This new iteration of the Wolf Man story is produced by Jason Blum and is written and directed by Leigh Whennell, the man who brought us the Saw and Insidious franchises as well as the wholly forgettable 2020 Invisible Man remake starring Elizabeth Moss.
And much like its titular character, this film is half a story and half an idea.
This new reimagining of the original 1941 Wolf Man story is neither new nor imaginative.
It never has the chance to transform into the quality film that the filmmakers wished it might be.It is more of the same gory horror you would expect from The House that Blum built and much the same themes, ideas, and body horror we have been given by Whannell in the past.
I think he was hoping to turn the whole Wolf Man story on its ear much like he tried to, and mostly succeeded in doing with The Invisible Man but here he seems to have forgotten how to fully transform Wolfie into a complete creature.
I went into this film with zero expectations and left with zero enjoyment. Sure I laughed a lot, but not in the way the director probably would have wanted. I did say “huh” and “really?” a lot as well.
Wolf Man starts in the rural mountains of Oregon where a young boy named Blake, is taken to the woods by his ex-military father to… I think, hunt for food?
Instead they are attacked by a thing. A thing that stands on two legs but can run like a bear. See, there is this legend of a hiker who went into the woods and got some disease that made him into some feral creature. I dunno, it’s Native American name is “Face of the Wolf” or something.
Anyway, we then fast forward to New York thirty years later and Blake is now a daddy. I know because his daughter says it like a million times. We see Blake, now played by Christopher Abbott, has a bit of a temper and lets his short fuse get the better of him when his daughter, Ginger doesn’t listen to him in a potentially dangerous situation. Though it is clear he is trying to not be a psycho like his dad, we can see the apple may have not fallen too far from the tree. We are also introduced to his wife and Ginger’s mommy Charlotte (Julia Garner). We know this because she also says this a million times just in case you weren’t positive. Charlotte and Blake have a kind of uneasy relationship. They seem to be trying to keep it together for the sake of Ginger.
The beginning of the film is all very underdeveloped which is strange because while it all seems like we need more time with the family, the first 30 minutes of the film drag something awful. I was left with the feeling that this part of the script was left unfinished and needed a little more time to flesh out. I was also like, “Get on with it!”
By the time they do get on with it, I was already slowly checking out.
And by the time they got into the meat of the story I was only vaguely intrigued to see how they were going to make this a Wolf Man story.
When they finally got around to telling the actual Wolf Man mythology I laughed a lot, I rolled my eyes a great deal, and I literally laughed out loud at the screening audience when they reacted to certain parts of the film that I was like “huh” and “Really?” As I had mentioned at the outset of this review.
This movie may have more appeal to others. The audience seemed to enjoy it. They jumped at all the right places, they made gross noises at all the appropriate gross parts, they yelled inappropriate things at the screen at all the inappropriate moments of the film so maybe I have no idea what I am talking about.
All I know is this, Universal has tried over and over to make the Monsterverse a “thing” and keep dropping the ball. The last great adaptations of the classic monsters were 1999’s The Mummy, you know which one I speak of and 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. which Dracula doesn’t even count because that was distributed by Columbia Pictures and so technically isn’t even associated with the Universal Monsters at all.
I had to be reminded that Whennell’s 2020 Invisible Man movie even existed when I was at this screening by a fellow reviewer because, even though I watched it, I completely purged it from my mind. I could barely recall the plot and when I did gave an unenthusiastic, “Oh yeah, right, that film.”
I get that Universal has to keep pumping out these films so they can retain the rights to them. Trying to keep coming up with an interesting and unique way to tell the same story over and over again is nigh impossible as well. But I also feel that if you get to a point where the characters and the stories you tell are so far removed from the origilnal, is it even the same anymore? How far do you have to diverge from the source before you no longer are telling that story anymore?
I enjoyed the 2010 Benicio Del Toro film The Wolfman directed by Joe Johnston but even that altered stories and characters greatly from the original film.
Do I have an answer?
No.
I hope someone does because I love these characters. I want them to live on the screen, I have been so let down with all the recent remakes that I will honestly watch 2004’s “It’s so bad it is good but really it is terrible”Stephen Sommers’ aberration, Van Helsing over Wolf Man anytime.
I am sure there will be other reviewers who will pontificate immensely on the reworking of the mythos of the Wolf Man story and the juxtaposition of the sane modern man and his primal urges. The parallels of the toxic masculinity prevalent in our society and the metaphor of the dual creatures living within everyone.
By dismantling the laws governing the mythology of the Wolf Man, Whennall has reinvented the story for current ideas and societal norms. That he has created a new take on the mythology much like he more successfully achieved with the Invisible Man remake by making it a movie about an abusive and toxic relationship and the trauma felt by an unbelieved female victims of abuse.
Unfortunately that aspect of the film is spread so thin over an already too weak story that this film doesn’t have a chance to fully transform into the beast Whennal probably wished it would.
* * * * *
Produced by Jason Blum
Written by Leigh Whannell, Corbett Tuck
Directed by Leigh Whannell
Starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner.
Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger


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