Wolf Man (2025) – Review

With the success of Leigh Whannell’s 2020 film The Invisible Man, where he reimagined the classic Universal Monster through a contemporary lens, blending elements of horror with psychological and familial themes, sadly, despite his success in that outing, this reimagining falls flat on multiple fronts.

The film centres on Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott), a San Francisco writer and stay-at-home father who is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his estranged father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), Blake inherits his secluded childhood home nestled deep within the Oregon woods. Hoping to reconnect with his career-focused wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and their lively daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), Blake proposes a family retreat to this remote farmhouse. Of course, if Stephen King’s The Shining taught us anything, it’s that remote locations do not equal good family health. How could someone overlook such an obvious issue?

All work and no play makes Blake a dull wolf man.

As the family approaches the old homestead under the cover of night, they are suddenly attacked by an unseen creature, leaving Blake with a severe wound. They manage to take refuge inside the house, barricading themselves against the prowling menace outside. However, as the night progresses, Blake’s condition deteriorates alarmingly. He experiences a series of horrifying physical transformations: his teeth and hair fall out, his senses become unnaturally acute, and an overwhelming hunger begins to consume him. These changes suggest that Blake is undergoing a metamorphosis into a werewolf. At least that is what I think the script is suggesting, but I don’t quite buy it.

Maybe he just has cabin fever?

In a shocking twist – if you’ve never seen a movie before – it’s revealed that the creature responsible for Blake’s affliction is none other than his own father, Grady, who had succumbed to the same curse years prior. This revelation forces Blake to confront the terrifying possibility of inheriting his father’s monstrous fate. As Blake’s transformation nears completion, Charlotte faces an agonizing decision: can she protect her daughter from the external beast while grappling with the horrifying reality that her husband is becoming one himself?

Daddy issues reach new heights here.

Stray Observation:

• The moving company our characters use is called Pierce, which one must assume is a reference to legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce who created the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man. And their tagline is “Getting a move on since 1941,” which is when the original film was released
• The “Body Horror” in this film is more in keeping with Cronenberg’s The Fly, as the transformation here takes place over a longer period of time than your typical werewolf transformation.
• The more human-looking werewolf design in this film has more in common with the 1935 film Werewolf of London, which also had a creature who could maintain a fair amount of human intelligence.
• The twist of the main Wolf-Man’s father also being a werewolf, as well as the one to infect him to boot, is taken straight from the 2010 remake.

“Dad, can we simply resolve our past issues and move on?”

On the acting side of things, Christopher Abbott does his best, but he’s stuck in a film that forces him to do little more than mope and occasionally snarl. While Abbott’s portrayal of Blake’s transformation is physically committed, it is emotionally hollow, failing to elicit empathy or fear. We were never given enough time to care for him as a character before he became infected. On the other hand, Julia Garner, who could have been the emotional core of the story, is wasted in a role that mostly requires her to look concerned and deliver exposition and is sadly relegated to the clichéd role of the distressed wife, offering little beyond screams and tears. Her and Abbott’s on-screen chemistry is virtually nonexistent, making it difficult to invest in their plight. The supporting cast is so forgettable that they might as well be listed in the credits as “Werewolf Chow #1” and “Exposition Neighbour.”

“Are you dealing with family trauma relating to the sins of your father?”

For a werewolf movie, Wolf Man is shockingly low on werewolves, and the ones we do get aren’t all that great. The transformation sequences are disappointingly sparse, and when they do happen, they rely on dim lighting and quick cuts to hide what is an embarrassingly underwhelming creature design. When the monster does finally get some screen time, it’s a bland, uninspired wolf-man hybrid that looks like it wandered off the set of a mid-budget Goosebumps episode and is more pitiable than terrifying. With such lacklustre effects and designs on display, fans of werewolf movies will most likely be disappointed in a creature that resembles a dishevelled human more than a fearsome werewolf.

Is this a werewolf or Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy?

But even if I could forgive a weak “monster” design, I could not look past Leigh Whannell’s clumsy writing, which took itself far too seriously, with a script that kept shoving in half-baked metaphors about generational trauma and masculinity but then doing absolutely nothing interesting with them. You want horror? You want suspense? Too bad—most of the film is just Abbott brooding while Julia Garner looks increasingly exhausted (which, honestly, makes her the most relatable character).

Special shout-out to “Werewolf Vision” as that seemed to be the only new and remotely interesting element Whannell was able to bring to the project.

Of course, the greatest sin Whannell commits in Wolf Man is not trusting the audience to put two and two together. The theme of “sins of the father” is not subtly introduced into the plot. Nope, it’s spoken by several characters repeatedly, as if he were worried that the audience may have nodded off and missed the first five or six times this theme was brought up. The metaphor of lycanthropy as a degenerative illness is intriguing in theory, but it was executed in a way that felt forced and was completely ineffective, leading to unintentional comedy rather than profound commentary.

“Here’s Daddy?”

In conclusion, Whannell’s Wolf Man presents an intriguing premise, but the ham-fisted execution resulted in a toothless reboot that squanders its potential. With its uninspired plot, shallow characterizations, and weak creature design, the film fails to breathe new life into the iconic monster. It’s a forgettable entry in the horror genre that neither scares nor entertains.