Universal seems to be determined to make its classic monster movies work for a new generation. After failed reboots in the 2000s and 2010s, some success was found just before the pandemic with Leigh Whannell’s thriller The Invisible Man, a modern, stripped-down take on the classic horror story. If it can work once, Hollywood will certainly try again, so Whannell returns to – hopefully – repeat that success with Wolf Man.
Christopher Abbott plays Blake, a husband and father who takes his family to his childhood home following his father’s death. On their way to the house, they are forced off the road by a mysterious creature that scratches Blake. Barricading his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter in the house, he soon begins to change into a far greater threat than whatever lurks outside.
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Whannell once again makes a film that feels visually fresh, modernising the tropes of the monster movie. There’s plenty of tension in the set pieces, while the ‘cabin in the woods’ plot feels less predictable than you might fear.
Abbott and Garner do their best to put a heartbeat into underwritten roles. They’re forced to cram a lot of backstory into the first act, with plenty of pained looks and constructed confrontations. Garner comes into her own as the stakes rise, but too often falls into the ‘scream queen’ cliche this film appears to be actively avoiding.
Sadly, it never really gets its claws beneath the surface. The Invisible Man provided a chilling analogue for sexual predation so it would follow that this would have an undercurrent of generational trauma, playing on the fears we have of echoing our parents’ missteps. Instead, Wolf Man is a serviceable horror that might make you jump, but rarely makes you stop and think.
• Wolf Man starring Julia Garner is out on 24 January
