Let me preface this by stating that I’m never a fan of tearing down movies. A lot of time, work, and money goes into filmmaking. The intention of this post isn’t to shred the latest reimagining of a classic Universal Monster, that being The Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell. Rather, I’m more interested in exploring why Whannell’s film just didn’t work for me, especially when compared to his 2020 remake of The Invisible Man. While The Wolf Man certainly maintained the tragic aspect of the character, especially through the earnest performance of Christopher Abbott, who plays Blake, the film falls flat because, well, it doesn’t respond to anything. It’s a major missed opportunity to tap into at least some deeper cultural and social anxieties.

Whannell’s film is set in Oregon, and Abbott stars alongside Julia Garner, who plays his wife Charlotte, and Matilda Firth, who plays their daughter Ginger. Oregon, with its deep forests and lush greenery, is the perfect setting for this film. The state, especially its natural landscapes, just has a strangeness to it. Heck, think of the opening credits of “Twin Peaks.” It’s a great setting for a werewolf movie.

Initially, the film sets up a promising concept, that of generational trauma. The opening introduces us to a very young Blake and his domineering father, Grady (Sam Jaeger). Grady frequently snaps at his son, all in the name of protecting him from what’s essentially a werewolf lurking in the woods, which, for whatever reason, can also attack and lurk during the day, without a full moon. Yes, Whannell changes up some of the werewolf lure, but that’s fine. Let him do his own thing.

This interesting opening, however, never fully blooms into a more interesting storyline. In the present day, 30 years after the opening scene, Blake and his family leave NYC and trek to his father’s farm, after Blake receives notice that his father is likely dead. Blake does exhibit flashes of his dad’s anger and temper, lashing out at Ginger and Charlotte a few times, but again, this is an underutilized character point. There are hints that Blake’s dad was at least verbally and mentally abusive, and we do see some of that in the opening, but again, it’s never fleshed out.

What I had really hoped for, and what the trailer sort of hinted at, was a deeper exploration of masculinity. There are shades of it with the poor relationship between father and son, but it’s terribly underwritten. We’re currently living in a time where everyone is asking what’s wrong with young men, why they’re socially isolated, why they’ve drifted hard right, why they helped propel Trump back to the White House, etc., etc. The werewolf is a great metaphor and vehicle to explore this very issue, but Whannell doesn’t do much of anything with it.

This marks quite a contrast from his take on The Invisible Man, a film that fully tapped into the anxieties of the #MeToo/Women’s March era, a film that also addresses rapid advances in technology, much like James Whale’s 1933 film. In contrast, The Wolf Man just feels so culturally and socially impotent.

Even the toxic father/son dynamic is weak. The father/son werewolves even come to blows at one point, but that’s another part of the script that feels way too undercooked. I don’t blame any of the actors in this film. As already stated, Abbott does a fine job in the lead role, giving his character the sort of pathos and tragedy that Lon Chaney J. had in the 1941 film. There’s a sense that Garner wanted to give more to her character, but there’s just not much in the script.

The initial Wolf Man holds up for so many reasons, including Chaney Jr.’s performance, the awesome Gothic set designs, and most importantly, because it’s a response to the anxieties of WW II. I just wrote about this for 1428 Elm, but the film’s writer, Curt Siodmak, was a Jewish man, forced to flee Germany in the 1930s to escape the Nazis. The parallels between his story and Larry Talbot’s (Chaney Jr.) are obvious. Even the werewolf mark that afflicts Talbot resembles the Star of David.

While Whannell’s Wolf Man is a decent monster movie, it’s just not much more than that. It falls flat because it doesn’t respond to anything, be it otherness, masculinity, or any other issue, really. It feels like a rushed script with too many underbaked elements.