Wolf Man
Blake Lovell may have had a father, but he never had anyone who raised him and took care of him, Grady enforcing military-like discipline in their farmhouse in the mountains of Oregon, early rises before hunting trips where lessons would be shouted at the boy so he would remember, Grady demanding Blake accompany him even though he knew the forests were not safe, harbouring not only bears but something called ma’iingan obengwan in the native dialect, “the face of the wolf.”
Thirty years later, Blake receives the formal notification that his long-missing father has been declared dead, prompting him to suggest his wife Charlotte and their daughter Ginger join him on a road trip from San Francisco to visit the old homestead to pack up; arriving at dusk they are reminded of the warning that it is dangerous to be out after dark on the mountains, and swerving to avoid a half-glimpsed upright shape on the road their van careens into a valley, Blake injured when the thing smashes the window.
Leigh Whannell having created the Saw franchise before moving to directing, having reinvented The Invisible Man for Universal in 2020 when The Mummy saw the studio’s hopes for a “Dark Universe” built around their classic characters fall at the first hurdle, with co-writer Corbett Tuck he now transforms the Wolf Man into something more modern and minimalist than George Waggner and Curt Siodmak’s classic of 1941 and fifteen years after it was last remade by Captain America’s Joe Johnston.
The script stripped back from anything resembling a wider plot to focus on the metamorphosis of Blake, trapped in the remote house with his family with no power or means of calling for help, also absent is any atmosphere or semblance of interesting characters, Poor Things’ Christoper Abbot and We Are What We Are’s Julia Garner seeming to have been cast specifically to embody the tortured existential pain of being bland, straight, white middle class Americans.
Much of the film conducted in near darkness and with sparse dialogue, what is left is insufficient to carry the film, Blake losing the power of speech and gnawing on his own wounded flesh while neither Charlotte nor Ginger fill the vacuum with powerful words, the themes of family and sacrifice writ bold but shallow with Blake determined to be a better father than his own was yet unable to even pay attention on an unfamiliar dirt road in the dark and Charlotte displaying no gumption, out of her big city comfort zone and offering little which might be considered helpful actions.
Lacking the authenticity and atmosphere of The Howling, the wit and horror of An American Werewolf in London, the dread and excitement of Dog Soldiers, even the genuine family dynamic and menace of Silver Bullet or the sheer physical presence of the monstrous creature which destroyed the gypsy camp in the opening act of the 2010 Benicio del Toro version, it would be disingenuous to say that Wolf Man was an ugly mutt because despite their flaws mongrels are often endearing; for a better firsthand examination of the loss of self to the beast, refer instead to The Last Werewolf.
Wolf Man is currently on general release and also screening in IMAX
