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Black History Month 2025

Film review: ‘Wolf Man’ fails to capture audiences with predictability, monotonous characters

Blake (Christopher Abbott), Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) from the cast of “Wolf Man” are pictured sitting in a rustic style home while displaying looks of distress. The horror-thriller released in theaters everywhere Friday. (Courtesy of IMDb)

“Wolf Man”

Directed by Leigh Whannell

Universal Pictures

Jan. 17

By Martin Sevcik

Jan. 17, 2025 6:05 p.m.

Correction: The original version of this article misspelled Christopher Abbott's name.

This post was updated Jan. 20 at 9:31 p.m.

In the darkness of night, one should take care to avoid the “Wolf Man.”

Director and co-writer Leigh Whannell’s horrifying creation leapt onto screens Friday, occupying a January dump month release slot with his second remake of a classic horror franchise. After his father’s death, Blake (Christopher Abbott) takes his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to his childhood home in rural Oregon to help the family reconnect. They come face-to-face with a monstrous creature while holed up in the derelict home – and before long, the family realizes Blake is transforming as well.

There is no point burying the lede – this is not Whannell’s finest work. After his immensely successful debut as a co-writer and co-star of “Saw,” he eventually left the series to write much of the “Insidious” film franchise. Ever since, the prolific screenwriter has dipped his toes into directing, finding box office success with a 2020 reboot of the 1933 Universal monster classic “The Invisible Man.” He now returns for a second outing in Universal’s monster back catalog, drawing inspiration from Universal’s 1941 monster film “The Wolf Man.”

Rather than directly adopt the mystical, romantic and tragic tale presented in the original film, Whannell pares down the plot until only the most necessary similarities remain – a man returning to his family home, undergoing a terrible transformation and suffering the ultimate fate. With this creative freedom, the film gets reinterpreted through the modern sensibilities of horror as character-driven allegory and metaphor. The film’s best concept is reimagining the original film’s romantic strife as marital strife – one could imagine a great script where a character’s monstrous transformation represents disillusionment with a marriage, becoming something unrecognizable in their partner’s eyes.

This script does not reach those heights. The film spends its first half hour setting up everything it needs to claim themes of generational trauma and familial strife, but inelegant dialogue and the absence of interpersonal chemistry prevents effective characterization or emotional attachment. It feels as though the characters barely know each other as the film begins, making their supposed relationships firmly unbelievable – much like the premise that Charlotte’s sole income as a journalist is enough to sustain a family of three in San Francisco.

Thus, once the action begins, there are nearly no stakes for the audience. Blake’s fate is a foregone conclusion, making the psychological horror of his slow transformation feel pointless. There is some suspense in wondering exactly when Blake will start seeing his family as prey, but the process is so drawn out that the tension quickly evaporates. This makes Charlotte the emotional center of the film as she takes care of her ailing husband and terrified daughter. Garner brings the same poised, contemplative qualities that allowed her to excel in “The Assistant” and “Ozark.” Unfortunately her character’s stilted, sometimes laughably bad writing makes her into nothing more than Abbott’s wife – concerned, breathlessly nervous and uncompelling.

As the titular character, Abbott is given marginally better writing and a stronger character arc. With this leg up, he does his best to make the father-daughter relationship and transformation compelling. That said, the body horror in the film does not quite land, despite the immense potential of its fundamentally gross, slow-burn mutation. This might be the fault of awkward, immersion-breaking close-ups as his fingernails fall out and his jaw gets displaced, or it may simply be due to the overall apathy Blake seems to have toward his own metamorphosis. He puts up half-hearted attempts to fight against his fate, but he and the audience know what is coming, making the journey there unengaging.

Most other aspects of the film display similar mediocrity. The plot is deeply predictable, allowing a mildly engaged viewer to guess almost everything that happens in the film’s final act – including what is supposed to be the film’s big reveal. The score is generic and manipulative, begging the audience to feel tension build when they have no reason to feel it. The sparse action sequences may be the best part of the film, but only by process of elimination.

This leaves a simple question – how did this happen? How did Whannell, who has demonstrated body horror and dialogue acumen in prior projects, create an unfeeling void of a film? Why does this feel like it was crafted solely as an excuse to revive another backlog monster property?

Because the film itself suffered a similar fate as its protagonist, undergoing a brutal transformation behind the scenes. It began development over a decade ago, changing writers several times before landing on Whannell, who was also asked to direct following another director’s departure. As the writers and directors played musical chairs, so did the lead actors, with both Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Gosling reportedly joining and leaving the project amid its 11-year production. During this shift from a promising project to an awkward loose end, it lost its potential and took on its final form as a monstrously bad film. Much like the Wolf Man himself, this film’s final fate was to be executed – to be put out of its misery – released in January, the month where bad films go to languish in box-office mediocrity.

“Wolf Man” is monstrous in its nothingness. It wears the skin of an iconic Universal horror mascot but brings no new life to the franchise despite the sincere star power present behind the camera. It is poorly written not only in its predictability, but in its dialogue and characterization. With uninteresting characters and predictable outcomes, there are no stakes – and when the audience is not interested in what happens, there can be neither terror nor horror.

Even when “Wolf Man” bares all its teeth, it reveals itself as a sheep in wolf’s clothing – a sacrificial lamb for Hollywood’s annual dry period.

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Martin Sevcik | PRIME director
Martin Sevcik is the 2024-2025 PRIME director. He was previously the PRIME content editor and a PRIME staff writer. Sevcik is also a fourth-year economics and labor studies student from Carmel Valley, California.
Martin Sevcik is the 2024-2025 PRIME director. He was previously the PRIME content editor and a PRIME staff writer. Sevcik is also a fourth-year economics and labor studies student from Carmel Valley, California.
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