Opening in theaters January 17th is ‘Wolf Man,’ directed by Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Benedict Hardie, and Matilda Firth.
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Initial Thoughts
The werewolf, or in this case the Wolf Man, is one of the top-tier stars of Universal Studios’ lineup of classic monsters, third in line behind Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. So it stands to reason that the studio would hand the reins of this particular terror icon to Leigh Whannell, the writer (‘Saw’) and director who shepherded another Universal baddie, the Invisible Man, to the screen in an outstanding 2020 reinvention that turned the old sci-fi chestnut into a meditation on domestic abuse.
For ‘Wolf Man,’ Whannell once again generates some terrific suspense and outright terror, particularly in the film’s first half, and creates an atmospheric and unsettling environment for his tale. But instead of repositioning the Wolf Man in more modern terms as he did with the Invisible Man, Whannell crafts a rather thin, straightforward shocker that holds little in the way of surprises, especially in its lackluster third act. Add an uninspiring monster and some odd casting, and ‘Wolf Man’ never quite sinks its teeth into you from start to finish.
Story and Direction
A prologue informs us that a hiker disappeared into the lush woods of rural Oregon in 1995, allegedly victim of a strange virus known as “hill fever,” or in the tongue of the local Native American population, the “face of the wolf.” Also living in those woods in an isolated farmhouse is ex-military man Grady Lovell (Sam Jaeger) and his young son Blake (Zac Chandler), with Grady trying to teach the fearful Blake survival skills. Those will come in handy when father and son have a close encounter with some kind of ferocious creature in the woods while out hunting, a beast which Grady later vows to kill.
Flash forward 30 years, and Blake (Christopher Abbott) is now an unemployed writer and stay-at-home dad who cares for his adoring daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), while his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) brings home the bacon as a hotshot journalist. All is not well with Blake and Charlotte’s marriage, so when he gets a notice that his father has been declared legally dead (we didn’t actually know he was missing before this, or for how long) and Blake has inherited the Oregon farmhouse, he suggests the family head up to the place for some reconnection time while they wind up Grady’s affairs.
Except that things don’t turn out so well. Crashing their rented storage van after swerving to avoid some kind of large beast on the road to the house, Blake, Charlotte, and Ginger barely escape from the truck while watching a local get viciously dragged away by the fast-moving creature. They make it to the farmhouse on foot and barricade themselves inside, while the beast prowls the property. And it seems that the animal may have gouged Blake’s arm – a tragic turn of events that’s confirmed when Blake abruptly takes ill…and worse, seems to be transforming into something himself.
The first half of ‘Wolf Man’ sets up the situation and the characters as well as possible, despite the fact that the script by Whannell and Corbett Tuck doesn’t give us much in the way of characterization. While we understand that Blake gets his protective nature (and his occasional flash of temper) from his dad, we’re told rather than shown that he and Charlotte are having problems. It’s all vaguely sketched in – we don’t even really know what kind of journalist Charlotte is – and more or less rushed through before the family heads to Oregon (which, rather confusingly, is played by New Zealand according to the production notes and Ireland according to the end credits).
Their arrival there and the initial siege (as well as the prologue) is where Whannell shines as a master of creating atmosphere and suspense. The Lovells’ predicament in the truck – which ends up suspended, ‘Jurassic Park’-style, in the branches of a tree – followed by their harrowing run for the house, is scary stuff, as are the almost subliminal glimpses we get of the monster pursuing them (these sequences are aided enormously by Stefan Duscio’s vivid, immersive cinematography and Benjamin Wallfisch’s slithery yet sweeping score).
The early stages of Blake’s “sickness” are also cleverly handled: he loses the power of speech even as his other senses become more highly attuned (a spider crawling on a wall sounds to him like an elephant). In one of the film’s better ideas, we see Charlotte and Ginger talking to him through what you might call “wolf vision”: he can’t understand the words coming out of their mouth, their eyes glow reflectively, and their own faces and the space around them appear as if Blake is seeing them through night vision goggles. As Blake continues to change – a gradual de-evolution more reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ than the quicker changeovers of lycanthropic classics like ‘The Howling’ or ‘An American Werewolf in London’ – the corruption of his features and body is, thankfully, handled through prosthetics and makeup rather than CGI.
In the end, however, we can’t say that the werewolf design in the film – neither the creature that infects Blake nor Blake’s final form itself – is very remarkable. While they pay homage to werewolves past (a little Henry Hull here, a bit of David Naughton there), they both look like actors in prosthetics (albeit well-made ones) and even when they run on all fours they just don’t seem…wolfish enough.
It’s partially because of that, and partially because the story doesn’t really go anywhere surprising once the basic conflict is established – with Charlotte and Ginger now menaced by the murderous monster outside and the potential one inside – that the second half of ‘Wolf Man’ starts to feel labored. The relationship between Blake and Ginger is sweet and provides some moments of pathos later as Blake succumbs, but we just don’t know enough about this family to get us fully invested in their plight. Even the reasons why this area has been terrorized for more than three decades are not really explored.
When did this all begin? What is the “hill virus”? How long as Blake’s dad been missing? The werewolf archetype is essentially a Jekyll-and-Hyde story, with the monster usually symbolizing the battle between a man’s civilized self and his more primeval, animalistic nature. That’s ripe for all kinds of potential exploration – of toxic masculinity, of generational trauma in the form of a curse – but Whannell settles for just an extended, only intermittently gripping, and increasingly gory battle.
The Cast
Christopher Abbott has been flying under the radar for a while as an actor who can plug into a variety of roles and bring a sort of wounded, understated humanity to all of them. He does this quite well with the role of Blake, managing to let us know what he’s thinking even when his features change and he has no dialogue for the second half of the film. We certainly get a sense of the dynamics roiling within him – he’s been raised to know how to survive yet he’s apparently unable to provide for his family – but it also seems like a lot of his inner conflict might have hit the cutting room floor.
On the other hand, while we’ve loved Julia Garner’s work in shows like ‘Ozark’ and films such as ‘The Assistant,’ she’s simply miscast here. Much of Charlotte’s characterization appears to be the victim of editing as well, but the simple fact is that she’s not believable as the mother of what looks like a 10-year-old girl. And her own issues – her emotional detachment from both her husband and daughter – are not given the kind of depth that may have at lease benefited from Garner’s often raw performance style, if not her youthful demeanor. While Christopher Abbott and the adequate Matilda Firth have some chemistry as father and daughter, there’s no sense that Abbott and Garner even know each other very well.
Final Thoughts
As we mentioned earlier, the werewolf archetype can be adapted to any number of different metaphors, and the best movies starring this particular monster – ‘Ginger Snaps,’ ‘The Howling,’ the original ‘The Wolf Man’ – pull their interpretations off quite successfully. There are traces of that in Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’: the themes of nature vs. nurture, as well as the idea of the failings of the parent being passed to the child, are addressed rather perfunctorily and dispatched in favor of thrills and blood.
Weirdly as well (and I feel like this is also due to heavy editing), there is seemingly no attempt on the part of Charlotte or Blake to truly understand what is happening to him. “Daddy’s sick” is about all that Charlotte can muster up. The family also seems to live in a world where no one has ever heard of werewolves, not even on a fictional level, which also creates a kind of strange contextual vacuum for the story.
As a stripped-to-the-basics shock show, ‘Wolf Man’ may offer up a scary good time for most of its relatively brief 100 minutes. But as the tragedy of a modern family encountering something primeval, and as a new way to approach the werewolf mythos, ‘Wolf Man’ lacks the teeth to add to this iconic horror tradition.
‘Wolf Man’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.
ku1fl9JCTUqIldcLHxv7n6What is the plot of ‘Wolf Man’?
A San Francisco family man named Blake (Christopher Abbott) inherits his father’s rural Oregon farmhouse after the latter mysteriously disappears. But Blake’s trip to see the property with his wife (Julia Garner) and young daughter (Matilda Firth) turns nightmarish after Blake is bitten by a terrifying animal and begins to change into something horrific himself.
Who is in the cast of ‘Wolf Man’?
- Christopher Abbott as Blake
- Julia Garner as Charlotte
- Matilda Firth as Ginger
- Sam Jaeger as Grady
- Benedict Hardie as Derek
Other Movies Directed by Leigh Whannell:
- ‘Insidious: Chapter 3‘ (2015)
- ‘Upgrade‘ (2018)
- ‘The Invisible Man‘ (2020)
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