The 2025 horror film Wolf Man feels a bit like a throwback sort homage to all things lycanthropic. Married filmmaking team Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck give us an intense couple with issues of their own. This intense relationship helps to put us in an uncomfortable mood from the first moment we meet them.
The Story
Blake grows up in a mountainous region of the US. His father teaches Blake about the outdoors and keeps an eye out for some creature he has vowed to destroy.
Later, Blake is married. He is living in the city with his wife Charlotte and daughter Ginger. Their tense co-existence is interrupted by the news that Blake’s father has been declared dead. Ginger, Charlotte and Blake head to the homestead.
Their trip becomes more than fraught when they have an accident in the moving van. The trio end up running and fighting for their lives in the mountains.
The main Cast
Christopher Abbott is Blake.
Julia Garner is Charlotte.
Matilda Firth is Ginger.
Intimate without intimacy
Because of the lack of intimacy with this intimate little cast, it is all too easy to disregard the pain and anguish of its characters. Ginger is, perhaps, the most easily visible here. She is losing much more than a protector, she is missing an almost equal partner in fun and games as well as reluctant disciplinarian.
Charlotte loses more than we can see. Despite her visible lack of attachment to Blake, the pair have been, it seems, having problems for some time, she has stuck with this odd man through thick and thin.
*Side note: Despite my lack of enthusiasm with Garner’s performance in Apartment 7A, I am a starstruck fan. She was an absolute knockout in Ozark. Her performance in 7A was hurt by the subject matter, not her acting skills.*
Blake, rather sadly, is the least likeable of this little trio and therefore we feel the least amount of agony at his fate.
This is the power of Wolf Man.
I will say that again: This is the power of Wolf Man.
Talking Throwback here
If we go back to the original Wolfman; poor old Lawrence Talbot, circa 1941 is a misery of a man. He is meant to be a sad unapproachable character and he is. In spades. His lack of appeal is what makes the original work, just like this iteration.
Wolf Man feels about as Universal as you can get without being there. Filmmakers Whannell and Tuck give us almost bleached out colour. Tones that are neither rich nor pale. The slow pacing, the bleak sets, all combine to be that sort of blanched out of Universal horror that is rerun on late Saturday night. Preferably peering over the top of a sofa pillow with the lights down low.
This is scary stuff
I mention the pillows as a tribute of sorts. Because despite the added device of us becoming Blake during his transformation, or maybe because of it, we are scared.
Blake suddenly finds that whatever is coming out of Charlotte and Ginger when they speak is no language he recognises. More importantly, it is not a language we understand either.
This unsettles and tells us things are not going to end well for Blake.
It all works but just not effectively enough overall.
The verdict
Wolf Man was, for me at least, a tad disappointing. It earns a scant 3.5 stars mainly because of its somewhat contrived storyline. I could also feel no real attachment to any of the characters here. Once again, like many other films, there were too many things borrowed from too many other films, even a crib from the 2005 Wes Craven film Cursed. If you do not see the reference, it may just be down to me.
The film is streaming on Peacock. Watch it and see what you think.
The trailer
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