Wolf Man (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

I love the Wolf Man. He's my favorite monster, related to my favorite animal, and fluid enough as a concept to manifest differently in almost any representation. Vampires and zombies and ghosts can, after all, only take so many forms before their identities have to change. Werewolves can change at full moons, autumnal moons, or any time it suits the story; they can be born, infected, cursed, or chosen; they might me a hairy man, a hairless dog, or any incarnation in between; they can serve as metaphors for burgeoning sexuality, forbidden romance/desire, puberty or coming of age, anger management, infectious diseases, the wild nature of humanity, the consequence of cannibalism, primal predation, and more. The 1941 original film changed my life. The 2010 remake is a masterpiece of Gothic horror. And now, as one of the first releases of 2025, we get a reimagining of the concept in contemporary trappings, and it's a pretty fabulous time.

Major horror creator Leigh Whannell (Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious) jumps back into the Universal Monsters pond with this reimagining of the classic, much as he did in 2020 with The Invisible Man. In that, which is a far cry from its 1933 original, the villain/monster is still a narcissistic sociopath, but the central concern is of his domestic abuse and the efforts of his partner to escape his clutches alive; in leaning into these concerns, Whannell made the story fresh, exciting, and profoundly modern. Too, in Upgrade (2018), Whannell infused body horror into what is essentially a sci-fi action flick, focusing on the disturbing process by which an implanted chip can take over the body and the body's attempts to master its new abilities. It seems that, in Wolf Man, Whannell demonstrates something between these two techniques of visual storytelling to provide an updated spin on the classic.

Blake Lovell is a stay-at-home father with his daughter Ginger and his hardworking wife Charlotte. He has a bit of a temper, lashing out at Ginger for not listening to him and at Charlotte for not being present more. It's a clever and important role reversal, though perhaps a bit late in coming, and sets the table for robust post-screening discussion of gender roles in the nuclear family. When he's notified by mail (which seems odd, these days, but whatever) that his estranged father has gone missing and been declared dead, he decides to take his family to his childhood home as a sort of vacation. Perhaps getting back to his roots will help his family know him better, perhaps time away from busy San Francisco will rekindle their mutual affection.

Indeed it will. Once in the wild forests of mountainous Oregon, Blake swerves to avoid a beastly creature in the road, toppling over a cliff and getting caught in some trees. I do want to be clear here that, as a filmmaker who very much knows what he's doing, Whannell litters references to other genre films in his features; there is a lot of Spielberg in this one, to start with. Aware that they are being hunted by something fast with hair and claws, the family manages to escape their overturned vehicle and run through the forest to Blake's father's nearby compound, though Blake gets scratched by the beast. 

While I don't love that a scratch is what does him in, it's yet another example of the mutability of lycanthropy in fiction.

But the family is far from safe in the dark interior of their paternal abode, and over the course of this one fraught night, Blake is going to dramatically change. Interspersed flashbacks reveal the somewhat tortured dynamic of a young Blake and his father, shadows of which inform Blake's adult temper and desperate attempts to dote on his own daughter. Being back home might not be the healthiest thing for him, though his capable demeanor and resourcefulness are demonstrated immediately, as he uses tools and materials to board up the front door, fires up an old generator, and generally works overtime while injured to try and make his family safe and even a little comfortable. Of course, that's not the only thing about him that's going to change.

Focusing on Blake's changing body is the highlight of the film as well as its primary function. So often, werewolf movies are about character and plot and setting and all these other things, but this is a rare case wherein the transformation itself takes up the bulk of the film's too-brief runtime. Over the course of the night, Blake's scratch becomes a leprous, oozing cavity in his skin. He starts seeing more clearly in the dark while lights bleach into unrecognizable, ethereal colors. He loses the ability to understand human speech and communicates only in moans and grunts. Worst, his impulses become harder to control, like the itching of his wound or his hunger for various unpleasant things. Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Possessor, Black Bear, Hulu's Catch-22, and so many more wonderful performances) is firing on all fronts here, delivering a bodily performance as emotionally brutal as it is physically. And the filmmakers are clearly dedicated to practical effects and excellent prosthetics and makeup, making everything more focused on the man than on the spectacle.

As Blake falls apart -- and the body horror here cannot be oversold -- his family is largely left flat by a screenplay unwilling to provide depth or insight for anyone other than dear old dad. Julia Garner's Charlotte often feels like an afterthought as she walks confusedly from room to room; I do think this is indicative of her character, who is absolutely a fish out of water and in a wholly unprecedented situation, unable to cope with the fear and horror she's feeling for likely the first time in her life, so let's not be too hard on her. And Garner manages herself well despite having almost nothing to work with. Matilda Firth as Ginger has more meat to chew on, metaphorically, and her relationship with Blake is truly sweet, despite a somewhat hammy shtick wherein she "reads his mind" to remind them both of his love for her. That kind of stupidly cute thing can feel annoying when it's repeated upwards of four times in ninety minutes, but it also helps the film feel grounded in a believable reality.

As it progresses, this film may not inspire much discussion on its plot or characters, that's true. And thematically it's a bit thin, re-treading a well-worn path of family trauma and skewed gender roles to make points about bad fathers and good parenting and how easily these things slip into each other. Scares might be becoming less frequently effective in films, and though I can imagine many horror fans finding this film quaint in its attempts at frisson, I personally was riveted and thrilled by its simplicity and old-fashioned earnestness. In an IP I so love, this title may not be my favorite, but it's a damn fun time at the movies and a technically proficient offering for anyone who appreciates honoring source material, simplifying storytelling (because the "ending explained" phenomenon of videos and rants online really needs to die out, like, ten years ago), and providing state of the art effects.