by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Milo Cawthorne
Intro:
It’s not a bad film, but it doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen done better before …
The thing about werewolves is that they’re bloody hard to get right. For all the lycanthrope-themed films in existence, there’s a remarkable shortage of rock-solid genre classics. Sure, you’ve got the 1941 original of The Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Howling (1981), The Company of Wolves (1984), Ginger Snaps (2000) and Dog Soldiers (2002), but that’s half a dozen* winners over a period of 84-bloody-years! Compared to the legions of quality vampire or zombie flicks out there, that’s a downright paltry result. Perhaps there’s something inherently old-fashioned about a werewolf yarn that doesn’t translate well to modern sensibilities.
Enter talented Aussie director Leigh Whannell, who recently gave us the excellent 2020 version of The Invisible Man. Surely this bloke would bring us a scary, subversive werewolf flick for the ages with Wolf Man, right?
Wolf Man is the story of Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott), husband to Charlotte (Julia Garner) and father to Ginger (Matilda Firth). Ol’ mate Blake wants to be a good husband and a loving dad, to try and make up for his own strained, fearful relationship with his taciturn pop, Grady (Sam Jaeger). However, when Grady is officially declared dead, Blake makes the ill-fated decision to bring his wife and kid to the remote Oregon farm that he grew up on and things soon take a turn for the hairy.
Wolf Man has a few problems right off the bat. Unlike The Invisible Man – which boldly put the main character’s POV in the capable hands of Elisabeth Moss and had the titular character a barely glimpsed antagonist – it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. Is this film a slow burn body horror flick about Blake losing his humanity and connection to his family or is this the story of Charlotte desperately trying to bring her ailing husband back from the brink? It attempts to be both at various times throughout its oddly sluggish runtime and the result is a film that feels unfocused.
The main cast, also, just don’t quite gel in their respective roles. Abbott is a fine actor, but he never feels terribly feral or lupine, and Garner, who normally does fabulous work, has zero chemistry with her husband and his bold new fursona. Worse still, when the werewolf action finally reveals itself on screen… it’s all a bit limp. Featuring practical effects that look more like shonky attempts at a reboot of Cronenberg’s The Fly than anything Lon Chaney Jr. ever rocked, we end up with a bunch of tension-free set pieces that fall flat with shocking regularity.
On the plus side, this is a good-looking film, but Whannell doesn’t seem to have the bold inspiration here that he did with his last Universal monster mash. Oh sure, there are some cool ideas. The shots where we see the werewolf’s POV are intriguing and the theme of a good man trying to keep tamping down his rage is solid if underexplored.
Sadly, however, despite the best intentions of all involved, Wolf Man never raises its head to howl at the moon and instead gives a sort of barking yelp at the wheely bin. It’s not a bad film, but it doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen done better before, and is a sad reminder that the curse of the werewolf (genre) lives on.
* And, yes, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Wolfen, Wolf and even the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man have their moments, but they’re not all-timers.
