Alright, now it’s feeling a bit more like January. I’m not referring to the frigid temps and formidable snowbanks. No, I’m talking about seasonal movie releases, since the first month of the new year is generally the time for horror flicks…of varying quality (often seen as a “dumping ground”). Mind you, for every M3GAN there are a couple of NIGHT SWIMs. Well, now one of the major studios (and a rising upstart production house) join forces to put a new spin on a ninety-year-old classic cinema creature. Yes, it’s the newest collaboration between Blumhouse and Universal (whose “fright fests” began a century ago). Oh, this is not an attempt to “jumpstart” their proposed “Dark Universe” concept (Dr. Frankenstein couldn’t revive it with any amount of lightning after that Tom Cruise reboot of THE MUMMY). They’ve tossed the idea of a shared continuity like the MCU in favor of stand-alone re-imaginings, as with the well-received 2020 take on THE INVISIBLE MAN. And so, they’ve tasked the same filmmaker to put the “bite” on moviegoers with a similarly named, but very different breed of WOLF MAN.
After a brief prologue concerning Native American legends of infected feral men, we’re taken to a desolate ranch/farm in Oregon. A survivalist single father takes his eight-year-old son on a hunting excursion in the deep woods near their home. Dad tries to get young Blake to focus and be aware of the dangers prior to them spotting a deer. When the duo separate, Blake gets the buck in his sights, he also sees something walking on two legs. Luckily his Pop returns, scoops him up, and the two scamper up a tree’s deer blind. Luckily the loud growling beast finishes the buck, then departs. Later that night, Blake listens in on his father speaking to a friend via the short-wave radio, saying that he’s sure he saw the “man-beast of the woods”. Thirty years later, Blake (Christopher Abbott) is living in a big city, San Francisco. He’s a stay-at-home dad (technically a writer in between gigs) tending to his adorable six-year-old daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) while workaholic journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) pursues her next “scoop”. During a tense dinner, Blake opens up a special delivery package that contains the deed to his father’s estate, along with a set of keys. It seems that his long-missing dad has finally been legally declared dead. Blake convinces Charlotte that a Summer extended trip to the old homestead in Oregon will be a great way for the trio to reconnect, as Ginger tends to bond more with him. They rent a big truck to empty the old place and eventually end up on a dirt road in the forest. Luckily an old childhood pal spots Blake and offers to ride along as a guide to his former home. With only a mile left, something on two legs appears in front of the vehicle, causing it to careen down a hill and onto a tree. Their guide tumbles out before a clawed hand smashes the window and cuts Blake’s arm. The trio finally scampers away to the old house, before their attacker catches up to them. But they’re far from safe as Charlotte realizes that Blake’s wound is having a strange effect on him. Soon mother and daughter will have to fight for their lives against the terror outside and the mysterious changes happening to Ginger’s adored daddy.
Headling what is basically an intimate “three character story”, Abbott in the title role evokes great empathy and pathos as Blake, who mixes the tragic persona of Lon Chaney, Jr.’s Larry Talbot from the 1940s fright flicks, with the struggles of a 21st century family man. As several commenters have pointed out, he shares the frustrations and gradual dark descent of Jack Torrance of THE SHINING (both are blocked writers), but Abbott conveys Blake’s rebellion against his own past, mainly the brutal demands of his loner father. He’s determined to be a warm loving papa, though his passion for protecting often recalls his own traumatic childhood. Plus Abbott shows us how Blake is working to repair the strains on his relationship with Charlotte, to patch the cracks in their marriage. This gives an added heartbreak to the ravages of his “sickness”. As the matriarch, Garner is the hyper-focused careerist (insisting she takes her work call at the “sacred” dinner table), but lets her emotional “walls” soften as Blake convinces her to adjust her priorities to repair their growing “rift”, though the wilderness trek may be a way for Blake to compensate for his home-based family role (rather than the more breadwinner out in the “world”). Firth is achingly sweet and adorable as the bouncy, precocious Ginger who may be the cliched “daddy’s girl”, though she is mature enough to process the often adult explanations provided by her parents. Yes, she’s often put in peril in order to “up” the suspense, but Firth makes Ginger more than the “rescue bait”. There are also a couple of dark sinister turns by Sam Jaegar as Blake’s off-kilter kin in the flashback, and Benedict Hardy as the creepy dead-eyed “watcher in the woods” who aids the family on their way to their possible doom.
In his return trip into “Univeral monster-land”, director Leigh Whannell puts another interesting modern spin on those late show “creature feature” tropes, thanks to the screenplay he co-wrote with his wife Corbett Tuck. Perhaps this accounts for the deep dive into the aspects of the family dynamic, while THE INVISIBLE MAN explored a dating break-up that goes beyond toxic. Mind you, Whannell heaps on the chills in the opening hunting sequence via his expert use of ominous noises (big kudos to the sound design team) and allowing us to peer through the rifle’s “site”. Then after the big time “jump” he’s putting us right inside a marriage that may be in its last gasps (plenty of those later). And though much of the action does take place in “the great outdoors”, Whannell makes the forest a bit claustrophobic as the tall trees become almost prison bars to keep the trio trapped. And that’s definitely the vibe in Blake’s creeky creepy family home, which seems “stuck in “pre-Y2K paranoia”. The filmmakers toss out the “werewolf” rules and legend early on because the beasts roam in daylight with a full moon having no effect. And the “transformation” here is more gradual, although claws and fangs extend, the whole “hirsute” cliches are somewhat turned on its “pointed” ear. And bravo for committing to practical make-up effects for the most part (a welcome new “trend” in last year’s films). However, some CGI is used with great creativity and skill when Whannell shifts around the camera giving us a POV through Blake’s degenerating diseased senses, making her family into glowing-eyed aliens. That terrific sound team returns to provide a sense of Blake’s enhanced hearing (a spider on the wall has an elephant’s tread), which makes speech garbled (ditto for his verbal attempts). There are some “jump scares”, happily kept to a minimum, and some squirmy gory moments (oh, that gnarly arm). In all this film is an interesting exploration of the man-into-beast campfire tales, mixed with family dramatics, though it’s diluted by an ending that feels drawn-out and flat, culminating in a final shot that’s quite anti-climatic compared to the tension of waiting for dawn to break. But it’s the strong lead performances that put the needed “bite” in WOLF MAN.
3 out of 4
WOLF MAN opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, January 17, 2025
