Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Wolf Man (2025)
While 2025’sWolf Manhas its moments, the psychological horror movie mostly fails by misapplying an approach that worked for some major recent genre hits. 2025’sWolf Manreboot stars Christopher Abbott as Blake, a writer who brings his wife and daughter out to his isolated, rural childhood home after his estranged father is finally declared dead. Blake’s father went missing years earlier, andWolf Man’s ending revealsthat his disappearance was tied to the remote location’s history of lycanthropy, as is Blake’s eventual fate.
WhileWolf Man’s werewolves are differentfrom most movie lycanthropes, that is not the only thing that makes this Blumhouse horror movie stand out in the subgenre. A lot of major werewolf movies, fromAn American Werewolf In Londonto 1994’sWolftoGinger SnapstoFull Moon High, see their protagonists gradually transform into werewolves after an initial attack. There is a build-up to the next full moon, a gradual transformation that alters their personality and behavior, and eventually, a merging of human and beast that irreversibly changes the protagonist.
Wolf Man’s Mix of Home Invasion And Body Horror Falls Flat
Wolf Man’s Brief Timeline Feels Rushed And Simultaneously Uneventful
Although director Leigh Whannell’sWolf Mandoes technically hit some of these beats,Wolf Man’s entire storyline takes place over one night like a home invasion horror movie. Structurally,Wolf Manhas more in common withThe Strangers,Hush, orThe PurgethanThe Howling, 2010’sThe Wolfman, orSilver Bullet. Like so many recent genre hits,Wolf Mantries to be two different types of horror movies at once. Unlike those earlier successes, its ambitious genre mashup doesn’t work.
Wolf Manis a werewolf movie where viewers have no chance to get to know the hero thanks to the home invasion subgenre’s compressed time frame.
After all,Wolf Manis a home invasion movie where viewers spend almost the entire runtime waiting for the villain to appear, since he is also the protagonist. There is a second werewolf who attacks the family throughout the night, but it is clear that Blake becoming a werewolf is a bigger threat than this secondary villain. On this note,Wolf Manis also simultaneously a werewolf movie where viewers have no chance to truly get to know the hero thanks to the home invasion subgenre’s compressed time frame.
By their nature, home invasion movies always take place over a short time, often a single night. In contrast, werewolf movies tend to take place over a longer stretch, so viewers can get to know what the protagonist was like before their transformation and how lycanthropy changed them. WhereWhannell’s pre-Wolf ManprojectThe Invisible Mangave viewers a chance to get acquainted with the movie’s heroine before introducing the villain,Wolf Manoffers only a lone family dinner scene before its fateful road trip.
Genre Blending Horror Movies Excelled In Recent Years
Many Of The Genre’s Biggest Recent Hits Mixed Horror Sub-genres
To be fair to the creators ofWolf Man, it must be tough to resist the allure of genre-blending horror movies in 2025.Many of the biggest horror hits of 2024 were genre mashups, blending various types of horror movies to create new, unpredictable subgenres. 2024’sNosferatuis primarily a vampire horror movie but, thanks to star Lily-Rose Depp’s unforgettable performance, it also functions as a possession horror. Similarly, 2024’s indie sensationTerrifier 3mostly functions as a seasonal slasher, but its finale turns the movie into a supernatural demon horror.
2024’s sleeper hitLonglegsbegins like a police procedural but, by the time the gruesome ending rolls around, viewers are firmly into supernatural horror territory. Similarly, althoughThe Strangers Chapter Oneseems like it should be a straightforward home invasion horror movie like its franchise predecessors, the reboot is also a Small Town With A Secret horror mystery in its early stretches. When done well, this approach can be great. Unfortunately, thebody horror of 2025’sWolf Manfeels ill-suited to the home invasion setup, as werewolf stories demand a slower storytelling style.
Wolf Man’s Story Didn’t Fit Its Home Invasion Setup
Viewers Never Get To Know Christopher Abbott’s Blake
SinceWolf Mantakes place over a single night, viewers never get to know Blake. This would be fine in a self-contained home invasion movie, where the protagonist’s peril defines their story. It doesn’t really matter that the heroes ofThe Strangersare so thinly sketched, since the stakes of their story are so immediately obvious. As implied by the subgenre’s name, home invasion movies have in-built stakes. However, when the protagonist’s transformation is central to the whole story, it helps if viewers know who they were before the werewolf attack.
The best werewolf movies give the audience an insight into the monster’s human self before their transformation.
Similarly,Blake’s lack of characterization would be fine if he were justWolf Man’s villain, but he is also the movie’s hero. The best werewolf movies, fromAn American Werewolf in LondontoGinger Snaps, give the audience an insight into the monster’s human self before their transformation. This makes their fate tragic and compelling, and 2025’sWolf Manfalls short in this task precisely because of its home invasion movie setup. Since viewers have only seen Blake make dinner, drive, and get bitten by a werewolf, it is tough to truly know his character at all.
Wolf Man’s Body Horror Felt Rushed And Wasted
Wolf Man’s One-Night Storyline Crammed In Too Much
It is difficult, given how many werewolf movies there are, for any new movie to make the protagonist’s transformation from a human into a monster compelling. That said, everything fromThe HowlingtoWolfento 2010’s underratedThe Wolfmanmanaged this, andWolf Man’s changes to werewolf mythologyshould theoretically have made the movie’s story feel fresh. Despite this,Wolf Man’s body horror isn’t as scary as it should be because Blake barely has any time to process what is happening to him before he is already dead.
Since Whannel’s movie echoes the structure of a home invasion horror,Wolf Manis a werewolf movie where the protagonist’s transformation and eventual death happen within a few hours of the initial attack. Viewers never see Blake adjust to what is happening to him or even realize his fate because the story is so rushed. This works in tense, almost real-time horror movies likeDon’t Breatheor 2007’sInside. However, in a sub-genre where the gradual breakdown of a human body and mind is central to the horror of the premise,Wolf Manis too fast-paced to truly scare.
