Blake (Christopher Abbott) takes his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to the farm he grew up on in remote Oregon. On their first night there they are attacked by a mysterious animal that stands on its hind legs and Blake is injured. 

Infected by the disease the animal that attacked them is afflicted by, Blake’s condition slowly deteriorates as he begins to transform before Charlotte and Ginger’s eyes. Can they survive the night and seek help? 

Co-written by husband and wife team Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck, this iteration of Universal’s famous creature feature focuses on familial strife and generational trauma. We first see Blake as a young boy (Zac Chandler) on his farm with his father Grady (Sam Jaeger). Grady is a disciplinarian and comes down hard on his son at every opportunity. Then we see Blake as a doting father to a daughter, but one who occasionally struggles to keep his temper and who hates the idea he might become his father. Blake’s relationship with Charlotte is strained also and he wants to reconnect with her so they can be the family he never had. 

So when he is notified that his father, who went missing thirty years ago has been declared legally dead he decides that a family trip to the farm that is now his is in order. What follows is a werewolf feature featuring some moments of gore and a few jumps. But nothing that feels particularly engaging as Blake faces his worst nightmare of turning into his father. 

The end result is a disappointment. Leigh Whannell had previously given us a brilliant updated version of another Universal monster in The Invisible Man. So it is with hopes dashed that I can only describe this as merely passable. At 103 minutes it still feels overlong and Julia Garner never really seems to gel well with her character or the story. The best facets of the film are Christopher Abbott’s commitment to the role and transformation and a special effect that I can only describe as Wolf Vision. Here we see the same scene from Blake’s perspective of sight and sound followed by a human’s perspective of it. It is a fascinating representation of the speed at which he is transforming as its effects differ more and more as the story progresses. 

Unfortunately Wolf Man is eminently passable.