Wolf Man (2025)

This week, I finally watched a movie that was actually released this year, Wolf Man (dir: Leigh Whannell, 2025). At this point, I’ve been back at work for two weeks now and it’s been pretty rough unfortunately. My fellow respiratory therapist apparently took off work during my vacation because of a bad back and he won’t be returning until this coming Friday. Given past history, I feel that he’s milking if not outright faking it, but I digress. Anyhow, I went to see Wolf Man with friends at, you guessed it, the Cinemark 16 XD Theater in Victorville, California. This time we paid for an actual XD showtime. For those not in the know, XD is a premium auditorium exclusive to Cinemark, touting bigger screens and more immersive surround sound than a standard screening. I’ll get to how that factored into my enjoyment of the movie in a little bit. Otherwise, the movie-going experience was fine. Interestingly enough, this is a first for the year where the auditorium was not mostly empty; there were a few couples and groups that came to see the movie as well. As for the new trailers I saw,  many of them were expectedly for horror films, namely Until Dawn (2025), Companion (2025), Presence (2025), The Woman in the Yard (2025), and Drop (2025). From what I understand, Until Dawn is an adaptation of a formerly Playstation exclusive horror game; I have not played the game for myself, but the concept as presented in the trailer seemed interesting. The trailer for Companion stuck out to me as I’m always down for Sci-Fi horror and would like to see how this movie plays out. In regards to Presence, supernatural horror (ghost stuff in particular) is not always interesting to me, but I did like the shot direction that was present in the trailer; I only really know of Steven Soderbergh’s work from Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) so I’m not sure if he’s done horror before. The Woman in the Yard didn’t really stick out to me, even if the titular character did visually stick out in the trailer, but perhaps I may watch it if a future week turns out that way. Drop seems to be incredibly topical and of the moment when it comes to home invasion horror, but it also looks so bonkers that it may be worth a watch.

I’ll begin by stating that at the time of writing, I have not seen The Wolf Man (dir; George Waggner, 1941). Of the classic Universal Monsters, Wolf Man was always the least interesting to me and I have heard that it is one of the weaker films from the old monster movies. I’ll watch it one day, but I wanted to make that known before getting into this new movie. Basically, I don’t want you to think that any criticism that I have towards this movie (and boy do I have critiques) is influenced by any sort of reverence for the original film. This new Wolf Man takes place in the present day and centers around a writer turned stay-at-home dad (Christopher Abbott) who takes his wife (Julia Garner) and young daughter (Matilda Firth) out to his childhood home in the remote Oregon wilderness, after learning that his militaristic hard-ass father has died and that they need to pack up his things. Upon arriving, the family is attacked by some kind of wolf-like man creature, a Wolf Man if you would, and the father begins to undergo some dramatic changes.  

I’ll start out with the positives. I do appreciate the sound design in this movie. Given that this movie primarily takes place in the Oregon wilderness you have your typical immersive foley, enhanced by the sound featured in the XD auditorium. For me one of the best showcases for sound are the earlier sequences with the wolfman on the hunt. In the opening sequence of the film, we only get mere quick glances of the creature, however it is sonically that we’re given clues as to where the creature may be. From his distance howls to his aggressive sprints from what seem to be all parts of the forest, the surround track in these earlier sequences (enhanced by the XD speakers) help to create tension while only showing as little of the creature as possible and contribute to, in my opinion, the most effective scares in the movie. In addition, as Blake the father is undergoing his earlier stages of wolf transformation, his senses (especially sound) begin to heighten. There’s a cool scene where he begins to hear loud thumping sounds as though a creature was approaching and he searches up and down the house to find the source, only for it to be a “relatively” small spider. While we’re on the subject of Blake’s heightened senses, I’d like to also give a nod to the color grading in this movie. Much of this movie takes place in the dark & at night. However, as Blake begins to turn, he gains a sort of “Wolf-Vision” where sound and dialogue seems amplified, yet muffled & unintelligible, and colors begin to shift towards a sort of blueish white as though his surroundings (indoor & outdoor) are lit by the moon. The movie also does a good job of transitioning from Blake’s Wolf-man perspective to that of his wife (Charlotte) and daughter (Ginger) in scenes where they try in vain to communicate with each other. “Wolf-Vision” also contributes to what I thought was a genuinely creepy moment later in the movie. Charlotte and Ginger are seemingly alone in a dark barn while hiding from a fully wolfed-out Blake, only for the perspective to switch to Blake’s “Wolf-Vision” to show us that he is right in front of them. Lastly, I’d also like to note that the gore effects were pretty good and effective at grossing out the audience.

As for the negatives, basically all my problems with this movie just stem from poor acting and even worse writing, particularly dialogue. This movie wants you to understand that Blake’s transformation into the Wolf-Man is tragic and also wants the transformation to be a sort of metaphor for generational trauma & turning into the worst parts of your parents. However, each time the movie attempts to have a touching moment or an emotional scene to flesh out the plot & characters, it comes off as forced and/or falls flat completely. The movie hand-holds you into understanding that Blake is more or less traumatized from growing up alone with his hard-ass dad in the wilderness and will remind you multiple times that he loves his family, especially his daughter, and strives to have no harm come to them. When Charlotte and Blake (who are implied to have at least a strained marriage)  attempt to have a heart-to-heart, express sorrow, or have any sort of emotional connection, it more often than not devolves into drawn out & unintentionally funny staring contests as they awkwardly walk away from each other. The same hand-holding is present when the movie slows down to a crawl to give some very clunky exposition. Without getting too deep into spoilers, the worst example of this comes after the conclusion of a later action heavy scene where Charlotte explains to Ginger exactly what had just happened (as if Ginger did not just witness it with her own eyes).

With that being said, I’m going to give Wolf Man a Worst Movie Ever. There are some good concepts and sequences and while I can appreciate trying to link the transformation into the titular creature to a relatively modern theme of generational trauma, the poor acting and writing lead to an overall bland and predictable horror movie that you stop taking seriously early on. The awkward emotional scenes and poor chemistry between the characters can lead to some unintentionally funny moments, but not enough to consider rewatching the movie to riff on with friends. It's a shame because I really enjoyed The Invisible Man (2020), which shares the same writer and director as this movie. I'm not sure what happened here, but now I wonder if 1941 original is better than this.

As for my next post, I’m not sure what it’ll be on yet. I see that Presence is apparently going to be out by next week so maybe I’ll watch that or perhaps One of them Days (2025). Just depends on my mood. Have a good night.