Nerdly » ‘Wolf Man’ Blu-ray Review

22nd Apr2025

‘Wolf Man’ Blu-ray Review

by Matthew Turner

Stars: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler | Written by Leigh Whannell, Corbett Tuck | Directed by Leigh Whannell

Writer-director Leigh Whannell follows 2020’s horror hit The Invisible Man with another revamp of a classic Universal monster movie. Unfortunately, it’s not quite a howling success – it delivers its fair share of tension and gore moments, but things get a bit hairier when it comes to landing on a suitable allegory and the script ultimately disappoints.

Wolf Man opens with a prologue, in which pre-teen Blake (Zac Chandler) has a scary encounter with an unseen creature in the woods, while out hunting with his stern, militaristic father Grady (Sam Jaeger). Thirty years later, a now grown-up Blake (Christopher Abbott) inherits a remote woodland cabin after his father is finally declared dead, having disappeared without a trace, many years earlier.

A struggling writer, Blake is now married to successful New York journalist Charlotte (Julia Garner), with whom he has a young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). Somewhat foolishly, Blake decides that a trip to his father’s remote old cabin is just the thing to sort out their burgeoning marital difficulties, and things quickly go from bad to worse when Blake gets bitten by a mysterious wolf-like creature and begins transforming into something monstrous, just as said creature begins prowling around the cabin, intent on attacking his family.

What made Whannell’s adaptation of The Invisible Man so powerful was the way he transformed the material into a cleverly conceived allegory for domestic abuse. Consequently, one of the most frustrating aspects of Wolf Man is that the script posits several promising allegorical aspects (toxic masculinity, abusive relationships, the sins of the fathers, approaches to parenting etc) but completely fails to commit to any of them, leaving the whole thing feeling rather messy and unfocused.

On a similar note, Wolf Man feels derivative on a number of levels, cribbing ideas from zombie movies (the fear of infection, of losing yourself, of becoming evil) and werewolf movies, as well as various body horror classics. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it increasingly feels like the film isn’t sure which story it wants to tell. That’s backed up by the disappointing script, which shows signs of being hacked to pieces, with characters underdeveloped and key sequences missing. For example, much is made in the prologue about Deathcap mushrooms, to the point where you’re pretty sure they’re going to be Important For Later…but no-one mentions them again.

On the plus side, Whannell knows his way around a suspense sequence, and there are a number of suitably tense moments. The prologue is an early highlight in that regard, with Whannell providing effective chills just by showing the heat (or possibly breath) rising from the unseen creature as the father and his son hide in a treehouse.

The creature effects are also impressive throughout, with Whannell making the wise tradition to stick to old-school in-camera practical effects, rather than go for CGI. As a result, the make-up is nicely done, most notably in the way Abbott starts to look a bit lupine quite a while before the transformation really gets going.

In terms of adding something new, Whannell opts for presenting the wolf man’s perspective, showing the audience how he sees and hears things after his transformation. That’s intriguing and effective in some sequences (especially the way his wife and child are presented with blank facial expressions), but less so in others – a bit where a continual thumping noise turns out to be the movements of a frankly MASSIVE spider ends up being more laughable than was probably intended.

As for the performances, Abbott is excellent, and his inherent soulfulness as an actor is put to good use. Firth is equally good as Ginger, forming a touching bond with Abbott, but Garner’s role feels underwritten and her performance lacks focus as a result – it feels like the film intended her to have a transformation of her own (learning to care more about her daughter than her job, for example) that got lost during the production.

In short, Wolf Man is something of a mixed bag. It moves quickly and delivers the requisite amount of thrills and tension for a creature feature, but you can’t help feeling that it could easily have been much better if a bit more attention had been paid to the script.