Wolf Man Review: New Take Almost Works

When we look back on this period of Hollywood movies and decide which reboots and remakes actually deserve to come with us, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man should be among them. After Universal‘s attempted cinematic universe was DOA, Whannell showed there’s still plenty to do with those classic monsters even if there has been one movie after another about them. That’s why it felt like Whannell could do the same with Wolf Man. And while he definitely tried to reimagine the creature with a brand new story, the attempt didn’t quite hit the mark.

Like his previous monster movie, Whannell’s latest pulls the classic Wolf Man story to the present day and dramatically changes up what the story is, though the way he does it in this film isn’t quite as slick or groundbreaking or tense or fun as Invisible Man. By changing up just how the entire werewolf legend works, it should have allowed for the film to actually be more fun and interesting and tense, and yet somehow it just like it was still the same old, same old.

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Wolf Man’s Setup Is Too Ham Handed To Be Good

Wolf Man opens in 1990s Oregon, where we meet a father (Grady) and son (young Blake) living on a farm that is surrounded by woods. The survivalist father seems loves his son and isn’t afraid to tell him that, but he’s seemingly afraid of almost everything else. That love manifests itself by Grady yelling at Blake several times and Blake in turn doesn’t fear anything as much as he does his father yelling at him. That becomes an important and far too hamhanded plot point when Blake grows up and has his own child.

One day, while out hunting in those surrounding woods, young Blake catches a glimpse of something abnormal in his scope. He and his Grady are briefly pursued but take refuge in a deer blind and survive when the strange beast tries the locked door but doesn’t force the issue. Later, when the two are safely at home, Blake hears Grady telling other farmers in the area using a CB radio that he believes the creature was a hitchhiker that was infected with a virus known as “The Face of the Wolf.” Grady also tells the other man that he’s going to go out and find this hiker if it’s the last thing he does. And that’s the end of the story of Blake’s childhood.

Fast forward to the present day, and grownup Blake (Christopher Abbott) and young daughter Ginger are heading home after a fun day at a big city museum. The two are having a grand old time until Ginger does something that Blake sees as dangerous and doesn’t immediately stop when he tells her to. He snaps and yells at her, much like his father used to yell at him. After she reacts, the too-earnest Blake apologizes and explains how he doesn’t want to be his father.

It’s the first of a couple of times where the movie beats the viewer over the head with how family dynamics play a part in the story. It’s the kind of thing where Leigh Whannell should be able to trust the audience to understand the relationship but instead he states it outright. The movie does the same when he has a conversation with his wife where they admit they’re not happy after a scene where it was clear they weren’t happy. Luckily, for most of the rest of the film, Whannell is more subtle, but when he returns to the hamfisted approach, it takes the movie down that much more.

Wolf Man Is A Good Monster Movie And A Bad Family Drama

After that painful conversation between Blake and Charlotte (Julia Garner, who is either wooden in Wolf Man or good at playing a wooden character) the family decides to try and get happy by heading up to Oregon. Blake’s father has been declared dead after going missing for an indeterminate amount of time and Blake needs to pack up Grady’s cabin.

When they head to Oregon, that’s when the action starts and when the movie takes on more of a Monster Movie aspect. Blake gets infected by a wolfman in the woods and slowly transforms. How he begins to transform,and how Whannell shows that with visual and sound design very well done. There’s one scene where Ginger and Charlotte are behaving quite peculiar, even to the point where an audience member might wonder what the heck their problem is and when it’s explained, everything clicks in a very fulfilling way. Pair that with the physical transformation that happens throughout the film and it makes for an interesting take on the Wolf Man lore.

Wolf Man wants to blend the family drama of what went on before with Blake being a firmly tragic character, and there are times when it works. When Blake and Charlotte and Ginger know that the family is being torn apart, it is sad. It is legitimately unfortunate when Ginger talks about wanting “daddy” back because the audience knows he’s never coming back.

While she doesn’t play a doting wife very well, Garner’s performance is the heart of this, and if the movie were told entirely through her eyes, as the father of her child and her husband stops being either of those things. The problem is that while the transformation into the creature is supposed to mirror Blake transforming into his father, the problem is that Grady isn’t really ever shown to be a terrible father. Strict, yes. Somewhat temperamental? Sure. But he obviously loves his son, is terrified for him and other than the fact that they’re pretty isolated, he was not a bad father.

The idea that Blake is transforming into his father might have been done better if Grady was ever shown to be someone who would harm Blake, but that was never offered up. So in many ways, Blake is becoming a much worse father than the one he had. Far scarier at the very least. Because of this, Wolf Man is a decent monster movie that never really nails the message about families its trying to send.

6/10

Wolf Man

Directed and written by Leigh Whannel, Wolf Man puts a new spin on a classic monster movie that almost nails it.

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