Wolf Man (2025) | Review
Ah, Wolf Man—or as I like to call it, “Daddy Issues: The Furry Edition.” Here’s a bit of irony for you: our protagonist starts as the ultimate neutered housepet—a stay-at-home dad who lets his daughter use him as a makeup canvas while his powerhouse wife brings home the bacon—only to transform into the most virile and vile night creature imaginable. Talk about overcompensating!
Let’s start with what works: Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner bring their A-game to roles that deserve at least a C+. Abbott’s Blake transforms from his domesticated self into something decidedly less friendly to Sephora products. Garner, meanwhile, does her best to convince us that her character’s journey from workaholic journalist to Sarah Connor-lite makes sense in the span of what feels like fifteen minutes. Their daughter, Ginger—a nod to Ginger Snaps, perhaps?—is played well by Matilda Firth, and unlike her adult counterparts, she feels like a more fully realized character.
The film’s opening shots of Oregon’s misty valleys are gorgeous enough to make a Pacific Northwest tourism board weep with joy. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score absolutely nails it, though it sometimes feels like it’s the soundtrack to a much better movie than the one we’re watching. And yes, there are some genuinely squirm-inducing body horror moments that’ll make you think twice about biting your nails. There’s a compelling scene involving a beartrap, but it goes by in the bat of an eye; I would have liked more focus on the horror aspects of the story.
But here’s the rub—for a movie called Wolf Man, it’s surprisingly light on both “wolf” and “man.” The creature design looks less like a fearsome lycanthrope and more like someone who had a really bad reaction to Clearasil. When our protagonist finally goes full monster, he resembles the awkward love child of a zombie and the cobra-man in the 1973 cult classic, SSSSSSSS.
Director and co-writer Leigh Whannell, whose horror film blueblood pedigree is on par with the latest winner of the Westminster Dog Show, seems caught between making a profound statement about toxic masculinity and crafting a straightforward horror flick. The result is a film that, like its protagonist, suffers from a serious identity crisis. Is it a meditation on hereditary trauma? A commentary on modern machismo? A creature feature? Much like Blake’s transformation, it’s stuck somewhere in the middle, neither fully human nor fully beast.
The indigenous curse subplot feels about as developed as a Polaroid left in the dark, and the decision to ditch werewolf staples like full moons and silver bullets might be bold if the replacements were more interesting than “forest virus makes man grumpy.” The final act plays out in darkness so thick you’ll wonder if your theater forgot to pay its electricity bill.
What we’re left with is a film that’s neither howlingly bad nor particularly memorable—it’s just there, lurking in the shadows of better monster movies. It’s competently made, occasionally tense, but ultimately feels like a shaggy dog story without enough bite. What’s perhaps most disappointing is that many of the best intense scenes are revealed in the trailer.
If you’re in the mood for a horror movie that trades traditional werewolf mythology for family drama and body horror, Wolf Man might scratch that itch. Just don’t expect it to leave much of a mark.
