It’s no secret that the Universal Monsters have, for some unfathomable reason, proven difficult to reboot. This, of course, is less the fault of the individual properties and more the fault of the studios who can’t decide what the hell to do with the greatest sandbox in film history — and one of the first shared universes to ever exist. Most recently, an attempt was made at turning this roster of beasties into a sort of monster-fied MCU, but it failed with its very first entry, in which Tom Cruise fights a mummy. While it would have been fun to see where this ill-fated cinematic universe was headed, it’s no surprise that it crashed and burned as hard as it did.
Enter Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man. Rather than trying to make a big and booming blockbuster, he turned in a thrilling, minimalist take that took a tired concept (what would you be capable of if you were invisible?) and applied it to a contemporary story about spousal abuse and gaslighting. It was a huge success — a brilliantly executed one at that, and it showed that bigger isn’t always better. Sure, audiences love superhero movies (well, they did at the time), but they also love tightly constructed thrillers that don’t act primarily as commercials for the next movie in the series. The Invisible Man was one-and-done and it was enough.
So naturally, it has fallen to Whannell to capture lightning in a bottle once again in updating everyone’s favorite hirsute horror icon: The Wolf Man.
This property has had its own troubles on its way to the big screen, having been in some sort of pre-production for nearly a decade. Ryan Gosling was once on board to play the titular beast (he has retained a producer’s credit), and at one point even Dwayne “The Product” Johnson was attached to star. Hollywood being what it is, multiple iterations never quite made it to the finish line. The movie business is weird. But finally, the job fell to Whannell to direct a script that he co-wrote with his wife, Corbett Tuck, with Christopher Abbott donning the flat-nose wolf makeup.
These growing pains are unfortunately quite evident in the final product, now simply titled Wolf Man, yet the film succeeds beyond its limitations by sheer force of ambition. It’s a bit undercooked, and at times it feels like it’s rushing to get to the end credits, but it finds a completely new thematic structure to which werewolf mythology can be applied. For that alone it gets high marks.
Christopher Abbott plays Blake Lovell, a writer set to inherit his childhood home in the wake of his father’s death. There’s no body, but the Lovell patriarch has been missing for long enough that his passing has been made official by the state. A trip to the abandoned home could be an opportunity for Blake and his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner). We get the sense things have grown chilly between them, and it’s made clear by their relationship with their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth — I suspect this character’s name is a nod to Ginger Snaps, a wonderful werewolf film). Blake and Ginger are tight. Charlotte and Ginger, not so much.
But of course, things don’t go well when the trio head into the countryside, and after a chance encounter with a mysterious creature, Blake begins to notice some changes in his physique. You know the deal.
While most werewolf movies use well-established mythology to tell the tale of a man or woman trapped in a cycle of transformation, faced with a ticking clock and a public who doesn’t believe their plight, Whannell’s take on the material pulls less from The Wolf Man (1941) and more from Cronenberg’s The Fly insofar as the mechanisms of Blake’s lycanthropy. He’s not a man who occasionally turns into a werewolf, but rather a man who is slowly turning into a werewolf, and losing his humanity in the process.
This “infection” angle lends itself to the thematic framework. Most parents walk a fine line in keeping their children safe: sometimes even the most gentle parents must call upon their primal nature in order to protect their young. But what if this instinct became corrupted, and the protective force it cultivates is ultimately damaging? Whannell’s filmmaking cleverly shifts perspectives between Blake and Charlotte, allowing us to witness the breakdown of communication between them. Masterful sound design and a clever shifting of color palettes are employed to show the deterioration of their shared humanity. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship gone sour knows exactly how terrible this feeling can be, and it’s quite upsetting to see it made literal on screen.
Yet for all of the smart thematic ideas, none really come together as neatly as I’d hoped. Points for the attempt, as well as for trying something different, but this is one of those rare cases where an additional 20 or so minutes could’ve elevated the film beyond its plot. On the one hand (paw?), the pacing is exceptional, but on the other, once the picture comes to a close, there are a lot of dangling thematic threads. There’s a middle ground that feels just a few strokes of the pen from emerging. It’s quite clear that Whannell and Tuck have injected their own parental concerns into the story, and I would have loved to see them really stick the landing and say something profound. While the film is indeed successful in providing something to chew on in this department (which perhaps is the point?), it feels incomplete. It’s a tough to find the balance between honoring the needs of an effective horror movie and presenting something thematically resonant, but I fear this erred a touch too far on the side of the former.
Visually, Whannell puts on an impressive show, even if the lighting is frequently a bit dim (I’m willing to blame the theater on this, now that they’ve all become turnkey operations with no screen masking). As a single location, single night thriller, the geography is well-established and utilized. It’s the sound design, however, that steals the show (as it should — dogs can hear very well, and smell-o-vision isn’t really an option for the multiplex).
The performances are excellent across the board, and it’s the familial dynamic between our leading trio that smooths over the screenplay’s jankier moments. Even with its rough-drafty nature, Wolf Man is an incredibly moving film when it needs to be. The feeling of dread is pervasive, and like the best werewolf tales, we really don’t want to see our hero become a wolf (even though we really do want to see the special effects). And when he does begin his transformation, the effects are quite gruesome. Given the nature of the “infection,” we don’t get to see a big show-stopping effects sequence a la An American Werewolf in London, but the makeup impresses nonetheless. Whannell claims it was all practical, which I respect, even if the dim visuals make it harder to see than I would like.
After The Invisible Man, this new take on The Wolfman had big shoes to fill, and unfortunately it doesn’t quite get there, but it remains a thrilling flick with a lot on its mind. Moving forward with the Universal Monsters … uh … Universe, filmmakers should take a page from Whannell and Tuck by trying something new. They shouldn’t feel beholden to previous iterations of their chosen property, and they certainly shouldn’t be afraid to expand the mythology as they see fit. Even if it’s not a homerun, a solid line drive is still way better than playing it safe and taking a walk. I don’t know why I’m using a baseball metaphor.
Directed by Leigh Whannell
Written by Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck
Starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie
Rated R,103 minutes
