Director Leigh Whannell’s follow-up to 2020’s The Invisible Man continues his exploration of the human condition behind the veneer of losing it in this adaptation of the classic Universal Monster tale.
Over the past several years, Leigh Whannell has been crafting a cinematic universe of post modern horror under the umbrella of Blumhouse and Universal. There was Upgrade, a 2018 science fiction film that owed as much to Frankenstein as it did to Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. In 2020, the success of Upgrade led to Whannell scripting and directing The Invisible Man, a remake of the classic Universal Monster film set in the world of Upgrade with the company Kobol referenced in Upgrade being a major plot element. And now, in 2025, we have Wolfman, not so much a remake of the Lon Chaney film, but a reimagining again set in the corner of the Universal Monsters world Whannell has crafted across three films. Whannell’s Wolfman, taking bits of lore and imagining from other werewolf films and media, is a body horror reimagining of the idea of a werewolf that explores the ties that bind one to family and loved ones. In many ways, its reminiscent of Ken Russell’s Altered States in this regard with shades of The Shining in terms of its structure and frayed family dynamic. But Whannell brings those threads together in a unique rumination on love and loss.
Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, Possessor) here stars as the erstwhile Wolfman, here named Blake. An unemployed writer, he spends much of his time as a stay-at-home father to his daughter Ginger, while his wife Charlotte, played by Julia Garner (Ozark, Inventing Anna), supports the family working full-time as a journalist. The arrangement and dynamic has led to a frayed family dynamic and Blake and Charlotte’s relationship is withering. We find that Blake is at a crossroads and his father has been declared dead in absentia after being missing for a long period of time. Blake suggests they take a family trip to his father’s compound in Oregon to tie up his estate and bring the family together. A trip that is sorely needed. But upon arriving in town, the family is met by the son of a hunter Blake knew in his youth (played by Whannell regular Benedict Hardie) who warns him of the dangers of the area they are visiting. The area is believed by many to hold a dark illness called Hills disease, or as the natives their call it, “The Face of the Wolf.” Not long after learning this, Blake and his family swerve to avoid hitting a man in the road who consequently attacks Blake and may have infected him with this illness which manifests as an awakening of his senses that cuts him off from his family. The degradation in his physical form seems to be turning him into something else, but the ties of his family strain as they try to see if they can trust him with their lives as they’re hunted by another face of the wolf who might be connected to Blake.
Whannell’s strengths here are in grounding the film in the performance and chemistry between Abbott and Garner. You can tell these characters mean something to each other even if it is at a low point. In many ways, the scenery and structure remind you of The Shining where Jack and Wendy clearly did have a love and that is tested by Jack’s haunting at the Overlook. Here the test is whether the degradation that Blake is experiencing makes him a true other. Is he connected to his family or to the disease that the Hills has inflicted on him. The performance by Matilda Firth as Ginger makes you rott for this family to come together, but as a classic Universal Monsters tale, a story grounded in grief usually ends in loss.
That being said, the film’s atmosphere is very strong, but the minimal soundtrack by Benjamic Walfisch really could help drive the plot more. At times, its difficult to see what is happening due to the dim lighting of the film as many jumpscares are predicated on being able to see movement that sometimes is hard to fathom. But overall, Wolfman is an engaging tale, a meditation on love and loss in the vein of Whannell’s Upgrade and Invisible Man. Check it out and hopefully we’ll see more in this vein as Whannell seems to be tapped to be Blumhouse’s modern day James Whale or Tod Browning interpreting the new age of gods and monsters.
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WOLFMAN (2025)
** /* Stars of 5 *
A solid entry in the Blumhouse Monsters pantheon, but not as great as Upgrade or Invisible Man.
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VIDEO REVIEW