WOLF MAN
★★★
(MA) 103 minutes, in cinemas
Another updated take on a Universal Studios horror classic from Melbourne-born writer-director Leigh Whannell, Wolf Man pares its premise back to stark essentials much like Whannell’s 2020 version of The Invisible Man.
Julia Garner, Christopher Abbott and Matilda Firth in Wolf Man.Credit: Universal Studios
Indeed, the opening strikes an almost apocalyptic note, with a caption outlining the effects of a mysterious disease superimposed on a wide shot of the densely-forested hills of Oregon (actually New Zealand), where the young hero Blake (Zac Chandler) is hiking with his dad Grady (Sam Jaeger).
A caring but intense sort, Grady lectures his son so insistently about avoiding danger you might wonder if they’re the last two people on earth. This is not the case, however, as the film confirms by jumping forward a couple of decades to present-day San Francisco, where Blake (now played by Christopher Abbott) is an unemployed writer living with his journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth).
Effectively a full-time parent, Blake has inherited some of Grady’s over-protective tendencies but still has a warm, close relationship with Ginger. On the other hand, he and Charlotte can’t stop bickering. When word comes through that his long-missing father has officially been declared deceased, he has a brainwave: why not have all three of them take a trip to his childhood home as a bonding experience over summer?
Clearly, there are several reasons this might be a bad idea, especially since the home in question is a remote cabin in the woods, cut off from the outside world at night. Even before they’ve had a chance to settle in, Blake starts moving through the stages of the metamorphosis foreshadowed from the outset: skin coarsening, body hair sprouting, jaw getting more prognathous to the point where he loses the power of speech.
His wife and daughter can do little but look on in horrified pity – though we know it won’t be long before he goes through the most crucial change of all, from cherished loved one to active threat.
Technically a good deal of Wolf Man is ruthlessly effective, including the use of “practical effects,” calculated to make us wince as computer-generated images seldom can. Another strength is the sound design, with Benjamin Wallfisch’s lush score giving way to an all-out assault on the eardrums when we enter Blake’s physically disordered point of view.
