This horror reboot barks up the wrong tree.
Monster movie reboots have had their ups and downs. “The Mummy” in 2017 was a bombastic nightmare that gave me a headache, while “The Invisible Man” in 2020 was a smart and entertaining surprise that served quite well for the #MeToo era. And “Godzilla X Kong” movies seem to be doing well with movie-goers, although we would prefer “Godzilla Minus One.”
Now, comes “Wolf Man,” which is written and directed by Leigh Whannell (who also made “The Invisible Man”), and is the latest movie version of the classic story after the 2010 movie with Benicio Del Toro. But unfortunately, it never stands on its own, and relies on old horror movie cliches and stupid choices. Sometimes, I felt like I was in the 80s. In fact, this one almost plays like “The Shinning,” except it takes place in a remote house in the middle of an Oregon forrest.
This one is set in the 2020s, obviously.
Christopher Abbot plays a San Francisco writer and stay-at-home dad named Blake, who finds out that his hunter father (Sam Jaeger) has been declared dead, and looking for a way to reconnect with his journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), he brings them back to his hometown in Oregon to collect his old man’s things.
But as the trip progresses, the family would never dream they would end up in a nightmare, one where they get chased by something, which scratches Blake, who becomes possessed into something. And that something would make him a Wolf Man. I think we can agree that’s one of the few predictable elements of the film.
An example of the stupidity is when Ginger asks her mother to let her possessed father in the house. Obviously, neither one of them watch horror movies, and the youngster thinks she can tame him with her mind-reading gifts. She doesn’t have the Shining; she and her dad do the kind of “I love you” thoughts game.
There are some interesting moments in “Wolf Man,” like how the possessed Blake seems to be in some kind of void where he can’t understand his loved ones. To him, they seem to be speaking in a different language, and I like the blue ambiance that surrounds him, especially when he uses his night visions now that he’s an animal. There’s also a truck crash that looks and has that campy feel to it that makes it fun. And the opening father-son hunting trip has more tension than the actual werewolf scenes, which are photographed a little too dark for us to comment on the special effects.
Abbott seems to be doing what he can in the role, but this movie has nothing on how his bad character was punished with the brain of a goat in “Poor Things.” In fact, I like to think this film has that sort of brain. But I also like to think it doesn’t have the kind of transformation it needs to be fresh and original.
The man’s transformation takes place in one night and features no transformation of him being a human again in the daytime. It just goes for the kill, as if Gaston killed the Beast and he wasn’t able to return to his human form again. That’s how I like to see this version.
Stick to the classics.
