At the risk of sounding unintentionally patronizing, Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man gets an “A” for effort. You can see the same mind at work that took the story of The Invisible Man and crafted an allegory about gaslighting, as similar thoughtfulness is apparent in the tackling of the classic monster. Whannell’s latest movie presents strong thematic ideas, establishes interesting character dynamics, and offers some freaky body horror and cool stylistic touches while tackling the challenge of a narrative that is primarily set during a single night. As it unfolds, it’s clear what it’s trying to do and get across – but it also fails to properly connect the dots that it draws, and while it’s easy to applaud its inventiveness, it’s a kind of overcorrection that ultimately makes it feel like we have been robbed of what we look for in a good old fashioned werewolf movie.
The film starts deliberately, and it earns a long leash by doing so. While not without some pulse-pounding moments, the first act is principally dedicated to letting the audience get to know the protagonists and understand their relationships before they get thrown in what turns out to be a non-stop nightmare. We get to know Christopher Abbott’s Blake via flashbacks to his childhood living with his survivalist father, and when we meet him as an adult, we recognize that while he has a close bond with his pre-teen daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), things with his workaholic journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) are not at their best. Combined with Charlotte’s desire to forge a better connection with her daughter, a proper foundation is established on which to build exciting character arcs. But once the movie kicks into high gear, it doesn’t find a way for all of its ideas to fit together.
Amid a time of quiet conflict, Blake receives documentation that his father (Sam Jaeger) has been declared dead after being missing for a number of years and that he has inherited his estate. A plan is made for Blake, Charlotte and Ginger to drive to the abandoned house in a box truck, and in addition to collecting all of the old possessions, they will spend the summer there and reconnect as a family. Before they can reach their final destination, however, they are driven off the road and attacked by a feral humanoid creature and forced into a flight for their lives.
Making their way through the woods, the trio gets to Blake’s father’s house and barricade themselves inside, but things get exponentially worse after they discover that Blake’s arm has been scratched by the mysterious monster. A transformation begins, and the family must contend not only with the beast roaming outside, but one morphing in their midst.
Wolf Man feels scattershot in its construction and ultimately unable to get across what it wants to say.
Once the groundwork has been laid, one feels strapped in and ready for a ride, but what’s offered instead is a jerky experience that is full of stops and starts. Interesting idea are deployed to illustrate Blake’s rapidly changing body, but too often they feel like showcase moments instead of story developments (for example, there’s a sequence where his increasingly sensitive senses perceive a loud thumping from the second floor of the house, and tension rises as he hunts for the sound… but when he finds the freaky source, the film then quickly moves on to its next eerie development and never looks back). Wolf Man never finds a rhythm that allows it to do what it wants to do – balance a horrifying metamorphosis with dynamics of a family in crisis – and it leaves the movie never feeling properly satisfying.
Despite every expectation you may have, Wolf Man is not actually a werewolf movie.
The strongest aspect the new Universal Monster film has going for it is the straight horror of it all, as Leigh Whannell and his collaborators (including co-writer Corbett Tuck and talented effects magicians) unleash some serious yuck and nasty. You to reel as Blake’s injured arm gets increasingly gnarled and he starts vomiting blood and losing fingernails. It’s effective and freaky… but it also feels so focused on doing its own thing that it forgets to be a werewolf movie, instead functioning as a kind of hybrid between a zombie feature and David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
The combination of a grounded approach and single night narrative robs it of employing classic aspects of the mythos – changing with the full moon, the duality of man and monster, the magic of a silver bullet – and while the intention is seemingly to make the work feel more original, it instead has the opposite effect and makes everything feel more generic. A similar, more realistic approach worked extremely well for The Invisible Man, with the idea of a special potion being replaced with advanced optics technology, but Whannell drifts too far away from the core assignment this time, and it’s disappointing. It’s novel, and appreciation for what it tries may be enhanced with distance from expectations, but it sprints far enough away from the core premise that it feels like a broken promise.
From slow camera spins that give the audience insight into Blake’s changing perception of the world (full of glowing light and eldritch sound), to high tension chance sequences, to ferocious “beast vs. beast” action, segments and sequences of Wolf Man are terrific, but the film struggles to gel as a whole and coalesce with an impactful message that vindicates its biggest swings. It’s a movie that’s easier to appreciate for what it wants to be rather what it is, and while there is value in that, it doesn’t make for a satisfying cinematic experience.