This New Flick With 52% on RT Is the Most Disappointing Horror Release of 2025 So Far

In recent years, several famous filmmakers have turned to the classic monsters of Universal's Dark Universe – Guillermo Del Toro and Maggie Gyllenhaal are preparing films about Frankenstein's monster and his bride, and Lee Cronin has been appointed director of the new Mummy.

The creator of the Insidious franchise, as well as the director of the sci-fi thriller Upgrade Leigh Whannell sensed the new horror trend before anyone else. In 2020, Whannell released a remake of The Invisible Man.

Since 2017, Whannell has been approaching the remake of Wolf Man – another key character of Universal's universe – the shooting of which was constantly postponed.

What Is Wolf Man About?

Oregon, 1995. Teenager Blake and his hunter father Grady head into the mountains – rumor has it that a tourist who contracted a mysterious virus that is spreading in the wild has recently disappeared in the area.

While attempting to track down the quarry, Grady becomes distracted and loses sight of Blake, while the boy stumbles upon a mysterious creature that vaguely resembles a human.

Many years later, Blake learns that his missing father has been presumed dead. Together with his wife and daughter, Blake returns to Oregon to say goodbye to his father and to collect things from the house.

Wolf Man's Action Is Transferred to Modern Times

Wolf Man was created with the successful reincarnation of The Invisible Man in mind: the action of the movie was transferred back to the present day.

In 1941's The Wolf Man, Lawrence Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr., also returns to his family roots and travels to his great-grandfather's castle in Wales, where he accidentally kills a werewolf and becomes hostage to a curse.

The script structure of Wolf Man develops in a similar direction, but the film's intonation is completely different: the black-and-white noir has been replaced by a dark slow-burner whose main action takes place in a creaky, cramped space – Talbot's abandoned cabin.

Old floorboards and flickering light bulbs are Whannell's main genre tools – he said he wanted the film to convey a sense of covid isolation, not the most relevant trend in 2025.

The Werewolf Transformation Doesn't Look Terrifying or Exciting at All

The transformation from man to monster – the emotional core of all Wolf Man adaptations – is realized in the most depressing way for the genre.

According to Whannell's original plan, the disease that afflicts Blake would be similar to neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a diagnosis suffered by Stephen Hawking.

In the final version of the movie, however, the reference is not obvious, and Wolf Man does not become a realistic body horror.

Wolf Man Is a Disappointing Remake of a Cult Classic

Whannell also moves away from theatrical effects in the spirit of An American Werewolf in London, relying on the psychological degradation of the main character, who has lived in fear of turning into a tyrannical father all his life. But again, there is no catharsis.

Ultimately, Whannell fails to reconcile the new concept of Wolf Man with the classical foundations of the genre – even in the era of leisurely horror films about trauma, the viewer first and foremost needs entertaining cinema, where the moral context sets the direction, but is not an end in itself.