Universal Pictures’ upcoming Wolf Man movie looks like it’s going to deliver a very different take on the werewolf horror genre.
As we’ve seen in the trailers that have been released, the movie is going to feature some pretty nightmarish body horror as we watch Christopher Abbott’s character transform into a werewolf creature.
It turns out that this transformation was heavily influenced by the classic horror movie, The Fly. During a recent interview with Empire, director Leigh Whannell explains that Wolf Man will be leaning into the body-horror elements inherent to the werewolf mythos.
He said: “What The Fly did that a lot of other practical-effects-driven horror movies from that time did not do was bring the tragedy out of these practical effects.
“It wasn’t a joke in The Fly. It was there to illustrate someone who was dying of an illness. I was like, ‘I’ve got to do that’. It’s not about being funny or icky or gory. This is about the tragedy of the human body falling apart.”
It certainly looks like the filmmaker brings that horrific energy to Wolf Man. This tragedy that Whannell talks about is going to be witnessed by his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth).
When talking about Garner’s performance, the director compares it to Shelley Duvall in The Shining. He said: “She’s going to be the emotional compass of this film, and she’s going to be what Shelley Duvall was in The Shining.
“You don’t get scared in The Shining without Shelley Duvall. And so I was like, ‘I’ve got to find someone who can drink up the audience’s empathy.’ And she did an incredible job.”
These comments get me more excited about watching this movie!
Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, “who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead.
“With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma).
“But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter.
“As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.”
The movie is set to be released in January 2025.
