While vampires are probably the most common classic movie monster, the werewolf is likely a close second; it might be third if you consider zombies a “classic” monster type. Regardless of the hierarchy of monsters, we’ve seen werewolves in countless horror movies in all different manners and styles. The original The Wolf Man from 1941 is a timeless classic that is much more of a psychological thriller than you would expect, as a fair amount of the movie is merely suggestive that the bestial nature is all in the head of the protagonist and not some supernatural curse. Other classic lycanthrope movies like An American Werewolf in London are much more blunt with their rendition of the creature. However, a common trait that most of these movies have is that the rabid animalistic nature of the person suffering from lycanthropy serves as a metaphor for the innate aggressive qualities of men. In the year 2025, what would you expect from a movie that drops the “The” from the title and asserts itself among other Wolf Man movies when it comes to its themes?

Pros

Acting from the cast is pretty solid
Visual effects for the “werewolf” perspective are interesting
Music is good when it isn’t being overbearing

Cons

Overall look of the Wolf Man is uninteresting
Fastest lycanthropic infection over the course of the longest night imaginable
Not the smartest characters, just the luckiest
Orchestra is doing the heavy lifting
A lot of scenes are too dark to see
Predictable plot
Despite being under two hours, the pacing makes the film feel longer
Not much subtlety to its metaphor

Plot & Thoughts

A young boy named Blake (Zac Chandler) goes deer hunting with his dad one day in the forests of Ireland Oregon. Blake seems like a relatively carefree boy, but his father is a man with a short temper, and he clearly seems on edge while they’re out hunting. For good reason, too, because they encounter a mysterious creature that day and narrowly escape. Years pass, and Blake (Christopher Abbott) is all grown up in San Francisco with a child of his own. His daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), is clearly the light of his life and has a good relationship with him, even if she is bad about listening to him when he tells her to stop doing something dangerous, and he loses his temper as a result. It’s clear that Blake takes parenting very seriously and is quick to apologize for any outburst, most likely to avoid being like his father.

Blake and his daughter live in a well-furnished, large apartment with his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), who is the typical determined female journalist character of a modern story, too dedicated to the job to spend time with her family or accept her husband’s requests to take her phone calls with work into a different room. Thankfully, we know that whatever horrors this family will face will force Charlotte to go on her own Rachel-from-The-Ring journey and learn to appreciate her family more. What horrors are they? When Blake learns that his estranged father has finally passed away, he convinces Charlotte to come with him to the estate in Oregon to go through his father’s property. Unbeknownst to them—because, I guess, Blake forgot about that traumatic day in the forest—there are werewolves in the region. On their way to the ranch, they’re attacked by one of those werewolves, whereupon the beast scratches Blake, and they are forced to take refuge in Blake’s father’s house. What follows is a rapid lycanthropy infection from a scratch throughout the longest night a movie has ever had, as the family tries to come up with a means of escape.

The first act takes its time setting up Blake as a character, focusing on his “temper” being a problem that he inherited from his father and how his relationship with Charlotte has become strained; this could potentially be from the temper he’s supposed to have, or perhaps because he’s an unemployed writer—your guess is as good as mine because the movie never explicitly explains. There’s a bit of excitement when they crash their car and race to the house, but the movie slows down again to focus on Blake’s transformation into a werewolf. Yes, while most werewolf movies take their time with the lycanthropy infection requiring, at least, a day to complete, Wolf Man suggests that the lobos disease rapidly makes its way through the person and transforms them in a matter of hours. It’s an interesting take in some ways because of how the movie shows Blake losing his grip on reality, his ability to speak to or understand his family, his new, overly heightened senses, and the biological changes to his body. The further the transformation progresses, the more we see things from a lycanthrope’s perspective, and some cool visual effects are used to add glowing details to the environment and characters in ways that make Charlotte and Ginger less recognizable. The overall concept is also interesting because this is all happening in an isolated house with his family trapped inside with him, creating a growing tension over the expectation of when he will inevitably not be able to recognize his family anymore. Neat concept, but how is its delivery?

Despite being under two hours, Wolf Man’s pacing makes the experience seem really dragged out, especially the final act, which has one climactic event after another. Part of this exhaustive experience comes from the fact that, after the characters reach the outskirts of the property, the rest of the movie takes place over the course of one night. It feels like an extremely long night because there are multiple instances in which a time lapse is suggested to have taken place, yet it doesn’t seem like dawn is any closer. Had the property been somewhere in Alaska or the northern edges of Canada, it would have made things a little more believable, but it wouldn’t have necessarily fixed the pacing.

Speaking of believability, there are a variety of things about Wolf Man I find less believable than the concept that a person could transform into a wolf-human hybrid. For one, I’d like to know how a journalist and an unemployed writer are able to afford a high-rise apartment in San Francisco without some mention of inheritance, stock trades, or shady business practices. I’d like to know how many homeless people were moved and how many pounds of human excrement the film crew had to clean off the sidewalks of San Francisco before they started filming to make it look like a regular city for the one scene they filmed on the streets. I’d also like to know where I can buy a car battery that is so light that a woman with arms thinner than Whiffle-ball bats can easily lift it to eye-level with one arm, like she’s setting down a lunchbox. More importantly, I’d like to know why the existence and arrival of the primary werewolf is a complete surprise to Blake when he already had a personal experience with one as a kid, and he was likely still living with his dad for some time after that day. Did they never discuss it again? I’d like to know why the man they meet in the woods when they first arrive is not more concerned with them getting to a safe place when the sun is clearly going down, and he seems to understand the danger of being out after dark. If you knew werewolves were in the forest, would you not be a little more anxious to get to safety? There are plenty of points in Wolf Man where I would have a question about a character’s behavior or the situation, and I would just have to shake my head or come up with an answer the writers couldn’t be bothered to provide.

Ultimately, I was pretty bored watching Wolf Man. There were plenty of moments where the musical score was blasting intense sounds through my speakers to make a character running to a door more exciting than it was. The way the film was shot rarely put things in frame to build the tension, except for a few instances in the last act, so the music had to do the heavy lifting when it came to making a moment feel tense or exciting. Of course, I mean in the scenes in which you can actually see anything. Much of Wolf Man is pretty dark, and it’s often difficult to see what is going on. Sometimes that’s a good thing, though, because while the makeup effects are fine, the overall design of the werewolves was pretty dull. I’m sure it was an intentional choice (for one specific reason) to keep the werewolves more on the “man” side of things, rather than go full beast-mode like in An American Werewolf in London, but that doesn’t mean it looks interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if better, more extravagant designs were thrown out in favor of this simpler look for the sake of tying into the messages and themes of Wolf Man.

With the initial emphasis on the father’s aggressive parenting style and Blake’s attempts to avoid confrontation or anger, I was getting worried that I was about to watch another movie like Woman of the Hour, where the story gets undone by not-so-subtle messaging. And don’t get me wrong, in the early portions of the film, both Ginger and Charlotte do things that are either negligent or disrespectful to him, and the movie treats his reaction like he’s the one in the wrong, regardless of how reasonable it was. For instance, Charlotte comes into their fancy apartment while Blake is preparing dinner with her cell phone to her ear as she tries to convince her boss of something. Blake looks at the mail she’s dropped on the counter and sees the notice of his father’s death and asks, “Can you take that in another room?” as she starts to get more agitated on the call. She ignores him, finishes the call, and then spins around to indignantly say to him, “Can you not do that?” What does Blake do as a response to her rudeness? He apologizes like a good little boy. Thankfully, after they get stranded in the woods, that’s where the submissive behavior of Blake ends as he takes charge of the situation and tries to secure his family before he starts succumbing to infection. You could still argue that the themes of the movie are suggesting that the lycanthropy is a representation or manifestation of Blake’s “toxic masculinity” that is always bubbling under the surface, ready to erupt at the first hint of agitation. However, throughout Wolf Man, Blake still does many things to protect his family, even as he loses his grip on reality and comes away as a decent man in the end. It doesn’t change the fact that the movie is still boring, but at least it wasn’t another movie that decided to preach its point instead of tell a story.

TL;DR

Wolf Man is a pretty dull entry in the long legacy of lycanthropic films. The acting from the small cast is pretty good, and there are some interesting concepts. However, the pacing and the way the film was shot bog down the experience, leaving the loud (but good) music to try to make things more interesting. Even ignoring the flubs, the questionable behavior of the characters, and the modern themes, the movie falls short of being engaging or scary. There are plenty of other, better werewolf movies out there worth watching instead of this one.

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