‘Wolf Man’: Review

Dir: Leigh Whannell. US. 2025. 103mins 

In horror films, fathers are often presented as either protectors or tormentors. In Wolf Man, Christopher Abbott’s patriarch is both, a loving family man powerless to stop his transformation into a ferocious beast that terrorises his wife and daughter. Five years after his thematically provocative The Invisible Man, director Leigh Whannell again gives an indelible Universal property a contemporary relevance, turning this father’s affliction into a metaphor for the demons that bedevil many potentially good parents, whether it be addiction or mental-health issues. Abbott and costar Julia Garner give grounded, emotional performances in this occasionally thoughtful chiller ultimately undone by its grander ambitions.

Only scratches the surface

Universal and veteran horror producer Jason Blum unveil Wolf Man in the UK and US on January 17, hoping to repeat the success of The Invisible Man, which collected $144.5 million worldwide against a tiny budget. Like that 2020 film, which starred Elisabeth Moss, Wolf Man will get a boost from its acclaimed cast and audience familiarity with the title monster. Outside of Nosferatu, the multiplex is bare of horror offerings, so strong grosses seem assured.

Struggling writer Blake (Abbott) lives in San Francisco with his driven journalist wife Charlotte (Garner) and their young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). Blake learns that his estranged, survivalist father Grady has died, leaving his remote Oregon home to his son. Blake and Charlotte are going through a rocky period in their marriage, so he suggests the family spends the summer in the Oregon home to get a fresh start. Reluctantly, Charlotte acquiesces, but this would-be recharge quickly turns fraught when, the night they arrive at the house, Blake is attacked by a mysterious creature — and then begins to transform into the same deadly beast. 

Whannell’s The Invisible Man was a pointed #MeToo commentary in which Moss’s character was on the run from an abusive ex-boyfriend, a tech genius utilising an invisibility invention to slowly drive her mad. That 2020 hit used a classic horror character to reflect on modern-day terrors, and the filmmaker attempts something similar with Wolf Man: a treatise on parenthood, marriage and masculinity disguised as a monster movie set so deep in a dark forest that none of the characters can get phone service. 

Bringing back several of his Invisible Man crew members — including cinematographer Stefan Duscio, editor Andy Canny and composer Benjamin Wallfisch — the director creates a believably strained relationship between Blake and Charlotte, one in which love and resentment coexist. Abbott and Garner exude the proper amounts of tenderness and exhaustion as the family travels to Oregon, hoping to rekindle their spark. We care enough about these people — as well as Firth’s refreshingly non-cutesy Ginger — that when the horrors start to happen, we feel emotionally invested. And Whannell, a veteran of the Saw and Insidious series, knows how to conjure up a creepy atmosphere without resorting to gimmicky jump scares.

Unfortunately, Wolf Man shares with The Invisible Man a difficulty in marrying the story’s more thoughtful ideas with the genre’s requirements. Once Blake is attacked by this feral creature, and then boards himself and his family up in the house in order to keep the monster from getting inside, he begins a gradual, inexorable transformation into a beast. But an eventual plot twist becomes easy to predict precisely because Whannell is not especially subtle with his film’s overarching themes: by about the sixth time Blake earnestly tells Ginger that he was put on this earth to protect her, audiences will surmise where Wolf Man’s terror, no matter how well sustained, is heading.

That said, the film has its share of clever touches and moving passages. Whannell, who co-wrote the script with his wife Corbett Tuck, manages to make Blake’s terrible, sometimes gruesome transformation poignant. The impressive work by hair and makeup designer Jane O’Kane and prosthetic designer Arjen Tuiten allows Abbott to give a soulful performance as a father physically and spiritually devolving — all while a mysterious monster prowls outside the house.

Blake wants to be the hero for his family, but to his horror it is he who is the film’s villain, and Wolf Man has hints of The Shining and David Cronenberg’s The Fly in its portrayal of the frightening men sometimes lurking inside seemingly tranquil personas. But the more Whannell strains to make his bigger points resonate, the more conventional the film’s narrative becomes — alas, this Wolf only scratches the surface.