Just before the COVID-19 pandemic closed theaters, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man hit theaters to sublime reviews and a phenomenal box office haul. The former aspect was significant because modern takes on classic Universal Monsters movies have failed far more often than succeeded. And not even Bram Stoker’s Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola achieved critical acclaim upon release. As for the latter, it managed to generate $70 million domestically in just three weeks, which was ten times its budget.It was a major win for horror legend Whannell, who kicked off his big screen career by writing and co-leading James Wan’s Saw in 2004, and it’s no wonder he’s made his follow-up another toe dip in the world of Universal Monsters via Wolf Man.
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Since then, Whannell’s output has only become more impressive, showing him to be as proficient in the spooky genre as Wan. After writing the first two Saw sequels and the first two Insidious installments, he made his directorial debut with the underrated Insidious: Chapter 3. But it was his sophomore film, Upgrade, that showed Whannell to be a true master of genre films. That wasn’t a horror flick per se, it skewed action, but it was certainly laced with horrific elements. In a way, it was a technology-focused body horror movie.
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What Inspired 2025’s Wolf Man?
In terms of general themes that worked their way into the forthcoming lupine film, Whannell said in a newly release featurette: “After the last few years of turmoil that the world has been in, the themes of isolation and dread and anxiety were naturally coming out in the script.” Those are elements that greatly assist any horror narrative, and as can be seen in the trailer for Wolf Man, the few characters it follows are fully on their own in a remote farmhouse. Toss in a husband going through a grisly transformation and the tension for his family is naturally going to be unbearable.
As far as the film’s cinematic inspirations, Whannell considers Wolf Man a tribute to the ’80s horror classics he and many others grew up with. As one might have guessed given the film’s isolated location and the transformation aspect, he mentions John Carpenter’s seminal The Thing and David Cronenberg’s The Fly. His goal is similar to what those two masterpieces accomplished: “I wanted to lean into something horrific. Something visceral. You can really dig deep into someone’s subconscious with a horror film, and I think we do that with this movie.”
These are all very reassuring words for anyone who was worried the film would be a dud thanks to the title monster’s debut at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights 2024. Whannell was quick to put worries to rest with his statement about that design being a “debacle” and “like judging the Freddy Krueger makeup by a costume at Spirit Halloween.” Either way, we’ll have to wait a month to see if Whannell has created another modern horror classic like The Invisible Man.
Wolf Man hits theaters on January 17th.
