A tense, exciting update to Universal Monsters

Universal Pictures, Blumhouse and director Leigh Whannell are two for two with their reimaginings of Universal Monsters with A wolf man, their continuation until 2020 The invisible man. Don’t worry though, this isn’t building into an interconnected film franchise à la the Dark Universe (you’ll have to go to the theme parks for this).

with A wolf manThe werewolf legend you thought you knew has been remixed and transformed into a terrifying horror picture of confronting the trauma of today’s generation of toxic masculinity. Girl Daddy Blake (the poor things Christopher Abbott) is a caring stay-at-home parent who seeks to break the cycle of tough love he was raised in and still haunts him. He is reminded of his militaristic, isolated upbringing when he is given the keys to his father’s rural home in Oregon, where he grew up hunting and avoiding talking about the common pain of losing his mother.

This sadness is hinted at early on when they encounter a creature in the woods – a creature whose father wants to prove its existence to his fellow hunters. Blake was eager to get out of his father’s mission, but the events of A wolf man made that impossible.

Beyond its monstrous elements, A wolf man intelligently presents a very relatable reality for many parents living in an unpredictable and harsh economic environment. Blake is an unemployed parent who actively does not want to repeat the past, but can still feel the pressure of societal expectations of who should be the head of a family. Blake’s wife Charlotte (OzarkJulia Garner) is the breadwinner, a high-profile journalist forced to spend less time with her family; she harbors some resentment towards Blake, who she feels is closer to their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth).

This all sets up quickly, almost too quickly to get to the action. In particular, it felt like a lot of Charlotte’s character and feelings were watered down to the point of making her a little too cold towards Blake, undermining Garner’s performance and making some final act motivations feel jarring.

In an attempt to save his family, Blake takes his wife and daughter to his childhood home to pack after his father is presumed dead. They don’t even get to the house before they see the mysterious creature appear in the road and it’s chillingly dizzying while hiding from the monster chasing them. Blake and his family realize he’s been scratched – and when he bas his father’s failures come to a head, he is immersed in his own internal struggle, which manifests itself in the virus that begins to turn him into a threat that his family must protect from.

Abbott has long been an underrated actor, and his dramatic emotional performance makes Blake’s terrifying transformation deeply tragic over the course of the film. When you see him on screen, his physique is heartbreaking as he battles the toxic wolf creature virus. The way Abbott embodies his Wolf Man evokes the character’s legacy from Universal Monsters, paying homage to the emotionality of Lon Chaney’s face in his modern interpretation.

Even though his movie never says that Blake is werewolf (no full moon rules or any other generic tale), Whannell masterfully captures what an animalistic alpha-male virus might look like if it manifests, with nods to footage in other films that explore themes of sins of the father. (Specifically, the shot “over the woods, car on the road” reflects the beginning of The glow– and there’s no better way to let the viewer know that this isn’t going to go well.) A wolf manThe approach seems very timely in an age where the older generation clings to outdated concepts of masculinity and the current generation struggles with identity in a disintegrating society that forces them to face their fears of failure. Will they succumb to the monsters of the past or break free?

The wolf man hits theaters this Friday.

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