Wolf Man

I didn’t have to read the Internet Movie Database page on Wolf Man to know co-writer-director Leigh Whannell really likes David Cronenberg’s The Fly.

All during the third act, as Christopher Abbot’s Blake succumbs to his lupine infection, he turns into a mirror image of what Jeff Goldblum looked like as he was overtaken by the insect who joined him in the teleporter.

The problem with homages like that is that they remind viewers that they could be watching the more satisfying predecessor rather than copying and pasting what is currently on the screen.

The peeling skin and falling appendages looked more frightening and heartbreaking when they happened to Goldblum, who is an inherently more engrossing performer than Abbot.

“…Blake succumbs to his lupine infection, he turns into a mirror image of what Jeff Goldblum looked like…”

Perhaps the disappointment wouldn’t seem so acute if I hadn’t also seen Whannell’s inspired reworking of an H.G. Wells classic. With The Invisible Man, he retooled the oft-told tale by making the title character into the stalker ex we all fear. In the process, he tapped into an anxiety that comes from unfamiliar noises or sights in the corners of our eyes.

In reworking yet another entry from the canon of Universal Horror, Whannell and Corbett Tuck have difficulty updating werewolf tropes for a contemporary environment.

Blake has tried getting past his traumatic childhood in rural Oregon. When the state declares his long-missing father (Sam Jaeger) dead, he decides that he had his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter (Matilda Firth) should take a break from their active schedules and move back there from California.