Wolf Man

Directed by Leigh Whannell, Wolf Man details the violence that ensues after Christopher Abbott’s Blake Lovell is scratched by the title creature. It’s a seemingly foolproof setup that is, at the outset, employed to engaging, promising effect by Whannell, as the filmmaker, armed with his and Corbett Tuck’s screenplay, kicks the proceedings off with a deliberately-paced yet thoroughly compelling opening stretch that effectively establishes both the characters and the underlying threat. It’s clear, then, that Wolf Man‘s hold on the viewer is slowly-but-surely loosened as it progresses into an increasingly lackluster (and uninteresting) midsection and second half, as Whannell, who pushes the slow-moving aesthetic to its breaking point, offers up a spare narrative that contains little in the way of compelling set-pieces or episodes – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by Stefan Duscio’s claustrophobic, dimly-lit cinematography and a trio of central characters lacking in overtly compelling qualities (ie they’re woefully underdeveloped, essentially). By the time the somewhat anticlimactic final stretch rolls around, Wolf Man has unfortunately cemented its place as a disappointing misfire that’s a far cry from Whannell’s previous film, 2020’s superb The Invisible Man.

** out of ****