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.
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 esstate 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.”
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.[box_info]WHERE TO WATCH (powered by JustWatch)
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