It’s been an interesting week for press screenings in Hong Kong. We had a battle of the movie animals with BETTER MAN screening on Monday, PADDINGTON IN PERU on Wednesday and WOLF MAN on Thursday. After the WOLF MAN screening, my colleagues and I weighed in on which animal won the battle. More on that later. First, a review of WOLF MAN, writer/director/producer Leigh Whannell’s follow up horror film to his brilliant THE INVISIBLE MAN from 2020.

In this reboot of the 1941 horror classic that starred Lon Chaney, Whannell reimagines the Welsh family tragedy as a tale of intergenerational trauma set in the forests of Oregon. Here, audiences are told in a prologue that in 1995 a hiker vanished in the local mountains leading to speculation that he picked up a virus that caused him to become a “wolf face”. Young Blake Lovell (Zac Chander) lives in the woods with his father, Grady (Sam Jaeger, TV’s PARENTHOOD), a man who cares deeply for his son but is rather intense, especially when they are out hunting deer. Thirty years on, Blake (now played by Christopher Abbott, KRAVEN THE HUNTER; POOR THINGS) is a writer living in San Francisco, married to journalist Charlotte (Julia Garner, THE ASSISTANT) and father to a precocious nine-year-old daughter named Ginger (Matilda Firth, TV’s MR BATES VS THE POST OFFICE). When word comes that his estranged father, who had been missing for quite some time, has been declared dead, Blake decides to return to his childhood home and pack everything up, and he sees it as a good opportunity for him and Charlotte to try to reboot their relationship both with each other and with Ginger. No sooner are they all at the house then they are attacked by a wolf-like creature that scratches Blake on his arm. It then becomes a long night while the Lovells try to protect themselves from the monster.

Full marks to Whannell for reimagining this story that has been told many times and in various ways over the years but, oh my, what a mess he made doing so. A good horror film should either be scary, funny or both but WOLF MAN is neither scary nor funny. Whannell spends far too much time setting the stage for the wolf man’s appearance, giving audiences a glimpse into Blake’s trauma and why he strives to be different from his father. The only problem is that, as drawn out as it is, Whannell still leaves so many questions unanswered. In an early scene, Charlotte says to Blake, “I want to be happy but…”. But what??? We never find out what’s holding Charlotte back from being happy. Is she having an affair? Is she a lesbian? Is she jealous that Blake is a better parent than she is? As for Blake, we learn that he’s “between jobs” but why and for how long is also never covered. Did he get fired from his last job? Is he even looking for a new job? Is he having nightmares over his childhood trauma? Who knows?

When the bumps and creaks finally do start, they are as completely inconsistent as the characters’ behaviours. As Blake morphs into a wolf man, his hearing becomes more acute… but only sometimes. Whannell does a good job playing up that Blake progressively loses his ability to communicate with his family, which is the one thing that he was good at before he got scratched but that’s about the only brilliant thing about this production. Charlotte, meanwhile, becomes an expert in jumping a dead car battery and firing a shotgun. That doesn’t seem very San Franciscan, much less coming from a journalist whose makeup and lipstick never smudge.

WOLF MAN opened in Hong Kong cinemas yesterday (January 16th). It opens around the world today. You can safely give this one a miss. It’s just a complete bore.

As for the battle of the movie animals, the decision amongst the four of us was unanimous. The chimp easily won. The wolf came in a distant third.

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