Wolf Man

This weekend, Wolf Man, the newest Universal Studios monster movie, was released in theaters. Wolf Man follows a family of three as they are stalked in the forest by a mysterious creature. This is the newest movie by Leigh Whannell, the director of The Invisible Man. I heard a lot of good things about The Invisible Man so I was hoping that this monster movie would be just as good.

This movie does have some elements that elements that worked well but as a whole I don't think the film was very good. I think this movie does the horror aspect very well. Every time the Wolf Man is on screen chasing this family, it is very effective and scary. Several moments are genuinely terrifying. I also thought the whole transformation aspect was well done. The body horror of watching a regular man turn into a werewolf was very unsettling and very well done. If the movie would have leaned more into that idea, I think it would have worked a lot better. I also liked the length of the movie. It comes in at about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I think this worked well for the story they were trying to tell. Any longer than that and the movie would have felt drawn out.

While the horror aspect worked for this movie, the plot and characters just were not there. There were a few good ideas in the movie such as the mom struggling to connect with her daughter and the father-daughter relationship. However, the movie does nothing to utilize these aspects or provide any sort of payoff at the end of the movie. The movie just doesn't bring the emotional weight at the end that it was trying to set up. I also wasn't a fan of the handling of the "final chase" of the movie. It is very clear what the motives of the wolf man are so it just takes any of the suspense and scariness out of it. The movie as a whole just rings hollow as it doesn't do anything to pay off any of the ideas it sets up earlier in the movie. Finally, I felt that the Wolf Man was not present enough in the movie. Even if he isn't seen, his presence should be felt throughout the whole but I felt that the middle section was a bit light on that.

Overall, while the movie does have some good horror aspects, the plot and characters are just not satisfying enough to make for a good movie. This is a scary enough generic horror film but don't expect anything new like in The Invisible Man. It may not be very good but it is the best movie I've seen this year. (It is the only movie I've seen this year)

Score: 5/10 Grade: C Recommendation: Wait to stream it