Eye For Film >> Movies >> Wolf Man (2025) Film Review
Wolf Man
Reviewed by: Andrew Robertson
Wolf Man joins Nosferatu among 2025's re-imaginings of films whose age is perhaps better measured in centuries than decades. It takes its name and core plot elements from the 1941 film though several of the makeup and creature designs seem to owe more to other Lon Chaney roles.
Blake (Christopher Abbott) had a childhood spent in wooded wilds, with a Marine father his only family in a fortified forest farm. We're given a sketch of the compound in a brief prologue which includes a prototypical sequence of events. A figure appears, a brief chase, a siege, and then a moment of reflection and revelation.
The parallels are especially obvious in what might be New York, character moments as wedded to the grid as the streets of that city. The young Blake (Zac Chandler) would recognise how his older self treats daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). I missed a scene where Blake changed into a USMC uniform shirt, but that's possibly the only change not foregrounded. Even the shape of a wolf's head in sweat on the back of that shirt pushes the 'subtle foreshadowing' button so hard that it strains credulity.
As spouse Charlotte, Julia Garner walks a difficult course because at times what is likely the flattened affect of shock seems passivity. That's in part because her performance is often of small and muted moments, and amongst frequently dimly lit scenes they can be lost to contrast. That's both to a lack of it, most of the action in a single night, and against the grand guignol. Her adult co-stars aren't chewing the scenery as much as themselves and each other.
Leigh Whannell has form for revisiting classic Universal monsters, but in comparison The Invisible Man retained more than just the definite article. Co-writing with spouse Corbett Tuck, she makes her début behind the camera, though it's not the first time she's worked with him since Insidious.
There are several of his characteristic camera movements, and some of those are the film's strongest moments. A dizzying sequence captures Blake's unease in a way that verges on the nauseating. Anyone who's struggled with an infection will recognise the unreliability of perception and that shivering perspective. Unlike In A Violent Nature, where the camera is as steady implacable as the predator portrayed, Wolf Man is almost constantly prowling.
There are a few jump scares, a couple of unsettling moments relying on sound design, and as perceptions change some eye-opening homages to They Live and Manhunter. There's the standard set of creepy local and other rural dangers. There's eventually a revelation that might have been surprising if it hadn't been so clearly telegraphed by dialogue that feels like a topic sentence or summation of the moral.
An opening block of text suggests a better title, "the face of the wolf," a Native myth that's apparently somewhere in the intersection of rabies and the wendigo. The compressed calendar of lycanthropy here is closer to zombie rules than anything lunar. The medical elements of this pale in comparison to the nonsense in the similarly schlocky Flight Risk, which has aircraft first aid kits that are either of sufficient vintage or poorly researched that they contain morphine.
While mostly set in mountainous Oregon, this film was apparently shot in Ireland with some (post-) production in New Zealand. Those all have temperate rainforests and while it's not an unreasonable substitution it's still one thing in the guise of another. A small cast, despite good performances, puts a lot of emphasis on the script and it's often as homogenous and wooden as the environment. Abbot's making the leap to leading man. He's been among the baddies in fare as diverse as Poor Things and Kraven The Hunter. Garner's had extensive television experience but I realised her face was most familiar to me from a coffee pod campaign.
I was surprised to discover the score was by Benjamin Wallfisch but I now wonder how much of what I've noticed of his work was borrowed. His better contributions have had other themes to draw upon, and Blade Runner 2049, Alien: Romulus and even Twisters had something to say. That might mean that it disappeared into the background, but the action was so often very dark that it wasn't alone in that.
That nagging feeling of obscured familiarity runs throughout Wolf Man. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing right with it either. There are whole sections where the only thing that stands out is a figure, in headlights, shadows, or silhouette. Those are so brief and boilerplate that they could have been stamped or punched from material that wasn't recycled and it wouldn't have been evident. There have been statements about practical effects but the revolutions in depiction were decades ago and for all that material science and production technologies have improved since then, the alchemy of movie magic is as much intent as execution. There's little new under the sun, and even less by moonlight. It might look a little different but however spooky it might seem it's just the same as before.
Reviewed on: 28 Jan 2025