, The Mummy. Enter Leigh Whannell, whose stripped-down remake of The Invisible Man (2020) reimagined the story for as a horrifying tale of gaslighting and abuse, giving it a modern relevance that resonated with both critics and audiences. It's no surprise, then, that Whannell is once again in the driver's seat for another modern adaptation of a Universal Monster movie, this time retooling The Wolf Man with a more contemporary angle.
This time, however, Whannell's attempts at giving the story modern relevance feel half-hearted at best, as struggling writer Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) takes his family into the Oregon wilderness to clean out his late father's cabin in hopes that the time spent together will help repair the strained relationship with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner). The idyllic setting soon becomes hell on earth, however, when a mysterious creature attacks their van and leaves them stranded in the cabin, wounding Blake and causing him to slowly turn into something else, a half-man half-beast, forcing him to make impossible decisions in order save his family from himself.
Wolf Man starts strong. The foggy Cascade mountains provide a beautifully eerie backdrop for its tale of familial isolation plagued by unknown dangers lurking in the dense forests. But once Blake starts to turn, infected by what the film calls "the face of the wolf," the film loses steam. There's an interesting conflict here - Blake is aware of what is happening, even as he loses his faculties, and must wrestle with leaving his family or literally destroying them. This is, the film posits, a symptom of a kind of familial trauma passed down to him by his father, a kind of quick-to-anger affliction that must be kept in check to break the cycle. The problem is that the film only makes feints toward this idea. We see Blake get angry at his daughter once for playing near a busy road, but nothing here seems particularly concerning or abusive - and the strains in his marriage are never really explored. It's as if the film wants to be a metaphor that it doesn't have the courage to explore. The theme of breaking the cycle of abuse and trauma is baked into the very fabric of this story, but the film ultimately holds the idea at arm's length.
By the time we reach the finale, the film has become so underlit that it's almost impossible to discern what's happening on screen. Poor lighting has been a recurring issue in Hollywood for a while now, but better films have suggested darkness and low visibility without being so visually unintelligible. It makes for a frustrating viewing experience - not just because of its poor lighting but because of its constant avoidance of the themes it raises. Blake is clearly already afraid of becoming his father before he turns into a literal monster. But without the proper setup and context to get us there, his transformation doesn't have the impact it should because it never feels like he had this in him in some way before. It lacks the power and the bite of The Invisible Man, and while it certainly has some thrilling set pieces, it's saddled with a third act that simply spins its wheels in the dark, leaving us with a half-baked metaphor and a script that feels like it could have used a few additional rewrites.
