A chilling tale of familial bonds and monstrous transformation, The Wolf Man delves into the dark recesses of human nature. When a writer grapples with his father's disappearance and the looming specter of his own metamorphosis, his family becomes caught in a horrifying web.
The film opens with an almost apocalyptic note, a caption outlining the effects of a mysterious disease superimposed on a wide shot of the densely forested hills of Oregon (actually New Zealand), where the young hero Blake (Zac Chandler) is hiking with his dad Grady (Sam Jaeger). Grady, a caring but intense man, lectures his son insistently about avoiding danger.
The film then jumps forward a couple of decades to present-day San Francisco, where Blake (now played by Christopher Abbott) is an unemployed writer living with his journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). Blake has inherited some of Grady’s overprotective tendencies, but still has a warm, close relationship with Ginger. His relationship with Charlotte, however, is strained. When word comes through that his long-missing father has officially been declared deceased, Blake has a brainwave: why not take a trip to his childhood home as a bonding experience over the summer?The home in question is a remote cabin in the woods, cut off from the outside world at night. Even before they’ve had a chance to settle in, Blake starts moving through the stages of the metamorphosis foreshadowed from the outset: skin coarsening, body hair sprouting, jaw getting more prognathous to the point where he loses the power of speech. His wife and daughter can do little but look on in horrified pity. This is only the beginning of Blake’s transformation, as he soon becomes a threat to his loved ones. The film is ruthlessly effective, including the use of “practical effects” that make us wince as computer-generated images seldom can. Another strength is the sound design, with Benjamin Wallfisch’s lush score giving way to an all-out assault on the eardrums when we enter Blake’s physically disordered point of view.As far as themes go, Whannell and his co-writer Corbett Tuck (they are also married) err on the side of minimalism. Certain ideas are heavily underlined in the dialogue, while relying on Abbott and Garner to hint at much left unexplored, including Charlotte’s depression, evident even in the San Francisco scenes. Still, there are some disquieting implications, especially if the film is taken as a companion piece to Whannell’s openly feminist work. It’s as if he’s saying that even a good guy like Blake can’t help being a monster at heart – and hence that if humanity ever did get a chance to start over, the most hopeful option would be if this could occur in a world with no men at all.
Horror Transformation Monstrosity Family Psychological Horror
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