Director: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger
Runtime: 103 minutes
Release Date: January 17, 2025
Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man (2025), a reimagining of the Universal Monsters classic, aims to breathe new life into the werewolf mythos with a modern, psychological twist. Following the success of his 2020 The Invisible Man, expectations were high for Whannell to deliver another fresh take on a horror icon. Unfortunately, Wolf Man falls short of its predecessor’s brilliance, landing as a visually striking but narratively hollow entry that struggles to balance its ambitions with its execution.
The film follows Blake (Christopher Abbott), a struggling writer and stay-at-home dad, who returns to his remote Oregon childhood home with his workaholic wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to settle his estranged father’s estate. A mysterious animal attack on their way to the cabin sets off a chain of events, with Blake’s gradual transformation into a monstrous creature taking center stage. Whannell leans into body horror, with gruesome practical effects showcasing Blake’s deteriorating physicality—think nails peeling off and teeth falling out—designed to unsettle. These moments, paired with Abbott’s committed performance, are the film’s strongest elements, evoking a tragic sense of a man losing himself.
However, Wolf Man stumbles in its storytelling. The script, co-written by Whannell, feels undercooked, with clunky dialogue and underdeveloped characters. Julia Garner, typically a magnetic presence, is given little to work with as Charlotte, whose role as a concerned wife feels one-dimensional. The family dynamics, hinted at as a central theme, never fully coalesce, leaving the emotional stakes surprisingly weightless. The film flirts with ideas of familial trauma and toxic masculinity but abandons them for predictable horror beats, missing the thematic depth that made The Invisible Man resonate.
Visually, the film is a mixed bag. Shot in New Zealand’s lush forests, the Oregon setting is eerie and atmospheric, but the cinematography often leans too heavily on dim lighting, making some scenes murky and hard to follow. Whannell’s creative choice to show Blake’s distorted, infrared-like perspective as he transforms is a highlight, adding a fresh angle to the werewolf experience, but it’s not enough to salvage the film’s pacing issues or its anticlimactic ending.
The werewolf design itself has sparked debate. Eschewing traditional furry lycanthropes, Whannell opts for a more humanoid, disease-ravaged creature, drawing comparisons to The Fly rather than classic werewolf films like An American Werewolf in London. While the practical effects are impressive, the design feels more grotesque than menacing, and the lack of traditional werewolf lore—no full moons or silver bullets—may disappoint purists.
At its core, Wolf Man wants to be a tragic exploration of a father’s protective instincts turning monstrous, but it never fully commits to its ideas. The result is a film that’s neither scary enough to thrill nor deep enough to provoke. It’s not a complete misfire—Abbott’s performance and the body horror elements are worth seeing—but it’s a forgettable addition to the Universal Monsters legacy. If you’re a horror fan, it’s worth a streaming watch, but don’t expect to howl at the moon.
Catch it on streaming for the performances and effects, but temper expectations for a groundbreaking horror experience.
