Movie Review: Wolf Man

4 stars out of 5

The day started out with me planning to see the movie September 5 in Montclair. But for the second week in a row I didn’t get an early-enough jump, so hunkered down in Vito’s Pizza of Bloomfield (last week it was the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton) to figure out Plan B. I hadn’t scrolled too far down the Regal app Secaucus listings before realizing, “Ooh, Wolf Man! I want to see that!”

I’d seen the trailer a number of times, and it looked pretty scary. Plus I have a vague knowledge that horror-meisters Blumhouse are revitalizing the old Universal monsters for the 21st century. My IMDd account confirms that I already saw 2020’s The Invisible Man. I only remember a scene in a restaurant Elisabeth Moss and a knife, but I did rate the film 7 out of 10 so I guess I mostly liked it. Invisible Man writer/director Leigh Whannell returns to helm Wolf Man. And I liked it 1 more out of 10!

Christopher Abbott (who I only know from the underwhelming dominatrix flick Sanctuary) and Julia Garner (who I’ve appreciated since The Americans in 2013) are a not-very-happy married city couple with a kid. Abbott suggests they shake things up by going to the woods in Oregon and clearing out his old man’s house. Before they even get to the driveway, though, he gets bit by a radioactive wolf or something. And then the fun begins.

Whannell, with help from an excellent special-effects crew, is terrific at slowly building up the scares, within a limited physical space (scares inside the house, scares from outside the house, in the barn, in the pickup truck, etc.). Abbott loses the ability to speak and the child-actor daughter is somewhat overdoing it, so it’s up to Julia Garner to hold down the acting chops — and she does a great job. We see her go from overworked, depressed corporate mom not feeling she’s spending enough time with the kid, to a wife worried that there’s something seriously wrong with her husband, to someone worried about her own safety, to the mom who will protect her kid at any costs, all the while rediscovering some real love for her family.

But the main reason I really dug this movie: It scared the bejesus out of me and wouldn’t let go. I sat there wide-eyed with my mouth hanging open as the film moved from one scary set piece to the next. It’s a raw, no-frills horror flick, so if you like that sort of thing, be in pursuit of the hirsute!