Whannell’s Wolf Man: A Familial Tragedy of Devolutionary Body Horror Terror
When his father is pronounced dead years after going missing in an Oregon forest, unemployed writer and stay-at-home dad Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) makes the trek back for the first time in 30 years, joined by his journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). The trio hopes the trip will help the semi-estranged parents rediscover the love they once shared that is now starting to feel like a distant memory.
But there is something in the woods surrounding their isolated destination. Having forced their truck off of the road, it appears to be more human than animal, but apparently will not rest until it has feasted on their flesh. Now, trapped inside a crumbling house, with their options dwindling by the minute, the family must heal old wounds and work together as a unit if they ever hope to live to see a new dawn unscathed.
Much like he did with 2020’s superb The Invisible Man, director and co-writer Leigh Whannell reinvents the classic Universal Monster cinematic lore with Wolf Man, a stripped-down, decidedly modern take on lycanthropic lore. Owing more to Native American mythologies involving human-to-animal shapeshifting than to either Lon Chaney Jr., Curt Siodmak, or even John Landis, at its core this is a tragic family saga that cuts deep and leaves a lasting scar.
Here, the true danger may be lurking inside the house. Blake was injured during the group’s confrontation with the creature, and now he’s questioning his sanity as his physical shell betrays him. In something of a cross between a David Cronenberg body-horror yarn (like The Brood or The Fly) and the legend of the Algonquian wendigo, this devoted father starts to lose the core of who he is. Blake sees himself becoming something almost primeval as Charlotte and Ginger look on in befuddled terror, and the emotional carnage this causes is understandably massive.
The first half of the film is marvelous. Starting with an effectively tense prologue with an adolescent Blake (Zac Chandler) — deviously foreshadowing the coming dangers before quickly shifting gears to the present-day melodrama — Whannell and co-writer Corbett Tuck do a fine job of setting a firm foundation. Extra emphasis is given to the relationship between father and daughter, whose bond borders on psychic and is the key to this endeavor’s shattering intimacy.
Things shift into high gear early, during the mysterious creature’s initial attack on the family. The truck crash, subsequent escape from the wreckage, and perilous sprint to Blake’s empty childhood residence is a nerve-racking Rube Goldberg scenario reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park or James Cameron’s The Abyss — just one calamitous event after another. Whannell winningly stages every twist, turn, and close encounter with invigorating joie de vivre.
The second half isn’t nearly as strong, mainly because there aren’t that many surprises. Once the threat is thrust into the moonlight in all its fanged, furry glory, there just certain places Whannell and Tuck can take things. This is an audience-friendly rollercoaster ride of mayhem and monsters, and while the familial elements ground the feature in a universally personal way, I still can’t imagine that anyone will be shocked by the conclusion.
But that’s okay. Whannell does such a grand job of orchestrating the increasingly chaotic events and keeping the drama centered on Blake, Charlotte, and Ginger’s reactions that it doesn’t matter that the film isn’t nearly as innovative or inventive as the marvelous The Invisible Man was. This is still a deliciously enthralling monster mash, with the added benefit of putting its characters and their development first and the vigorously engineered thrills and chills a laudable second.
It also helps that Abbott is outstanding. His performance is a finely calibrated stunner, one that gets more fascinatingly personal and multifaceted the more his character loses his ability to function and communicate. From Blake initially not realizing just how much of himself is starting to vanish, to his tearful frustration that he can no longer speak for himself or even understand human speech, Abbott makes this devolution magnetically horrifying.
This is coupled with stupendous practical makeup effects that give this iteration of our wolflike creatures a look and feel that’s somewhat similar to the great Rick Baker’s masterful designs in Mike Nichols’ undervalued 1994 gem, Wolf. Yet they are also utterly unique. There is a disheveled, feral quality to the creatures’ designs by artists Jane O’Kane (The Meg) and Arjen Tuiten (Pan’s Labyrinth). It’s as if they are distinctively unfinished, as if evolution didn’t know quite what to do with the monstrosities it accidentally birthed from the pits of its nastiest hollows.
After getting his start working in tandem with James Wan on the likes of Saw, Dead Silence, and Insidious, Whannell is quickly proving himself a creative force in his own right. If that wasn’t already apparent with the one-two punch of Upgrade and The Invisible Man, it certainly is now after Wolf Man. His films have bite, and I for one can’t wait to greedily nibble upon whatever story he wants to share with us all next.
– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)
