Sometimes, it’s hard to look at a movie for what it is instead of what you wish it could be. Maybe hoping for director Leigh Whannell to take the strengths of his 2020 thriller The Invisible Man and expand upon them with Wolf Man might’ve been asking too much, as The Invisible Man is a straight-up classic and Wolf Man is… not. Whereas The Invisible Man was a wholly involving and terrifying experience, Whannell goes a different route and opts for minimalism instead of potentially overdoing any one thing, but the result leaves us feeling “meh” and wishing for something a little more substantive.
“A little too much” in some spots would’ve been nice in giving us more than thinly-sketched characters to hang onto and payoffs that don’t really pay off. It’s obvious that the script, co-written by Whannell and Corbett Tuck, wants the theme of generational abuse to be present in everything, from the prologue to the final frame. They set this up quickly in the prologue and the two scenes that follow as we get to know Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott), journalist spouse Charlotte (Julia Garner), and their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth).
We’re introduced to Blake as a child (Zac Chandler) and his single father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), as they go on a hunting trip, narrowly avoiding some kind of hairy creature in their deer blind. Grady’s manner with Blake is stern and military-like; he sees Blake as someone who needs constant haranguing to do what he wants Blake to do. Blake doesn’t seem to do anything on his own or without a say-so from his father – he’s behaving the way he is not because he wants to, but because he’s afraid of how Grady might punish him. We see it in the way he hurriedly makes his bed when Grady barks out an order, and we see this fear translate to how he treats his daughter in his own fatherhood.
As part of an apology for yelling at Ginger in public, he talks openly to Ginger about being scarred as a child and growing up to be the one who does the scarring… and how he wants to not be that guy. But when Blake takes Ginger and Charlotte to pack up his dad’s house after going missing and being legally declared dead, these scars turn literal when they’re attacked by what looks like the creature he saw in his youth. Described in onscreen introductory text as an “infection” that Indigenous people called “Face of the Wolf,” Blake begins a slow, horrifying transformation into the titular wolf man; at one point, there’s even sequence detailing this transformation à la Rick Baker’s groundbreaking practical effects montage in 1981’s An American Werewolf in London. And much like that film’s ill-fated sequel, there are some awe-inducing, hyper-stylized lycanthrope POV shots detailing the developing visual and language disconnect between Blake’s changing self and his uninfected family.
Wolf Man undoubtedly has terrific things going for it. The isolated setting of Grady’s farm and the mountains and valleys surrounding it are placid and picturesque, its loveliness shattered by creatures we don’t get to see in full (or at least until a much later moment). Stefan Duscio gives the film ample room to breathe and play within his frames, playing to seemingly large spaces that somehow feel claustrophobic, especially after escaping one of these creatures and barricading themselves inside Grady’s farmhouse. Blake’s creepy and gradual transformation is a highlight, going from human to something else with the help of Arjen Tuiten’s fantastic physical effects and makeup; the closeup of Blake’s hands is a masterclass in modern wizardry crossed with time-honored techniques.
But the rest of the film relies on the thinnest of foundations throughout. There’s some kind of marital strife between Blake and Charlotte, but we don’t know anything else other than one stilted, awkward conversation that serves just to put the two at loggerheads. Charlotte is jealous of the relationship and fun Blake and Ginger have, but it’s nothing more than lip service trying to establish Charlotte as someone a little more focused on work than her family. And even with Ginger bearing the job of “cuteness anchor,” there’s not much chemistry between the three of them. Without this, there’s no beating heart, nothing to make us root for this family’s survival; we’re held at arm’s length and made to observe, not be with these people.
As such, Wolf Man comes off as cold and impersonal, almost perfunctory. The film has so many opportunities to push in any kind of direction to try to hook us or deepen interest in the mystery of what’s going on with the Lovell family, but it feels like we’re prevented from fully jumping off and diving in with no hesitation. Suspenseful moments are barely made suspenseful; for some reason, Leigh Whannell has pulled back from establishing tension and hair-raising moments in favor of straight-out action. It’s a scary movie that doesn’t want to be scary, and we’re left wondering what Whannell’s aim with this was. As before, if this is an exercise in minimalism and economy of script, it works, but only just; if it was just a case of “do more with less,” then it fell far short of that expectation. While Arjen Tuiten’s makeup and special effects work and Stefan Duscio’s photography are to be lauded, it feels like they’re contributing half of a movie while the rest is missing.
