Movie Review: 'Wolf Man' is One Great Monster Movie

Wolf Man

Directed by Leigh Whannell

Written by Leigh Whannell, Corbett Tuck

Starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner

Release Date January 17th, 2025

Published January 17th, 2025

Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as Blake Lovell, a loving father in a struggling marriage to Charlotte (Julia Garner). Out of work, Blake spends all of his time with their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), which has caused Charlotte to become resentful of their bond. In an effort to repair their marriage and family, Blake asks Charlotte to come with him to Oregon where his late father lived in a remote cabin. Blake’s eccentric father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), disappeared a while ago and has recently been declared dead. Blake is set to travel to Oregon to clean out the cabin and sees an opportunity for a family vacation.

Arriving in Oregon in a massive moving van, Blake, Charlotte and Ginger get lost and encounter a man named Derek Kiel (Benedict Hardie), a creepy, haunted man whose own late father was a close friend of Grady. Derek agrees to lead them to Grady’s cabin but on the drive, a man in the center of the road causes Blake to swerve into nearby trees where the truck rolls over. Derek is thrown from the truck and in quick succession, he’s attacked and dragged away by some kind of monster on two legs. The monster also attacks Blake, scratching his arm, just as he’s able to escape with Charlotte and Ginger. The three find Grady’s cabin with the monster fast on their tail.

The scratch on Blake’s arm soon becomes a raging infection and Blake begins to descend into a manic state. Meanwhile, the monster outside is stalking the property looking for a way inside. As Charlotte tends to Blake and tries to keep Ginger calm, the story continues to spin out of control. Blake’s senses are evolving quickly, he can no longer communicate with his family, his hearing is so advanced that it’s painful, his eyes can now see in the dark. We learn all of this in a series of terrifically animated scenes that shift perspective from the human world and go inside Blake’s fevered mind.

Wolf Man was co-written and directed by Leigh Whannell whose previous film, The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss was another brilliant reimagining of a classic thriller. Here, working with a legendary movie monster, the Werewolf or Wolf Man, Whannell has once again reinvented and reimagined an old school horror idea, upcycling it with modern movie wizardry and skill. Whannell’s attention to detail, the emphasis on sound design, camera movement, lighting, and editing, elevate what could have been just a gory monster movie into something far more entertaining, exciting, fun, and frightening.

I especially must praise the sound design of Wolf Man. The sound team on this film are the MVP’s, creating an atmosphere where every sound creates a new bit of tension or suspense. Footsteps, the rustling of leaves, heavy pounding on a door, or something as simple as turning door knob or kitchen drawer full of knives, all work together to create a symphony of horror sounds, especially when the lights go out and we know the monster can see in the dark, but Charlotte and Ginger do not. One terrific sequence tracks Charlotte and Ginger backing away from a noise in the darkness. We see through a doorway, a monster creeping down the stairs, his claws dragging with each step. Hidden in the darkness, the camera moves to mimic Charlotte’s darting eyes searching the darkness, all while our breath is caught in our throats knowing that the monster is already in the room.

Great, great stuff. Leigh Whannell was also the co-creator of the Saw franchise, another film where sound design and editing are essential for the kind of misdirection that builds the tension, suspense, and horror of any given scene. That film will be remembered forever, by me at least, for the sound of Cary Elwes sawing off his own leg, the saw on bone, the ragged, grunting breaths, and the surging film score building the moment in our minds as we can’t see the saw cut through the leg, we only imagine it and it’s so much worse that way. Whannell uses the same approach in Wolf Man, that ingenious understanding that what we can’t see is often as, or more, terrifying than what we can see.

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