Wolf Man (2025)
I’m not as big a horror fan as some people (no slashers, please), but we all know that horror films have tons of tropes. The jumpscare. The high-pitched, trembly music. The Final Girl. Dracula’s halted speech. Frankenstein wordlessly lurching around. Werewolves growling at a full moon. It’s all part of the cultural zeitgeist. Wolf Man breaks from the usual a little, and not too badly, either.
Blake lives with his dad, Grady, in the Oregon mountains, and his dad seems to relish isolation. He’s extremely strict with his son to the point of abuse and his son tiptoes around his dad so as not to make him mad.
One day Blake and Grady are out hunting, and just to drive the Grady-is-an-unrepentant-monster point home, Grady has his sights set on killing a fawn. The two of them end up in a deer blind, where Grady trains his gun on some dangerous animal that climbs the stairs. We never see it, but since it’s cold we see it breathing.
Fast-forward thirty years. Blake is living in San Francisco with his wife, Charlotte, and their daughter, Ginger, and he tries his best to be the dad Grady wasn’t. He’s even overprotective of his daughter, and they have this bit between them about reading minds. Charlotte, on the other hand, is brittle and uptight, putting her work before her family.
When Blake inherits his dad’s farmhouse after Grady is declared legally dead, he, Charlotte, and Ginger head off to Oregon to clear the place out, and it’s a trip down Memory Lane in more ways than one. Blake’s childhood home has some dark secrets, and I don’t want to give any spoilers, but suffice it to say, Blake becomes the monster he was trying to protect his family from, at least outwardly.
Wolf Man turns the classic lycanthropy archetype on its head. Anyone who’s seen one of these movies knows that with a few exceptions (ahem, Teen Wolf), characters in werewolf movies usually watch helplessly while the protagonist becomes the antagonist and turns on those who they would normally protect.
Our poor Blake’s transformation, on the other hand, is almost Marsh King’s Daughter meets Kafka, because not only is this character trying to compensate for his hard background, but we see his point of view. When Blake begins to turn, everything goes askew. He’s cut off from his family and can’t understand what they say. In fact, they seem to be the monsters themselves. Once Blake’s transformation is complete, he can’t communicate with them beyond a few scribbled words.
There’s a lot of interesting character development in the film, with the inevitable realizations of what’s important as opposed to what isn’t, and first impressions aren’t always accurate. I was surprised at how much I ended up liking Charlotte; she starts off brittle, but her compassion for her husband and daughter flood through later on, and Julia Garner gives a great performance.
Matilda Firth does a great job as well; her character keeps trying to get through to her dad even after he’s not himself anymore, which naturally sets her up to help in a big way towards the end. She and Christopher Abbott have great chemistry as father and daughter.
The movie also effectively buries the lede when it comes to seeing the werewolves. The characters are told not to go out after dark, but until Blake begins his transformation, we are left to assume the claw and teeth marks we see are from bears or panthers or something.
Now, Wolf Man does stumble slightly story-wise, because some parts feel a wee bit flat and pointless, but again, I don’t want to give spoilers.
The movie also stretches the credibility a wee bit. It’s to be expected, obviously, because it’s a horror movie, but the thing I couldn’t get over was how clean Grady’s house is. Supposedly the dude’s been MIA to the point of being legally dead, yet there isn’t any moldy food anywhere except in the basement meat locker, there are no dishes in the sink, the generator and well work just fine after a long period of seeming disuse, the linens and upholstery don’t look worn or moth-eaten, and everything is dust-free to the point of being shiny and new. It’s as if Grady stepped out for a quick trip to the grocery store.
That’s Hollywood, though, and if Hollywood keeps making films like Wolf Man, we’re in for some interesting rides.
Wolf Man is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: B
Principal Cast: Julia Garner, Leigh Whannell, Christopher Abbott, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, Ben Pendergast, Zach Chandler, Milo Cawthorne, Bob MacBride
Directed by Leigh Wannell.
Written by Leigh Wannell and Corbett Tuck.