Wolf Man ★★

“Sometimes when you’re a daddy, you’re so scared of your kids getting scars that you become the thing that scars them.”

-Blake

Films about werewolves often depict ordinary people who, after an encounter with a werewolf, are turned into one themselves. Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is no exception, following the Lovell family as they return to husband and father Blake’s (Christopher Abbott) family home. After many years away, he received a letter in the mail from the State of Oregon declaring his missing father dead with Blake inheriting his father’s remote farmhouse. Intending to travel up there to put things in order, he decides to invite his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to go with him, hoping that this trip could help him and Charlotte out of a rough patch they are in as a couple. On the way there, they become lost, receive help navigating from a local resident, and crash in the woods. It is there that they encounter a werewolf and Blake is scratched during an attack. They retreat to the farmhouse, but find no safe haven.

Whannell’s film is less interested in the folklore of lycanthropy than it is in family. Blake’s father Grady (Sam Jaeger) was a military man and ran his home the same way. His father was not so much a violent man, but a fearful one who saw order and discipline as the way to survive in a hostile environment. As Blake’s decision to leave home at the first opportunity conveys, the home itself became a hostile environment. Grady’s sole focus was to keep Blake safe, but he became a controlling monster with a short temper in the process. Blake is determined not to be the same for his daughter, trying to keep his cool while still constantly fretting about Ginger’s safety every second of the day. As he says to her, “Sometimes when you’re a daddy, you’re so scared of your kids getting scars that you become the thing that scars them.” This line is the emotional core of the film. Even as his transition takes hold and he becomes a mixture of human and animal instincts, the human side of him always fights to save his family. He may not be able to spare Ginger the horror of watching him transform into a werewolf, but he does the best he can to find sweet moments to connect with her through it all. Wolf Man is a film about fatherhood, the sacrifices fathers make to protect their families, and the struggle to outrun the sins of one’s father in delivering a happier and safer environment for one’s children. It is a heartfelt and heartbreaking film, a grounded take on werewolves and the ways in which trauma sneaks in through the cracks to find its way into one’s home.

Wolf Man excels in this emotional realm, struggling more when it comes to putting its werewolf terror at the center. Once Blake is infected, he slowly begins to transform into a werewolf with Charlotte and Ginger in increasing danger as they try to survive a night at this farmhouse with no reasonable escape route. As Blake’s condition worsens and the werewolf from the earlier attack circles their home, Wolf Man begins to drag. Repeated scenes of them racing around the yard, the werewolf taking his sweet time trying to find a way into the home, a few jump scares, and a poorly lit and staged chase scene through woods ensure Wolf Man ends with more of a whimper than a roar. Whannell struggles to blend Wolf Man’s themes with genuine thrills as he had done so well with The Invisible Man. To some extent, the humanization of its werewolf is its undoing, given how much Blake tries to hold back his animal instincts. There is limited peril when he comes face-to-face with Charlotte because something inside him cannot attack. The other werewolf is, thus, more threatening but left in the background for far too long to focus on Blake’s slow transformation and its ramifications on this family.

Whannell does work in a few interesting scenes during this night at the farmhouse, such as a werewolf vision POV, which is used with startling effectiveness as a werewolf tries to track down where Charlotte and Ginger are hiding. Wolf Man also uses this vision gimmick to draw a parallel between Blake’s transformation and the Lovell’s marital strife. At its first introduction, the film shifts from Charlotte lamenting how she cannot understand what Blake is saying anymore to a POV shot from Blake’s werewolf perspective where what he says is clear, but what Charlotte says is not. Their growing distance is made tangible, though the two continue to fight to stay together. It underpins Blake’s further regression into being a werewolf as something genuinely tragic, as this family he loves slips further and further out of his grasp with no chance of normalcy in their future.

Wolf Man benefits from its strong cast, particularly Christopher Abbott who gives it his all as Blake. Embodying the physical pain of what he is going through as well as the mental torture of turning into a monster that is terrorizing a family he swore to protect, Abbott lends the character great nuance and feeling. Whannell’s film wears its The Fly influence on its chest and it is never more apparent than in the approach to Blake, always centering his humanity and his plight as a normal man experiencing something otherworldly. Though the werewolf design has been divisive, it proves crucial in allowing Abbott’s expressive and emotive performance to shine through. Julia Garner is well matched with Abbott, though where her turn as Charlotte falters is less with her than it is on the page. As the film focuses more on fatherhood and protection, Charlotte’s individual elements – namely, her perceived place as an outsider in the family with Blake and Ginger having more in common – end up going by the wayside and leaving Charlotte undercooked as a character. Garner does well with what she is given, but is not provided enough space to really flesh out Charlotte.

Despite high expectations off the back of Whannell’s great sci-fi body horror Upgrade and his prior foray into classic Universal horror The Invisible Man, Wolf Man ends up a mixed bag. Powerfully expressed ideas about fatherhood give it a strong emotional through line and Christopher Abbott is up to the acting task, but Whannell struggles to make the action and thrills come to life in the same way. They end up feeling empty and repetitive, scuttling a promising first half with a second half that fizzles out and leaves one wondering when this night of terror will end.