I grew up as a huge Universal Monsters fan as a kid. As such my favorite monster was The Wolf Man played by Lon Chaney Jr. He exuded a lot of emotion while playing Lawrence Talbott.  You could tell he was connected to the character in every way possible. Years later the Universal Monsters have had their starts and stops. Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy and various versions of Dracula and Frankenstein have appeared on the big screen. There was even a Wolf Man reboot in 2010 starring Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins. That was a decent film with a good twist ending. The later Wolf Man under the Blumhouse Banner is more of an indie film. It has a smaller vibe. Nonetheless, it’s a Universal Monsters character so I’m here to support it.

Using a framing device, director Leigh Whannell,  who also directed The Invisible Man,  starring Elizabeth Moss,  a few years ago,  gives viewers the story of a legend roaming the Oregon forests at night. A father and son encounter the beast briefly but escape unharmed.  The child Blake just goes home with a bruised ego and a lesson from his stern father. “Stay with me at all times,” he says. The adult Blake (Christopher Abbott) takes this message to heart now that he’s the father of a little girl himself, Ginger (Matilda Firth). After hearing of the passing of his father, the adult Blake takes his family,  wife Charlotte (Julia Garner), and the aforementioned daughter back to his childhood home to clear up and pack his father’s things. They end up getting involved in something they wish they hadn’t as the legend of the Wolf Man comes forward to scare the hell out of the trio of unsuspecting travelers. 

Leigh Whannell caught fire with his previous Universal Monsters reimagining The Invisible Man. It made sense that Universal Pictures and Jason Blum wanted to get into business with him again. He had a good idea to bring this classic character back to theaters. I just don’t think the idea was completely fleshed out as much as it could have been. At the forefront is a legend that the story is based on, but I don’t think that legend is used to its fullest in the story. Once the beast is in full view the film reverts to a monster chasing family and the family has to try and run and survive. It’s a basic horror film trope I’ve seen a thousand times. I wish there were more to the story overall.

After Ryan Gosling dropped out of the main role Christopher Abbott stepped in as the main protagonist/antagonist. The character’s fatherly instincts are used to subvert the audience. Abbott is usually cast in little indie films with some sort of odd premise; this film and the recently released Kraven the Hunter are two of the more mainstream movies he’s been in in recent years. He holds his own in the film opposite another indie darling actress Julia Garner (The Assistant). They have okay chemistry on screen, but I wasn’t completely sold on their on-screen husband-and-wife relationship.  You could tell there was something off about the pair of actors. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.

Now the Actress who played the little girl in the film, Matilda Firth, annoyed the hell out of me. Maybe it was the direction from Whannell or what was written in the script, but her voice was like nails on the chalkboard to me. Every time she said Daddy this or Mommy that, I wanted to cover my ears.  She came across as bad to me in the context of the film. I feel bad about that because I don’t want to bash child actors. I feel she may have been miscast though. Child actors can be great in movies, this one though was far from that from my humble perspective. 

Whannell used a specific thing to bring the monster’s awareness of what was going on around him to light. A sixth sense if you will. This was effective in showing the difficulty from its point of view of trying to figure out what was going on. This is a different take on this classic monster, but similar to the emotions Lon Chaney had during his performance as this character, this gave it some humanity if you will. Even though it was a bloodthirsty ravaging beast at the end of the day. Creative choices like these give me more of a positive outlook on the movie than I’d otherwise have in a different circumstance. 

Wolf Man isn’t your classic Universal Monsters character we’ve all come to love, but neither was The Invisible Man. That film had an ingenuity to it that I don’t think anybody saw coming. This one was more of a tried and true monster movie with familiar horror tropes. Whannell and company did the best they could with the material they had to work with. He’s a solid director nonetheless.  The cast was mostly fine with Abbott as the standouts, Garner going through the motions, and Firth annoying as all get out. Overall this is what I should have expected from a January Blumhouse horror film. It’s just not exactly the Wolf Man I necessarily wanted in the end.  I can’t recommend this reboot of my beloved Wolfman, unfortunately. 

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen