Movie Review: Wolf Man

 

 
Film Info
 

Release Date: January 17, 2025
 
MPAA Rating: R (for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language)
 
Running Time: 103 minutes
 
Starring: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly, Milo Cawthorne
 
Director: Leigh Whannell
 
Writer: Leigh Whannell, Corbett Tuck
 
Producer: Jason Blum, Ryan Gosling
 
Distributor: Universal Pictures
 
External Info: Official Site / Facebook / Instagram / X (Twitter) / #WolfManMovie
 
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What We Liked


Christopher Abbott does his best to carry the weight of the film.

What We Didn't Like


The film resorts to gore and jump scares far too often.


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Posted  January 17, 2025 by

 
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The most recent attempt by Blumhouse Productions to jumpstart a Universal Pictures horror franchise – Wolf Man – breaks no new ground for the genre and instead resorts to often repulsive effects to convey horror rather than creating it organically.

“Wolf Man” poster

Early in the film, Blake (Christopher Abbott) inherits a rural Oregon farm when his father mysteriously vanishes and is declared dead by authorities. As the news comes on the heels of continuing troubles within Blake’s marriage to Charlotte (Julia Garner), the couple decides that taking a break from the city to settle the state of Blake’s father as a sort of vacation, along with their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), might be just the thing to get them back on track again. However, after they arrive in Oregon and cross paths with something in the woods before arriving at the father’s farmhouse, Blake begins acting peculiarly causing Charlotte and Ginger to begin to fear for their own safety.

Following his tortuous take on The Invisible Man in 2020, writer/director Leigh Whannell does much of the same with this adaptation of another classic horror archetype. The result is more of the same ham fisted approach to horror filmmaking that has become all too prevalent recently. There is little to be scared of in this largely predictable film, which Whannell co-wrote with his wife Corbett Tuck. Most of the “gotcha” moments in the film are centered around gore or shock scares that fail to resonate. Then, most egregiously, once the film ends with a somewhat logically denouement, the narrative continues for another twenty minutes simply to throw a few more of those “gotcha” moments at the audience.

Christopher Abbott in “Wolf Man.”

Christopher Abbott in “Wolf Man.”

As Blake, Christopher Abbott tries his best to convey the horror of a husband and father losing his humanity and becoming an animal easily capable of harming those he loves most. But the film does little to help him with that, it more or less wants the viewer to take that as a given. Then, as his wife and daughter transform into the heroes of the film, that progression relies on the audience being familiar with other films wherein the same metamorphosis occurs. In short, it becomes a tired and drawn out repeat of far more effective previously made films.

While the look and feel of the film echoes other Blumhouse titles, it fails to benefit from the humor and wit of their most intriguing production – Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) – which approached the genre like the first of Wes Craven’s “Scream” films and suggested that perhaps the studio would be heading down that creative path rather than churning out remakes of classic horror films it has opted for instead.

Rather than looking to create a new take on an archetypal legend, Wolf Man opts to instead continue the Blumhouse tradition of updating horror films by simply making them louder, gorier, and unfortunately, a lot less entertaining.

Mike Tyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.
Mike Tyrkus

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