Review: ‘Wolf Man’ (2025)

The moment it was announced that Leigh Whannell had been hired to co-write and direct the new reboot of Universal’s ‘The Wolf Man’, I knew – to a certain degree – what the film was going to be, and what it was not going to be.  Just as with his previous film, ‘The Invisible Man’ (2020), this new take on the classic is largely in name only, and it was not going to be the tale of Larry Talbot. While the new film does take some (small) elements from George Waggner’s ‘The Wolf Man’ (1941) and Joe Johnston’s criminally underrated remake, ‘The Wolfman’ (2010), Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ is its own beast.

The story follows Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbot), his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner), and their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), whose family bond is on shaky ground. After learning that Blake’s long missing father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has officially been declared dead by the state of Oregon, the couple decide to journey together for some much-needed family bonding to Blake’s childhood home. Along the way they cross paths with a creature, a Wolf Man, whose sudden appearance causes Blake to crash the rental truck into the woods and afflicts Blake with its disease in the process. The family is then forced to flee on foot and take shelter in Grady’s farmhouse as the Wolf Man hunts them. Cut off from communication with the outside world and isolated in the middle of nowhere, the family finds themselves in an impossible situation; while the Wolf Man lurks outside the farmhouse, Blake begins to experience a metamorphosis because of the passed-on disease, and one thing becomes clear: the danger is as real inside as it is outside.

Walking out of the theater I felt some mixed feelings about the film. I think it’s a good movie overall and found that it had plenty of good things going for it, but there are also some things that just didn’t work for me.

Right from the beginning of the film Whannell lets you know his version is going to be more grounded, with his werewolves being less supernatural in nature and more of a product of a rare disease, known as “Face of the Wolf”, and it’s this take that I suspect will be the most controversial among genre fans. The presented take itself isn’t entirely bad, and it does help the film stand out from the others, but it is this take that is responsible for my biggest issue with this film, and that is the creature design. I understand the need to develop a new look to be different from the Jack Pierce and Rick Baker designs of the past, and that the design needed to be reflective of this world and the rules they created for it, but what special effects artist Arjen Tuiten came up with here doesn’t work. I found it incredibly difficult to take Christopher Abbott’s Wolf Man seriously as I spent the entire time in the theater thinking about how it reminds me of Tom Cruise’s Les Grossman from ‘Tropic Thunder’ and less like the Wolf Man.

On the plus side, the direction and cinematography are solid, and Whannell and his team do some creative things to visually show us what Blake is experiencing as he goes through the metamorphosis process. The disease affecting the characters’ ability to communicate with his family and understand human language is a welcome addition to the lore of werewolves, and the way Whannell’s team presents this to the audience through visuals and sound gives this film its own identity in a sea full of generic werewolf films.

Another thing that I liked about this version is the finality of it; once you become afflicted with the disease, there’s no going back. The shift is permanent, which carries the theme of tragedy that is a staple of the Wolf Man brand, and this felt effective due to the established bond between Blake and his daughter Ginger. Perhaps it’s because I am a father of two daughters myself, but the scene where Ginger tells Charlotte that she wants her dad back to the way he was before got to me. Anyone who’s familiar with the Wolf Man films knows that she’ll never get this wish. The tragedy that befalls this family is punctuated by the new rules, and this I thought was effective.

The performances from Abbott, Garner, Firth, and Jaeger are all fine here, and Abbott gets to shine during the second half of the movie during the body horror moments as his character slowly succumbs to the disease.

Overall, Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ is a well-made, well-paced, and well-acted horror film that doesn’t share much in common with the brand that it’s a part of. In some ways I feel like this film shouldn’t have been associated with ‘The Wolf Man’, and could have easily existed as its own, original property under a different title – ‘Face of the Wolf’, perhaps – but regardless of this and my lack of enthusiasm for the werewolf design, it’s a movie that I will be adding to my blu ray collection, even if it doesn’t quite stack up against the 1941 and 2010 films. Who knows, maybe over time and with multiple watches this film will grow on me, and I’ll love it just as much as those two films.

Grade: 7 out of 10

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About Seth T. Miller 93 Articles
I am first and foremost a proud father of two daughters who may or may not be possessed by demonic entities/deadites -- time will tell on that one, but I am pretty confident that one of them translated the Necronomicon. I enjoy short walks to my movie collection, reading in goddamn piece and quiet, and watching the same movies and tv series over and over instead of discovering new stuff.