Wolf Man (Trailer Review)

"What if someone you loved became something else?" 

That's the question asked by the trailer and at the heart of Leigh Whannell's lycanthropic body horror film, Wolf Man, the second remake of the 1941 classic written by Curt Siodmak and directed by George Waggner. In that film, Larry Talbot, played by the identically named son of late horror icon Lon Chaney, returned to his hometown to bury his recently deceased brother and reconnect with his estranged father, played by The Invisible Man himself, Claude Rains. While taking a leisurely walk one night with Gwen Carliffe, an engaged woman he met at the antique shop where she worked, Larry tried to save a friend of Gwen's from being mauled by a werewolf, beating it to death with a silver wolf-headed walking stick. In the struggle, Larry was bitten, and the deceased turned out to be not a wolf, but rather a human man. (The original Dracula, no less, Bela Lugosi.) Soon after, during every full moon, Larry would transform -- or at least believed he was transforming -- into a werewolf himself, and only when killed by his own father with the same weapon he had used on Lugosi could Larry be freed from this curse.

What makes the original Wolf Man one of my favorite vintage horror films is the way in which it transformed its supposed hero into the very source of horror terrorizing his own town. I always say, you can run from the masked maniac chasing you in the woods with a machete. You can hide under your covers or under your bed from the big, bad monster trudging its way up the stairs, heading straight for your bedroom. But what about when the thing that's terrorizing you is yourself? What if you're the villain of your own horror story, the one causing pain and suffering to others, whether you intend to or not? And you're the one that needs to be stopped? After all, you can't hide from yourself, right?

This is the most petrifying concept, the truest, purest form of horror. The idea that you are trapped within the evil of your own skin. Siodmak and Waggner explored this inner human conflict to achingly haunting effect in the movie that introduced the movie-going public to werewolves, making them a mainstay of horror cinema in the process. Of course, they were given a helping hand by a sympathetic, soulful performance from Chaney Jr. in the titular role. Since 1941, we've been subjected to an abundance of werewolf-themed body horror films, from the comically tinged An American Werewolf in London (which features the most physically agonizing transformation scene I've personally witnessed in the subgenre) to Ginger Snaps (which I've admittedly never seen, but I love Katharine Isabelle), and plenty more from today. So what could Leigh Whannell, co-writing his script with Corbett Tuck, possibly bring to the table to both live up to the 1941 black-and-white masterpiece and differentiate his creature from the horde of similarly themed predecessors?

One thing worth keeping in mind is the fact that the man at the helm of this remake is Leigh Whannell, who has not only been working in the horror genre since 2004 with his groundbreaking, if overstuffed and mediocre, torture porn classic, Saw, but is also the filmmaker who brought a thrillingly original and feminist take on another Universal horror classic with his 2020 remake of The Invisible Man. With that film, he took the central concept of a mad scientist turning himself invisible and using that ability to wreak havoc on others, and shifted the focus to the woman trapped in an abusive relationship with him, generating an atmosphere of sustained paranoia and obtaining a stellar performance from Elisabeth Moss in the process. So if anyone is going to take on this mammoth undertaking, lets' all take some relief in the fact it's none other than Whannell.

In the 2025 remake, the protagonist is a family man named Blake (It Comes at Night's Christopher Abbott), who's relocating from San Francisco to Oregon with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner, who recently starred in a contribution to another vintage genre classic, Rosemary's Baby), and their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to his childhood home. It's been left to him by his estranged father, who's gone missing and is presumed dead. (Okay, this doesn't count as a spoiler because it's just my assumption: the first werewolf in this movie has to be Blake's father. He's gone missing and is "presumed" dead. Obviously that's code for "he was attacked by a werewolf and has now become one himself." If that's intended to be a "shocking twist," then Whannell is simply underestimating the intelligence of his horror-savvy audience.) 

En route, Blake and his family are attacked, their moving truck overturned. A werewolf murders the unknown, expendable characters inside the truck with them, and slashes Blake's arm. Managing to escape, the family of three make a run for it inside Blake's abandoned home, while the growling creature surrounds them from the outside. As they try to call for help on a radio (let me guess, no cell phones or service?), to no avail, Blake begins to undergo a transformation. At first, Charlotte believes he's gotten an infection, but as the title indicates, he's turning into the very creature that's marked him. 

While I admire the approach Whannell and Tuck are taking, borrowing the basic concept of the original Wolf Man while altering the characters and circumstances, the setup comes across as discomfitingly derivative of Bryan Bertino's 2016 creature feature, The Monster. In that superior mother-daughter addiction drama cloaked in the skin of a monster movie, Zoe Kazan and Ella Ballentine become stranded in the middle of a deserted road on a rainy night, where a wolf-like monster lurking in the woods has settled on its latest meal. Similar to what's seen at the start of this trailer, a few expendables (a tow truck driver and paramedics) are mauled with ease while the protagonists are given much more of a fighting chance. Also, both films seem to be entirely set in the darkness of a single night, and focus on a family doing everything in their power to protect each other, in particular the parent(s) protecting their young child. 

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with Wolf Man adopting a simple, straightforward approach, even one that's been employed elsewhere. In the realm of horror, simplicity is usually the most effective way to go. Throw in too many twists and characters, and the results can become muddled and disastrous. (I'm looking at you, Saw.) At the start of the trailer, Blake and his family are lying in their overturned car, slowly regaining consciousness from the crash. As Blake asks his wife and daughter if they're okay, the camera slowly turns upside down to show the state of their vehicle. While that isn't a terribly original reveal, Whannell does unleash a surprise I didn't see coming: the truck is wedged between two trees, as opposed to lying on the street or in a field like I had assumed. Apart from that one twist, everything here feels fairly standard, from the abandoned farmhouse to the empty backyard swing blowing in the wind to the father transforming into a monster and terrorizing the two people closest to him to the smart little girl appealing to her father's love for her. 

The cinematography looks promisingly atmospheric, though. In the aforementioned shot of the backyard swing, Stefan Duscio shoots the sky in gloomy gray and the grass in dark green, evoking the drearily stunning scenery from Gore Verbinski's The Ring. There's one moment during the beginning of Blake's transformation where he and Charlotte appear to be in the basement. Charlotte realizes something is wrong with him, and she asks if he can understand her. Whannell transports us inside Blake's deteriorating mindset, where baby blue and bright pink illuminate the room and Charlotte's voice echoes in slow motion in his head while he stands motionlessly. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, a close-up of a bloody, spindly hand slams on the floor with missing fingernails, accompanied by a jarring sting. 

Charlotte is forced to become a mama bear to protect her daughter and combat the literal animal her husband is devolving into. In classic horror movie tradition, she and Ginger run through the woods, where Charlotte arms herself with a shotgun, and I can't think of an actress more suited for this kind of badass final woman role than Garner. Something tells me she's going to be the standout of Wolf Man, with her ability to contain her apprehension in a soft whisper and tear-filled eyes before unleashing the fiery, determined beast within herself to keep her and her daughter alive through the night. I'm not as certain of Abbott's ability as an actor. He was very good in It Comes at Night, where he was tasked with tapping into the ambiguity of his mysterious supporting character, and made it impressively difficult to decide whether he should be trusted or not. If Whannell can get even half the acting power out of him that he did from Moss in his previous Universal monster remake, then we may witness the career-best performance of someone in need of more starring roles. What made Chaney's performance as the original character so powerful was his ability to convey the inner torment of a man who knew he was committing evil and was powerless to control himself. The trailer obscures whether Abbott possesses the same poignancy, and it will all come down to the humanity he brings to Blake once the transformation commences. As for Firth, she appears to be relatively new to the movie business, and her line deliveries in the trailer sound a little cute and precious. But trailers can be deceiving like that. Maybe she'll leave a similar impression as Ballentine and join the roster of child actors who have given excellent performances in horror movies.

It can be assumed the visual effects in this Wolf Man will be largely generated from CGI, being that it's 2025, and we've come a long way from the practical effects of 1941. However, I love the simplicity of Chaney's costume. The excess hair that suddenly manifests on Chaney's feet, hands, arms, face, and head. The sharp teeth. It's grotesque yet as delightfully basic as a Halloween costume. Naturally, Whannell knows he'd be laughed out the Blumhouse door if he reverted to that, so hopefully the special effects he uses are around the level of David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, another body horror remake where the lead actor transforms into a monster and loses his body parts in the process. We only catch a glimpse of Abbott's titular monster in the trailer. It's at the very end, where Charlotte and Ginger try to escape in a truck. Charlotte puts her keys in the engine, but it refuses to start. She gets out and lifts up the hood. Anytime someone lifts a car hood in a horror movie, you figure when they shut it, the villain will be standing behind them. Not the case here, but it still plays out too predictably. Ginger turns around to look out the back window. No one's there. Charlotte returns, and lo and behold, this time the engine starts. The windshield is opaque with fog. We can all see this coming. The windshield wipers turn on, and as soon as a patch of fog is removed, the repulsive wolf-like face of Blake is uncovered, staring menacingly at his wife and daughter. It's shown so briefly you have to pause at just the right moment to get a clear look, and even then it's murky at best. From what I can see, the makeup bears a marginal resemblance to that of Chaney's. He smashes his arm through the glass and clutches at a screaming Charlotte, but it can be predicted all too easily that she and Ginger will get away, at least from this attack. Likewise, just as Larry could only be freed from his curse through death, it can only be assumed that Blake too will have to die for his loved ones to survive. It's that type of sacrifice that made these monster movies so tragic as opposed to just violent and atmospheric, and I can't imagine Whannell is going to tamper with that underlying emotional power. 

January isn't renowned for churning out quality additions to the horror genre. It's often seen as a dumping ground for the more hackneyed, money-grubbing contributions to kick off the new year. But with an experienced, ambitious filmmaker at the forefront, adapting from rich source material and working with a capable cast, hopefully Wolf Man will rip this trend to bloody pieces -- and surpass the stylish but hollow 2010 remake starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. 

Wolf Man will claw its way into theaters next Friday, January 17th. As you salivate for its arrival, sink your fangs into the trailer below.