Movies released in January are often overlooked both critically and at the box office. Sadly, “Wolf Man” is not an exception to this trend, and the film has a lot of major flaws that hold it back from reaching its true potential.
“Wolf Man,” directed by Leigh Whannell, follows a family of three as their trip to visit the father, Blake’s, childhood home quickly goes wrong, forcing the family to take refuge in the home as a wolf man stalks the family from outside the house. Meanwhile, Blake, played by Christopher Abbott, is slowly transforming into one. Even though the film is a remake of the classic Universal horror movie with the same title, the film alters the wolf man transformation from the original film. In this movie, the curse is a disease transmitted when a wolf man attacks its victim. This change also highlights the film’s themes of generational trauma littered throughout the storyline.
One of the film’s biggest strengths is its setting. Blake’s childhood home has been abandoned for quite some time, leaving the house poorly lit and contributing to tense scenes since the audience cannot see very well.
Additionally, the film often switches perspectives from Charlotte, Blake’s wife, (Julia Garner), to Blake as he transforms into a wolf man. The audio and lighting change with each switch since the wolf man has night vision, allowing once-dark scenes to be illuminated with bright lights that let the audience see the film through Blake’s perspective. This was a fascinating technique that allowed the audience to feel empathy towards Blake even if the audience was starting to fear him due to his rabid behavior.
The film displays Blake’s childhood in which he grew up living with his father. His dad is strict and militaristic; while he tries to protect his son from danger, his parental skills are far from perfect. In the brief scenes the audience is shown, it is easy to see that Blake did not receive a lot of affection and care from his father. Due to this, Blake wants to be different from his father, even though, at times, bits of his father’s personality can be seen. However, aside from one scene where Blake slightly loses his temper with his daughter at the beginning, the film shows Blake as a good father, and it is repeatedly mentioned in the film by Charlotte.
As Blake transforms more and more, the film starts to lose the discussion around generational trauma. While they do try to bring it back at the end with a plot twist that the audience can see coming from a mile away, the correlation between the disease and generational trauma seems lackluster and more like an idea pushed by an executive so the film could be marketed as “elevated horror.” The film could have expanded on this topic with more dialogue scenes or showcasing more of Blake’s dynamics with his family, but it fails to do so.
The character that suffers the most from the lack of dialogue and character expansion is Charlotte, who becomes the film’s main protagonist. While Garner brings her A-game and tries to gain the audience’s support, most of the audience does not feel connected with her since her character does not get a lot of screen time until after Blake is almost fully transformed into the wolf man. The film would have benefitted from having more scenes prior to the family reaching Blake’s childhood home, allowing the audience to connect more with Charlotte and her goals.
Charlotte and Blake are currently in a rough patch, with a divorce looming. However, as Blake’s transformation continues, this idea is quickly ignored, and instead, the film tries to convey that their relationship was never that close to being over. More scenes of the couple together, both good and bad, before the transformation, would have fleshed out both characters and shown more of Blake’s temper, ultimately relating back to the themes of the movie.
A big complaint that fans of the movie had prior to its release was the design of the wolf man. Universal showcased the design for the first time during their Halloween Horror Nights by dressing someone up as the character. Since the transformation happens because of a disease, the costume looked more like a rabid human than a classic werewolf. This marketing move on Universal’s part was a terrible mistake since it made people not want to watch the movie because of the design.
However, the final design of the wolf man in the film was much better and scarier which makes sense since the film had a budget of $25 million, while the budget to create the Horror Nights costume was nowhere close to this. While it may not please everyone, the design is miles above what was shown during the Halloween event. Universal unfortunately spoiled the final look in a teaser they put out before the film’s release which took the shock value away from the final transformation scene.
Overall, “Wolf Man” is a disappointing watch. Whannell is a good director, and his films normally have an interesting shot variety with many lasting, stand-out moments that take hold in viewers’ memories. While some scenes in this film live up to his standard, the film is overall shot in a pretty generic way, and most of the memorable scenes are already found in the trailers. For these reasons, the film is a decent movie to catch once it is made available on a streaming service.