Wolf Man (2025)

Written by Wuchak on May 5, 2025

More man than wolf in the Oregon wilderness

A couple living in San Francisco (Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner) with their little daughter inherit a farmhouse in remote central Oregon. They decide to go there to reconnect as a family, but it turns out that the local talk of a mysterious animalistic humanoid lurking in the forest is real.

“Wolf Man” (2025) is Universal’s attempt to rekindle their classic 1941 monster utilizing Leigh Whannell as writer/director, fresh off his success with “The Invisible Man.” Unfortunately, it bombed at the box office. What went wrong?

The prologue and first act are great, but the last hour morphs into a slow-burn ‘confined location’ flick, similar to the farmhouse situation in the classic “Night of the Living Dead.” Yet “Night” had several characters to work with to keep the story compelling whereas “Wolf Man” only has the three protagonists: the husband, wife and daughter.

The ‘werewolf vision’ is well done, but don’t expect a draw-dropping metamorphosis sequence, like in many other such flicks. I didn’t mind because Whannell was obviously shooting for a realistic take on the topic, along the lines of Jack Nicholson’s “Wolf” from three decades earlier.

I guess the males morphing into wolfish men could be viewed as a metaphor for ‘toxic masculinity,’ which is interesting (let’s not pretend like some relationships aren’t destroyed for this very reason, whether father/son or husband/wife). Regrettably, Julia Garner isn’t very interesting on the feminine front, although she’s a’right. The flick needed someone of the caliber of Joelle Westwood in the indie “The Hunting” from four years prior.

It runs 1 hour, 43 minutes (with 12 minutes of that being closing credits); and was shot in New Zealand with the forest scenes done around Queenstown on the South Island and the farmhouse scenes done at the studio in Wellington on the North Island.

GRADE: B-