When Leigh Whannell helmed The Invisible Man in 2020, he transformed a century-old monster story into a searing commentary on domestic abuse and gaslighting. His contemporary reimagining of an abusive man who can’t be seen proved that sometimes horror is most terrifying when it doesn’t feel supernatural at all. With his follow-up, Wolf Man, Whannell faces an even steeper challenge – and unfortunately, this time the transformation isn’t quite as complete.
The werewolf narrative has historically struggled to match the metaphorical depth of some of its horror companions. While vampires embody everything from sexual awakening to addiction, and zombies serve as perfect vessels for examining societal breakdown, the werewolf’s reach often feels more constrained within well-worn and obvious themes: repressed violence, lunar-cycle metaphors, and the specter of abusive patriarchy.
In this new iteration of the 1941 classic The Wolf Man, Christopher Abbott embodies Blake, a writer and stay-at-home father whose relationship with daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) and career-focused wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) shows signs of strain. Their attempted fresh start in Oregon, facilitated by an inherited childhood home, quickly unravels when supernatural violence forces Blake to confront both immediate danger and long-buried trauma surrounding his father’s mysterious disappearance.
When I think of successful reinventions of the werewolf concept, Mike Nichols’ 1994 Wolf comes to mind. Nichols’ film succeeded by reimagining its monster through the lens of corporate ambition, with Jack Nicholson’s publishing executive channel his newfound animal instincts into boardroom dominance. Whannell’s interpretation, however, remains tethered to conventional werewolf themes of paternal anxiety and protective instincts. The metaphorical elements lack subtlety – characters frequently spell out symbolic implications through stilted dialogue that prioritizes thematic explanation over organic character development. Despite Abbott’s compelling performance, these heavy-handed moments undermine the film’s emotional impact.
Where Wolf Man brings something unique to the table is in its technical prowess. Whannell’s more innovative eye for direction and storytelling is most apparently in sequences that put us inside the wolf’s perspective. As a recently bitten character begins to transform, the film’s audiovisual presentation warps: colors shift to match canine vision, human speech becomes distorted and unintelligible, and every sense feels heightened to an almost overwhelming degree. It’s a bright spot of subjective filmmaking that makes the werewolf experience visceral in ways I haven’t seen before.
The physical transformations themselves also deserve praise. Rather than falling back on the traditional “wolf-man” design, the creature effects team has created something more disturbing – a gaunt, sinewy beast that looks more like a diseased man than a simple animal. It’s an effectively unsettling take that matches the film’s generally grounded approach.
And lastly, as a final saving grace, the film also gets an unexpected boost from Garner’s portrayal of Charlotte, which inverts the typical “dad doesn’t know how to dad” narrative. Instead of serving as the story’s maternal compass, she grapples with her own disconnection from her daughter and family, creating an intriguing parallel to Blake’s supernatural parenting crisis. Unfortunately this unique and potentially compelling characterization doesn’t get the time or exploration it needs to feel fully-formed.
While Wolf Man finds new ways to play with a man’s physical transformation – both looking out and looking in – its unsubtle and uninteresting themes hold it back from matching Whannell’s previous monster reboot. Horror enthusiasts will find much to admire in its innovative presentation, but those seeking another genre-redefining moment may find this wolf’s howl echoing familiar territory.