Wolf Man(2025) Written Review

 

Wolf Man

Cast:Christopher Abbott, Julie Garner,Matilda Firth

Writers: Leigh Whannell, Corbet Tuck

Director: Leigh Whannell

** and a 1/2 *'s out of 5

 

Adapting the classic werewolf tale for a modern audience is no easy feat.  Especially since the original The Wolf Man staring Lon Chaney Jr from 1941 has been made into countless other hair raising tales.  From American Werewolf in London to Dog Soliders and Teen Wolf to just plain Wolf.  There is no shortage of stories for audiences to sink their teeth into.

Now we have Wolf Man 2025 directed by Leigh Whannell who also made The Invisible Man for Universal in 2020 and the SciFi gem, Upgrade in 2018.   This new tail..umm tale involves Blake(Christopher Abbott) bringing his family to help pack up his father’s farm after he passed away.  Along for the trip is his wife Charlotte(Julie Garner) and his daughter Ginger(Matilda Firth) whose name is a straight up reference to the horror classic Ginger Snaps. On their way up they run into some complications when Blake is attacked by a werewolf and is slowly turning into one as the night progresses.

 

There have been other movies where the lead character makes the slow transformation from human to beast and this one is at least decent in it’s attempt.  Christopher Abbott does a good job in the lead and you can still feel his pain at becoming a monster even through all the makeup. He is just not that scary when he does start turning.  He was way more menacing at the end of Poor Things than he is here  Julie Garner and Matilda Firth are also ok in supporting roles but their characters should have been written better. It’s established early on that Ginger gets along with her dad way more than her mom. If they made Charlotte the step mother there could have been some tension between mother and daughter at the start.  That element could build more when Blake begins to change and they could disagree on what to do with him. 

This new adaptation does have some pretty ghastly gory moments that will leave audience members wincing and it has a good amount of suspense as well.  But just when the action gets really going, the story and the movie all of a sudden just ends.  It’s less than ninety minutes but could have used a better conclusion than what we got.  The length of the movie is understandable since at most theaters (especially AMC )they play over thirty minutes of ad spots before the actual feature. 

Wolf Man has  many elements that are worth a watch but it’s one that you can wait til it’s streaming on Peacock(Owned by Universal) before you do..   

Jason "The Vern" Hemming is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA).  Read other great film reviews by other amazing writers

https://mnfilmcriticsassociation.com/