Thursday, January 16, 2025

Wolf Man, from Blumhouse

Traditionally, lycanthropy victims must sharpen their time-management skills. If they can secure themselves during full moons (if so inclined), they can continue functioning normally during the rest of the month. Not so for these werewolves. They turn once—permanently. Frankly, it seems fair to ask whether werewolves are still werewolves without the lunar aspect, or just contagion-based hairy monsters. Regardless, that is what we get in Leigh Whannel’s Wolf Man, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

According to the opening titles (which cry out for John Larroquette’s
Texas Chainsaw Massacre narrator voice), the indigenous people of these Oregon woods long told stories of shaggy man-beasts terrorizing the region. Young Blake Lovell’s veteran father Grady took those stories seriously. After a tense sighting, he went out hunting it and never came back.

Years later, adult (sort of) Lovell is now a stay-at-home father, largely because he is unemployed. Consequently, he is much closer to his daughter Ginger than his increasingly distant journalist wife, Charlotte. When the state finally declares the missing Grady dead, Blake convinces his wife a family trip to Oregon will do them good, but we know better.

Sure enough, the Lovell family inevitably finds itself running for dear life from a hirsute figure, barely reaching crazy old Grady’s farmhouse in time to barricade themselves inside. Unfortunately, the creature drew some of Blake’s blood, which still means what it usually means. The transformation will not be immediate, but despite his efforts to fight it, the change is inevitable and irreversible.

Blumhouse’s first re-conception of a classic Universal monster,
The Invisible Man (also directed by Whannel) was a clever, high-concept genre thriller that felt very fresh and contemporary. In comparison, Wolf Man is a disappointingly small film that resembles any number of low-budget VOD horror movies. Basically, the Lovells are yet another family that allow themselves to be trapped in a strange house by monsters.

Whannel builds a fair degree of tension, but the werewolf makeup underwhelms. It is also annoying to see the Grady Lovell character initially presented as yet another emotionally distant (perhaps even abusive) disciplinarian veteran, but admittedly, the film invites some sympathy for him as it reveals more of his backstory and fate. Regardless, most viewers will ask two glaringly obvious questions as the Lovells batten down grandpa’s long-empty farmhouse: why is it so clean inside and where are all his guns?

Still, casting Christopher Abbott as Blake makes a lot of sense, because he already looks rather bushy-haired and he also bears a strong resemblance to Zac Chandler, who plays young Blake in the prologue. Sam Jaeger also helps bring out old man Grady’s tragic dimensions. Frankly, Julia Garner is also aptly cast as Charlotte Lovell. The cast is solid, but there is little they can do to elevate such simple, bare-bones material.

The problem with Whannel’s
Wolf Man comes down to this—it is not special at all, nor is it particularly memorable. For any kind of genre film, that is a damning verdict. Wolf Man just isn’t worth the investment of your time when it opens tomorrow (1/17) in theaters, including the Look Dine-In W57 in New York.