Leigh Whannell made the successful 2020 reboot of The Invisible Man which must’ve compelled him and Universal to take another jab at the classic monster series and now rework The Wolfman brand. While I was fully on board with what he did with Invisible Man, this more straightforward approach to Wolf Man is decidedly much more of a mixed bag. I will get more into that in a bit, but something just seems to have been lost in translation here. Full disclosure: I was a fan of the 2010 The Wolfman with Benicio Del Toro in the lead and hate that we never saw more of that chapter, but it still works as a standalone film. Where this series goes from here (especially after the abysmal reception of this film) is now up in the air.

A caption tells us about a vanishing in 1995 and speaks of a virus linked to wildlife. We meet a young Blake Lovell (Zac Chandler) who seems to live alone in a cabin with his very strict father, Grady (Sam Jaeger). They go out hunting and discover some mysterious creature which is never shown in plain view. Flash forward to the present day and we now meet an adult Blake (played by Christopher Abbot) walking with his daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). We can see right away that they have a special bond and that the close discipline Blake’s father had on him translates to how he raises his daughter. His wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner) arrives home from work one day and we can see right away that Blake has a bit of a temper as he demands she take a call into another room. Knowing that things aren’t great between them, Blake decides to take his wife and daughter to his father’s cabin in rural Oregan. This is after Blake receives a letter that his father has passed away, so he will need to move his stuff back home. They are packed in a big moving truck, but on the way, they veer off the road and have an accident. During this, we see that Blake is cut and slowly becomes infected. They make it into the cabin where much of the film now takes place. There isn’t cell phone service, but Blake discovers some of his father’s old tech to try and call for help. There is something else out there lurking, but we see Blake’s progression into the wolfman.

Now here is the big issue I had with the film and I’m sure will be for a lot of viewers. It’s the look and design of the Wolfman in this version. I can applaud the filmmakers for attempting something different, but the look here just didn’t do it for me. That, and outside of a few jump scares, the film just isn’t very frightening. With such great source material, I wish the design of the creature at least had something closer to what we’ve come to know and expect. The film does move along nicely during its brief running time, but once it ended it left me rather cold and empty. I didn’t take much away from this iteration. The acting is good from Abbot and Firth, but Julia Garner is more of a mixed bag. While she has good moments, a lot of her performance seems flat. The film isn’t terrible, but it’s a curious decision to strip back so much of what makes these films interesting to give us such a flat experience.

While not terrible, Wolf Man still makes for an odd feature. It is well made, but strips away so much that we know and love about this character that it hardly feels like a werewolf movie. A rental is the strongest endorsement I can give, but I much prefer the 2010 version.