‘Wolf Man’ is all bark and no bite

If a person dies in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did they really die? That’s a question at the heart of co-writer/director Leigh Whannell’s “Wolf Man,” the second of his Universal Monster reboots after 2020’s “much better than it had any right to be” “The Invisible Man.”

The opening prologue finds a young Blake taken on a hunting trip by his stern father (Sam Jaeger), the scars of the presumed death of his wife perpetually showing through his drill instructor demeanor. But instead of being the predators, the pair become prey as some beast stalks them through the Oregon wilderness. Thirty years later, Blake (Christopher Abbott) lives with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) in San Francisco. A letter comes in the mail legally confirming the death of Blake’s dad, although his body was never recovered. All Blake knows is that he went into those same woods and never returned. There’s no logical explanation for his disappearance, leaving Blake’s mind to wander toward the conclusion that the thing is at the center of it all.

But before that prologue, we’re treated to a quick close-up of a hornet gorging on an ant. Dozens of other ants try to intervene, but they’re helpless to stop this cruel act of nature. Blake also can’t stop himself from returning to his childhood home despite the painful memories and generational trauma it possesses. Nature is cruel in this part of the world, with no electricity or modes of communication, making the act of survival a deliberate task rather than a basic given.

Even the things that don’t kill you still give off a feeling of dread. The wood on the trees crackles as it sways from the wind, and the leaves fall like bombs against the deafening silence. Whannell expertly used the power of sound to convey the threat of an invisible assailant in “The Invisible Man.” Here, he repeats the lesson that hearing nothing is much scarier than hearing something.

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However, it’s hard to appreciate a sharp tool when it’s used to construct an overall lackluster product. Those drops in sound come during the dime-a-dozen moments when time stops just before a jump scare. The prey during those moments is Charlotte and Ginger, with Blake as the predator after he’s scratched by a beast. The infection slowly consumes him, altering his vision and heightening his sense of smell and hearing. The cycle of running and hiding ensues, with the single location setting being stretched way past its effectiveness.

Granted, it’s not hard to appreciate the practical makeup effects used to gruesomely illustrate Blake’s transformation from human to wolf. His fingernails are easily ripped off in favor of claws, his facial bones crunch as they accommodate his new set of teeth, and his skin becomes a sickly grayish-yellow. Whannell credited David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” as visual inspiration for his monster, both in the literal execution of the effects and the emotional toll it takes on the victim.

There is a case to be made that all the weight and seriousness heaped upon these modern remakes strips away the B-movie charm these concepts were born with and long appreciated for. “The Invisible Man” was able to toe that line rather well, but “Wolf Man” leans too far into the “dark and gritty” territory to be as fun or interesting as it should be. At least Robert Eggers just covered Dracula with “Nosferatu” and Guillermo del Toro is handling Frankenstein’s monster for Netflix later this year, giving Whannell and Blumhouse enough time to go back to the drawing board before they embark on their next dark adventure.

Universal Pictures will release “Wolf Man” in theaters nationwide on Jan. 17.

Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays and more. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.