Wolf Man (2025)

Wolf Man tells a modern werewolf story by focusing on trauma and family dynamics. Not a failure by any means, it's never boring, but never fully delivers either. 

The prologue recalls a childhood memory with protagonist Blake (Christopher Abbott) being taught to hunt by his stentorian father. Now in the present, Blake is a husband and father to Charlotte (Julia Garner) and Ginger (Matilda Firth), while navigating being "in between jobs." Feeling that their marriage is failing, the family decides to return to Blake's childhood home in Oregon after the death of his estranged father. Once they arrive, things quickly take a horrific turn.

The first section does a great job of establishing characters and potential conflicts but then takes an erratic leap. Neither a gorefest nor a study in terror, Wolf Man is at its best on the psychological level, making the story more tragic than frightening. The horror of transformation also becomes a part of the story, something unique to mainstream werewolf movies

As Leigh Whannel's follow up to his well-received Invisible Man from 2020, Wolf Man feels a bit slight in comparison, but it still manages some fresh takes on an old genre. The music score by Benjamin Wallfisch is effective, while the sound design was creative and unnerving. 

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