Director Leigh Whannell’s last film, 2020’s reimagining of the classic Universal horror film The Invisible Man, achieved something close to instant classic status. Featuring perhaps the best performance of Elisabeth Moss’s storied career, plus a fascinating commentary about domestic abuse and gaslighting, the film struck a chord and became one of cinema’s last big hits before we went into the pandemic. Universal Pictures and producer Jason Blum’s production company Blumhouse, has once again hired Whannell to reimagine one of their great catalog horror franchises, with this weekend’s Wolf Man. And considering this is a studio horror film released in the first few weeks of January, Wolf Man is above average. But as a follow up to The Invisible Man, this is quite the letdown. 

When Blake (Christopher Abbott) was a young child, his father seemingly disappeared on a trip into the woods, never to return. As an adult, he is a writer ‘in between jobs’, currently a stay at home dad to young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), and married to overworked journalist Charlotte (Julia Garner). When he receives the news that his father has been declared deceased, he takes his family to the house in rural Oregon where he grew up, right by where his father disappeared. After they pick up a stranger, and get into a car accident, Blake discovers he’s been scratched by something. And the outlook isn’t good.

It’s something of a tradition for every January to be full of the worst cinema has to offer. Most audiences are either catching up on the big, buzzy titles that I am lumping together to call ‘holiday season leftovers’, and some are seeing the year’s awards-contending titles, which slowly trickle out to the rest of the country over the months of January and February. There’s always at least one film released in January that is so bad, it makes me question my love for cinema altogether. I didn’t think Wolf Man would be that movie, considering the talent behind and in front of the camera. But the fact that I’m coming out of it with a shoulder shrug is a different kind of disappointment entirely.

Wolf Man is a perfectly serviceable creature feature. It’s also a bit of a bummer, and it’s never any fun. You’re given no reason not to root for Christopher Abbott’s character and his family. Sure, they’re initially presented as kind of tone-deaf yuppie types, but you’re meant to connect with these people and care about them. And the majority of this story is the wife and daughter dealing with this horrible thing that’s happening to the family patriarch that they have no control over. And then in the third act, of course, they have to defend themselves from him as he becomes increasingly aggressive. And then when you walk out of the theater, you don’t feel a sense of satisfaction or catharsis. It just feels like you’ve witnessed this awful thing and now it’s just over. I found the whole thing emotionally distancing as a viewer, especially since the film never really gave me any compelling reason to care about any of these people. 

If Whannell and co-screenwriter Corbett Tuck wanted to forego the social commentary that made The Invisible Man so memorable for just scaring the audience senseless, that would be a compromise that would make sense to me. However, the film is annoyingly heavy on the jump scare, and that is a lazy choice for any horror movie. I will say the practical creature effects look good, and the body horror element of this person transforming into something that isn’t quite human, is powerfully depicted. At a certain point, Christopher Abbott is unrecognizable and he manages to sell this horrifying evolution convincingly. But that just adds to the bummer element of this whole thing. This is not a good time at the movies, I left it feeling a sense of defeat, not like I had just enjoyed what I just watched. 

Christopher Abbott is an actor I’ve always enjoyed. He’s always picking interesting projects – great in movies like Sanctuary, Possessor and Poor Things. This seems like a step down for him and also for co-star Julia Garner, who has also made a strong impression in films like Grandma, The Assistant and of course Netflix’s megahit series Ozark. The two actors have no chemistry, however and their relationship does not serve a strong enough anchor to this story. Like I said, we’re meant to care deeply about these people by the time we get to the end of this story and the film never really made me care about any of it. 

The technical aspects here are executed to varying degrees of effectiveness. The sound design is great, there’s a sense of dread that permeates early on and stays that way. As I said, the creature effects are mostly practical and that aspect of it looks great. But the cinematography is weird and very dark, and I kept thinking about how if you watched this at home, you’d have to have all of the lights turned off in the room, plus the brightness turned up on your television, for you to have any chance of seeing what’s going on. Everything is so under-lit for the second half of this movie, at certain moments it’s genuinely difficult to even see what’s going on. And that’s a problem for anyone who isn’t watching this on the big screen.

Overall, there was more about Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man that annoyed me than what thrilled me. For a studio horror film released in the doldrums of January, it’s not bad. I’ve seen far worse from this time of the year, but considering all that Whannell could have given us with his version of a Wolf Man story, this is pretty underwhelming stuff. I’d go see it if you’re caught up on all the other better offerings at the cinema right now and you’re a member of AMC A-List, or Regal Unlimited, or some other service where you’re not paying for the ticket. But I feel like one really isn’t missing all that much if they were to skip this one altogether.