Review: 'Wolf Man' has its moments, but it isn't the smart throwback to Universal's monster franchises that 'The Invisible Man' was.
Heaven help the horror movie, like director Leigh Whannell’s “Wolf Man,” that has 45 minutes’ worth of good ideas bouncing around in a 100-minute running time.
This half-killer, half-filler body horror thriller comes from the fertile mind of writer-director Leigh Whannell — one of the most influential names in horror, on the strength of creating the “Saw” and “Insidious” franchises. Alas, this effort to pump some new energy into one of Universal’s classic monster franchises isn’t as smart or as shocking as his first attempt, 2020’s “The Invisible Man.”
Blake and Charlotte, played by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, are a San Francisco couple with what looks like a good life. She’s a journalist, and he’s a writer who’s between jobs — so he’s stay-at-home dad caring for their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). Blake tells Charlotte he’s worried they’re becoming distant, so when he receives a legal notice that his father has been declared dead, he suggests the family go to the remote Oregon farm they’ve just inherited.
In an overlong prologue, we get a taste of the uneasy father-son dynamic. Young Blake (Zac Chandler) accompanies his strident father (Sam Jaeger) on a hunting trip, where they encounter something in the woods — something the townsfolk chalk up to “hills fever” but the Indigenous people in Oregon label “the face of the wolf.”
The family doesn’t even get to the house when trouble starts, when their rental moving truck goes off the road and crashes. As they escape the upended truck, something puts a deep scratch in Blake’s arm. After that, Blake slowly feels sick, and starts turning into something beastly — something everyone in the theater figures out well ahead of the three people on the screen.
The script — co-written by Whannell and his wife, Corbett Tuck — moseys along with this slow transformation, predictably hitting its gruesome milestones. Blake’s fingernails chip off, revealing the claws emerging underneath. His jaw starts jutting out. Some hair starts falling out, while other hair starts cropping up. And so on.
Whannell does add some fascinating elements — the best of which is moving from Charlotte and Ginger’s view of the infected Blake to Blake’s sensory-overload view of them now that he’s in this new physical state.
Abbott (“Poor Things,” “Possessor”) makes Blake’s transformation feel lived-in, and he brings out the character’s humanity even through the prosthetics. Garner gives a sharp performance that reflects real fear without becoming a “scream queen” stereotype. These actors give their all, which makes it even more disappointing that there weren’t enough interesting moments around them.
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‘Wolf Man’
★★1/2
Opens Friday, January 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language. Running time: 103 minutes.