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Sunday, February 9, 2025

The ‘Wolf Man’ is something to howl about

Wolf Man  (2024, produced by horror mainstay Blumhouse) is directed and co-written by  Leigh Whannell. That name may not ring a bell, but you may be familiar with his work: he wrote the horror film franchises  Insidious  and the  Saw  films.

Whannell co-starred as one of the people who was tied up in the first  Saw  film.  Saw I  (2004) alone should give you an idea of Whannell’s approach to a well-known horror cinema character: the Wolf Man.

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Whannell’s touch of economy of settings, focused on the rising horror of his few characters, is a benchmark from his first  Saw  film. Also, Whannell wrote and directed the unsettling remake of  The Invisible Man  (2020), in which the coalescing theme is relationship dysfunction.

It is essential to mention  Invisible Man  because, like the  Wolf Man, both are intellectual properties of what was supposed to be the “Dark Universe,” which was initially interconnected horror films of characters made famous by Universal Pictures.

This attempt at a superhero-level blockbuster franchise via this world-building cinematic feat started with  Tom Cruise’s starrer  The Mummy  (2017), but it underperformed. Dark Universe was done, or at least the big plans for it involving film superstars. Frankly, this opened these horror film characters to become more innovative, more attuned to actual horror, and less reliant on celebrities under Whannell’s expert hands.

Taking out the pressure to outperform superhero franchises, horror film characters, notably  The Invisible Man  and the  Wolf Man, have become more of a creative playground for interwoven physical repulse and emotional foment than cheap celebrity vehicles.

Matilda Firth (left) plays as the daughter of Julia Garner in ‘Wolf Man’

Horror is about the creature and its effect on close relationships. Such is the case of the  Wolf Man. Sticking to the theme of family dysfunction,  Wolf Man  is a monster treatment of generational trauma, particularly between fathers and sons. The lead acted brilliantly by  Christopher Abbot; his transformation could make your skin crawl as his skin literally crawls with pustules and disintegration. The lycanthropy is no longer a simple transformation from a full moon but a series of body horrors of infection and unbridled disease.

Fans of practical effects who are tired of the CGI glut will appreciate  Wolf Man. Watch out for how the director brilliantly framed a disintegration of communication bridges between the family and the rampaging metamorphosis. It is putting cinematography to task from the point of view of the monster.

Furthermore, the creature design is not derivative of the older film werewolves with glares and snarls. The creature is designed and acted in a way that is genuinely a push and pull between humanity and monstrosity.

There are no super hairy rabid dogs here but a Wolf Man that lives up to its name, which is about dwindling humanity and what is left behind. Kudos also to the mother-daughter tandem played by  Julia Garner  (if you have not seen her as the high-rolling elite scammer  Anna Delvey  in Netflix’s  Inventing Anna, you are missing out on an excellent study of character acting) and their young onscreen daughter  Matilda Firth  whose luminous eyes made the horror even more stark.

Wolf Man  does not have jump scares but is a work of marvelous tensions made even more delicious by  Christopher Abbot’s handling of a tortured beast. And that is exactly what horror is about: when our inner tortured beast decides to come out. This film is for horror fans and those who may be tired of the schlocky, over-the-top gore. Yes, there is such a thing as necessary gore, of which the  Wolf Man  is careful with its quick edits and carefully placed camera work. At its very basic, this is a film about family dynamics. What is a great family drama but a dance of metaphor, or in the case of  Wolf Man, an actual monster?

You may reach Chong Ardivilla at  kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social

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