10 Reasons Wolf Man’s Reviews Are So Mixed

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Wolf Man.

From an underdeveloped story to an underwhelming werewolf design, there are a few reasons why Wolf Man has been getting such mixed reviews from critics. Wolf Man is director Leigh Whannell’s second reimagining of a Universal Monsters classic after his retooling of The Invisible Man, released in 2020. The new version of Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner as a married couple, Blake and Charlotte Lovell, who drive up to a spooky farm in Oregon to gather the husband’s late father’s things and contend with a local werewolf.

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Based on the reviews, it seems that, by the end of Wolf Man, a lot of critics were left disappointed. It has a “rotten” score of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. Some publications, like Sight & Sound and The New York Times, gave the movie a positive review, while others, like The Independent and The Los Angeles Times, have given it a negative review. But most outlets, from Empire to The Washington Post to RogerEbert.com, have given the film a mixed review, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. So, why are critics so divided?

10

Wolf Man Has A Creepy Atmosphere But Not Enough Genuine Scares

As with The Invisible Man, Whannell does a great job of creating an unsettling atmosphere in Wolf Man. The night fog rolling over the hills recalls the old-school horror aesthetic of classic Universal and Hammer monster movies. The deliberately low lighting gives the impression that something ominous could be lurking just out of sight in the shadows. The brief glimpses of the monster in the early scenes force the audience to use their imagination to fill in the blanks.

But when it comes down to it, the movie doesn’t have enough genuine scares. The Invisible Man had plenty of terror to back up its atmosphere, but Wolf Man isn’t all that scary. It has a couple of somewhat effective jump scares, like when the werewolf jumps on the hood of the car, but it’s not enough.

9

Wolf Man’s Story Is Underdeveloped

In its opening act, Wolf Man has a few interesting setups with its story and characters. Blake’s dad’s obsession with finding the local werewolf is shown to consume him at the expense of giving his son a healthy childhood. Blake is a great father, while Charlotte isn’t sure she can fully connect with her daughter. Blake and Charlotte’s marriage is on the rocks, and they haven’t been happy for a long time.

All the ingredients are there for a compelling dramatic narrative to bolster the horror story. But once those storylines have been established, none of them are developed in any meaningful way. Blake never brings up his relationship with his dad outside general platitudes. It’s unclear exactly why Blake and Charlotte’s marriage isn’t working, and the audience is given no reason to care whether they reconcile.

8

Wolf Man Falls Far Short Of Its Influences

Wolf Man wears its influences on its sleeve, but it doesn’t invite favorable comparisons. Its use of body horror tropes and imagery to convey a tragic love story is clearly cribbed from The Fly and An American Werewolf in London, but its blend of horror and tragedy is nowhere near as effective as those movies. It doesn’t have the emotional depth of The Fly and it doesn’t have the humor or shock value of An American Werewolf in London.

By drawing parallels with two of the greatest horror movies ever made, Wolf Man hasn’t done itself any favors. After being reminded of those much better films, of course the critics had less-than-stellar things to say about the mediocre version they just sat through. Audiences considering watching Wolf Man would be better off staying at home and streaming The Fly.

7

Wolf Man’s Themes Don’t Really Work

Whannell was widely praised for mixing horror tropes with social commentary in The Invisible Man. He used the story of a deranged scientist giving himself the power of invisibility to explore the real-world horrors of domestic abuse and toxic relationships. He uses his invisibility to stalk and torment his ex-girlfriend after she manages to escape his cycle of abuse. The Invisible Man blended its horror elements with its dramatic themes seamlessly.

In Wolf Man, Whannell sets out to do the same thing, but the thematic parallels are nowhere near as effective. It tries to conflate its werewolf storyline with generational trauma, but the connection feels forced. The message that a father’s protectiveness of his child will inevitably drive him to hurt the child doesn’t hold much water, either. It is possible to just be a good dad.

6

Wolf Man Peaks In Its Opening Scene

The opening scene of Wolf Man sets up a much better movie than what follows. It begins with a flashback prologue set in 1995, in which Blake’s dad takes him out hunting in the woods. Blake catches a glimpse of a feral man standing in the distance, staring at him, and his dad takes him to a secure outpost, where they’re tormented by an unseen monster. It forces the viewer to paint an unsettling picture in their head.

This opening sequence is masterfully crafted; it’s tense, atmospheric, and it shrouds the werewolf in an intriguing sense of mystery. If the rest of the movie had lived up to that opening, it would’ve been great. But once the movie jumps forward to the present day, it drops all of that and becomes a dull, unsubtle creature feature.

5

Wolf Man’s Actors Are Great But Lack Chemistry

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Individually, Abbott and Garner are both fantastic actors who have given some of the finest on-screen performances of the past decade. Garner stole the show as Ruth Langmore in Ozark and Abbott has given standout performances in everything from Catch-22 to It Comes at Night to On the Count of Three. On paper, they seemed like terrific casting choices for a horror movie aiming to elevate the genre with timely themes and compelling character drama.

But, as great as these actors are, they’re miscast as a married couple. They don’t have convincing chemistry as a romantic pairing. They’re supposed to be going through a rough patch in their marriage, but it doesn’t make sense that these two characters even got together in the first place. Wolf Man is supposed to be a love story disguised as a horror movie, so its leads needed to have chemistry.

4

Wolf Man Has Inconsistent Pacing

The pacing of Wolf Man is completely inconsistent. There will be a stretch of runtime where it’s racing from plot point to plot point. Then, there’ll be a stretch where it grinds to a halt and nothing happens for a few minutes. In its first act, it cuts right to the chase. As Blake plans to take his family up to his father’s estate to sort through his belongings, it seems to be setting up a familiar premise. They’ll drive up to the farm, strange things will start to happen, and eventually, a werewolf will show up.

But they don’t even make it to the farm. On the drive up there, they get run off the road by the werewolf, and before he knows what hit him, Blake has been infected. It’s a thrillingly fast-paced beginning to the story, but the movie doesn’t maintain that pace, which gets pretty frustrating.

3

Wolf Man’s Twists Are Predictable

Horror movies live and die by their twists. If a twist lands, the audience (and critics) will lap it up. But if the twist doesn’t work, the movie doesn’t work. Whannell made his name with one of the greatest twists in horror history: the revelation that the “corpse” on the ground all throughout Saw has really been the Jigsaw killer the whole time. Sadly, the twists in Wolf Man don’t come close to living up to that precedent.

Every supposedly shocking rug-pull in Wolf Man can be seen coming from a mile away. The plot kicks off when Blake’s father, who spent his life obsessively searching his local forest for a werewolf, is declared dead. When Blake gets to that forest, he’s attacked by a werewolf. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the werewolf is Blake’s father, but the movie treats it as a big surprise in the third act.

2

Wolf Man’s Psychological Approach Is Initially Interesting But Ultimately Dull

Whannell is just as interested in making a psychological thriller as he is a monster movie or a body horror movie. Wolf Man does take a unique approach to the werewolf genre in that it treats lycanthropy as an infectious disease. After being scratched by a werewolf, Blake gradually experiences a series of disturbing symptoms. Initially, this is a fresh and interesting approach to a familiar concept.

But as the film goes on, it’s ultimately too dull to stand out as anything special. It’s just not that exciting to watch a guy lie on a couch, feeling unwell, unable to move or speak. It was a good idea to switch between what Charlotte sees and what Blake sees in werewolf vision, but the oversaturated, glowy-eyes werewolf vision just looks like a bad After Effects job.

1

Wolf Man’s Werewolf Design Is Underwhelming

The biggest problem with Wolf Man is simply that its monster design is underwhelming. The werewolf genre is a very simple one; it’s based entirely on the concept of an angry, bloodthirsty, mutated wolf that stalks its prey when there’s a full moon in the sky. Throughout the genre’s history, there have been plenty of unforgettable werewolf designs, from Rick Baker’s classic practical effects in An American Werewolf in London to the Lycans from the Underworld franchise.

Compared to the best, Wolf Man’s werewolf design is a massive let-down. The movie spends an hour building up to Blake’s transformation, and it doesn’t look great. His face puffs out a bit, his fingernails are replaced with slightly sharper claws, and he grows a few more body hairs. A monster movie needs a terrifying monster to succeed, and Wolf Man just doesn’t have one.

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Wolf Man

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Wolf Man, released on January 15, 2025, follows Blake and his wife Charlotte as they visit his secluded childhood home in rural Oregon. After a mysterious animal attack, they become trapped inside, and Charlotte is forced to confront Blake’s disturbing transformation amidst growing tension and fear.

Runtime

103 minutes

Cast

Christopher Abbott
, Julia Garner
, Matilda Firth
, Sam Jaeger
, Ben Prendergast
, Benedict Hardie
, Beatriz Romilly
, Milo Cawthorne

Director

Leigh Whannell

Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment