The 2025 film calendar is off to a gradual begin, with many late 2024 releases nonetheless dominating the field workplace. Leigh Whannell’s horror movie Wolf Man hopes to affix Den of Thieves 2: Pantera on the high of the weekend’s field workplace when it opens on January seventeenth, however judging by the blended evaluations from critics, it’s unclear how possible that’ll be.
The upcoming Blumhouse movie is the newest installment from the manufacturing firm vying for a spot on the most effective horror motion pictures of all time lists. Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott portrays Blake, a household patriarch who’s tasked with protecting his household alive when their farmhouse finds itself underact by mysterious creatures one evening. When Blake begins to show unusual signs, his spouse (portrayed by Emmy-award-winning actress Julia Garner) grapples with having to guard herself and their daughter from Blake’s new type.
On paper, it is the proper recipe for a creature-feature-style horror movie, however for a lot of, it left a lot to be desired. CinemaBlend’s personal Eric Eisenberg defined in his personal Wolf Man evaluation that the movie does a superb job at laying the framework of who these characters are however loses steam as soon as that groundwork is laid:
…what’s provided as a substitute is a jerky expertise that is filled with stops and begins. Attention-grabbing thought are deployed as an instance Blake’s quickly altering physique, however too typically they really feel like showcase moments as a substitute of story developments.
This isn’t Blumhouse and Whannell’s first foray into rebooting traditional Common horror movies, because the pair beforehand teamed up for the Elisabeth Moss-led iteration of The Invisible Man, which critics cherished. Sadly, the overall consensus appears to be that Whannell didn’t have as sturdy a grasp on what a Wolf Man reboot ought to appear to be in the identical manner he did along with his earlier Common Monster movies. Whereas IGN’s Katie Ripe makes it clear that the movie is “impeccably made,” it doesn’t maintain as much as Whannell’s different movie, writing:
The unique 1941 model of The Wolf Man is likely one of the weaker movies within the Common Monsters cycle, and Wolf Man is equally inferior to Whannell’s personal model of The Invisible Man.
One key level of rivalry for early audiences of the Wolf Man is the werewolf lore Whannell created for the flick. As anybody who’s a fan of monster initiatives, notably motion pictures and TV reveals about werewolves, the transformation and results behind mentioned creatures are nearly extra vital than the story. Whereas Whannell’s model deviates from conventional werewolf lore of transformations throughout full moons, it units out to create a realistic-looking monster by utilizing sensible results. Sadly, that didn’t work for everybody. A degree that Selection’s Peter Debruge asserts in his evaluation:
Wolf Man is a dud. Whannell opts to go the sensible route, utilizing prosthetics and different on-camera gadgets to simulate Blake’s agonizing mutation, however errs on the facet of realism, with its contaminated father sweating up a storm earlier than gnawing his arm with these sharp new canines of his.
Not everyone seems to be as cynical concerning the reboot, although. THR’s David Rooney provides reward for sure features of it. Whereas the official evaluation claims the movie “satisfies, however by no means soars,” Rooney discovered curiosity within the “claustrophobic” nature of the movie going down over one evening in largely one setting. He argues that this permits the filmmakers to…
…tighthen the concentrate on household tensions by eradicating many of the narrative externals, homing in on a seemingly mismatched couple’s fragile relationship as husband Blake (Abbott) undergoes alarming adjustments and his spouse Charlotte (Garner) is pressured to make split-second choices to guard herself and their younger daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). Setting the first motion over the course of a single harrowing, misty evening was a sensible selection.
Nonetheless, IndieWire critic David Ehrlich lays into the Whannell and Tuck movie laborious, discussing all of the methods Wolf Man did not stay as much as the legacy it might have had.
Wolf Man” is a soft-hearted story that’s been squeezed into the form of a lean-and-mean January programmer, and whereas Whannell manages to eke just a few respectable moments from that state of affairs (a pitch-black barn encounter is nearly satisfying sufficient to make up for an underwhelming greenhouse setpiece that fails to generate any suspense), many of the jolts lack the identical thought that went into the movie’s disregarded story, and the occasional bits of R-rated gore aren’t sick sufficient to make up the steadiness. If something, the scene the place Blake begins to gnaw his personal arm off is probably the most relatable a part of the film.
Based mostly on these evaluations, it’s laborious to think about what the way forward for Blumhouse’s want to reboot the traditional Common Monsters movie goes to appear to be. Hopefully, Lee Cronin’s 2026 iteration of The Mummy will fare higher than Whannell’s Wolf Man. In fact, critics are at all times harsher on movies than most audiences, so there’s at all times an opportunity the movie will fare significantly better with audiences. These wanting to take a look at the horror flick can head to theaters on January seventeenth.