Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: “Wolf Man,” now playing in theatres, is a new take on the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. horror classic. Set in the Pacific Northwest, the story sees Blake and his family barricade themselves inside a farmhouse following an attack by a strange feral creature. “What was that thing? It sounded like an animal. But I swear to God it was standing on two feet.” As the animal lurks outside something insidious begins to happen inside the house. “’What’s wrong with Daddy?” asks daughter Ginger.

CAST: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast, Benedict Hardie, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly, Milo Cawthorne. Directed by Leigh Whannell.

REVIEW: The Wolf Man has always been a tragic figure. A man and a monster, the cursed character is an unwitting victim of an animal bite that transforms him into a bloodthirsty werewolf. Through no fault of his own he is a villain, but, as “Wolf Man” suggests, he’s also a victim. “What’s happening to me?” Blake asks.

The story begins as Blake’s (Christopher Abbott) estranged father goes missing and is presumed dead. When Blake inherits his dad’s rural Oregon property, he sees an opportunity to mend his tattered marriage to Charlotte (Julia Garner) with a trip away from their big city San Francisco life.

With daughter Ginger (Matlida Firth) in tow they set off, but as the trio approach their destination, they’re attacked by someone, or something. Locking themselves inside Blake’s isolated childhood home, Charlotte notices changes in her husband’s behavior. Blake says, “’It’s a little too dangerous for us to go outside right now,” but as he begins to transform, the real danger may already be in the house.

Director Leigh Whannell’s take on the werewolf story has as much to do with David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” as it does with George Waggner’s 1941 “The Wolf Man.” Gone from the traditional werewolf story are any religious or supernatural elements. This is a story of an infection—or, as one character calls it, “a disease” typical to the rural region—and the life changing effects it has, not only on Blake, but also on his family.

It’s an allegory, with a horror twist, for any disease that strips away physical and mental health.

Blake’s transformation into a beast happens slowly. He doesn’t collapse behind a desk and emerge as a hairy handed gent. As his humanity gradually slips away his teeth fall out, his senses are heightened—a spider crawling up a wall sounds like an eight-legged timpani drum—and his grip on reality erodes. Whannell uses POV shots to illustrate the otherworldly visions Blake sees, effectively displaying how his take on the world is changing.

The horror here comes from Blake’s transformation, his struggle to contain the beast within as Charlotte and Ginger stand by, watching the man they once knew slowly disappear.

As such, it’s also a family drama, a love story of a sort and a monster movie that never lets go of its humanity.

But this is also a movie that wants to deliver scares. To that end there is dimly lit atmosphere, some creepy shadows and the odd jump scare but, as Blake shifts from victim to villain, Whannell stages gorier moments—like one involving a bear trap—that will linger in the memory.

“Wolf Man” is ambitious in its reinvention of the werewolf myth as an allegory for sickness. Light on plot and dialogue, it delivers its message effectively, even if Julia Garner, so great in “Ozark,” isn’t given more to do. In a performance that is mostly wide-eyed and reactional, she often disappears into the film’s thick atmospherics.

Despite that, “Wolf Man” is a smart reinvention of a story we’ve seen many times before.