The 2025 movie calendar is off to a slow start, with many late 2024 releases still dominating the box office. Leigh Whannell’s horror film Wolf Man hopes to join Den of Thieves 2: Pantera at the top of the weekend’s box office when it opens on January 17th, but judging by the mixed reviews from critics, it’s unclear how likely that’ll be.
The upcoming Blumhouse film is the latest installment from the production company vying for a spot on the best horror movies of all time lists. Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott portrays Blake, a family patriarch who is tasked with keeping his family alive when their farmhouse finds itself underact by mysterious creatures one night. When Blake begins to display strange symptoms, his wife (portrayed by Emmy-award-winning actress Julia Garner) grapples with having to protect herself and their daughter from Blake’s new form.
On paper, it's the perfect recipe for a creature-feature-style horror film, but for many, it left much to be desired. CinemaBlend’s own Eric Eisenberg explained in his own Wolf Man review that the film does an excellent job at laying the framework of who these characters are but loses steam once that groundwork is laid:
…what’s offered instead is a jerky experience that is full of stops and starts. Interesting idea are deployed to illustrate Blake’s rapidly changing body, but too often they feel like showcase moments instead of story developments.
This isn’t Blumhouse and Whannell’s first foray into rebooting classic Universal horror films, as the pair previously teamed up for the Elisabeth Moss-led iteration of The Invisible Man, which critics loved. Unfortunately, the general consensus seems to be that Whannell did not have as strong a grasp on what a Wolf Man reboot should look like in the same way he did with his previous Universal Monster films. While IGN’s Katie Ripe makes it clear that the film is “impeccably made,” it doesn’t hold up to Whannell’s other film, writing:
The original 1941 version of The Wolf Man is one of the weaker films in the Universal Monsters cycle, and Wolf Man is similarly inferior to Whannell’s own version of The Invisible Man.
One key point of contention for early audiences of the Wolf Man is the werewolf lore Whannell created for the flick. As anyone who is a fan of monster projects, particularly movies and TV shows about werewolves, the transformation and effects behind said creatures are almost more important than the story. While Whannell’s version deviates from traditional werewolf lore of transformations during full moons, it sets out to create a realistic-looking monster by using practical effects. Unfortunately, that didn’t work for everyone. A point that Variety’s Peter Debruge asserts in his review:
Wolf Man is a dud. Whannell opts to go the practical route, using prosthetics and other on-camera devices to simulate Blake’s agonizing mutation, but errs on the side of realism, with its infected father sweating up a storm before gnawing his arm with those sharp new canines of his.
Not everyone is as cynical about the reboot, though. THR’s David Rooney offers praise for certain aspects of it. While the official review claims the film “satisfies, but never soars,” Rooney found interest in the “claustrophobic” nature of the film taking place over one night in largely one setting. He argues that this allows the filmmakers to…
…tighthen the focus on family tensions by removing most of the narrative externals, homing in on a seemingly mismatched couple’s fragile relationship as husband Blake (Abbott) undergoes alarming changes and his wife Charlotte (Garner) is forced to make split-second decisions to protect herself and their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). Setting the primary action over the course of a single harrowing, misty night was a smart choice.
Still, IndieWire critic David Ehrlich lays into the Whannell and Tuck film hard, discussing all the ways Wolf Man failed to live up to the legacy it could have had.
Wolf Man” is a soft-hearted story that’s been squeezed into the shape of a lean-and-mean January programmer, and while Whannell manages to eke a few decent moments from that situation (a pitch-black barn encounter is almost satisfying enough to make up for an underwhelming greenhouse setpiece that fails to generate any suspense), most of the jolts lack the same thought that went into the film’s disregarded story, and the occasional bits of R-rated gore aren’t sick enough to make up the balance. If anything, the scene where Blake starts to gnaw his own arm off is the most relatable part of the movie.
Based on these reviews, it’s hard to imagine what the future of Blumhouse’s desire to reboot the classic Universal Monsters film is going to look like. Hopefully, Lee Cronin’s 2026 iteration of The Mummy will fare better than Whannell’s Wolf Man. Of course, critics are always harsher on films than most audiences, so there’s always a chance the film will fare much better with audiences. Those wanting to check out the horror flick can head to theaters on January 17th.
