You won’t really find full moons, silver bullets, or more stereotypical werewolf lore in new horror movie Wolf Man – and there’s a valid reason for that, according to co-writer and director Leigh Whannell.
Inspired by George Waggner’s similarly named 1941 film, Universal’s latest collaboration with Blumhouse centers on Christopher Abbott’s Blake and Julia Garner’s Charlotte, who find themselves fighting for their lives one nightmarish night after they get attacked by a mysterious beast.
Whannell, who penned the flick with his wife Corbett Tuck, has made no secret of the fact that he always viewed the story as one about disease and isolation rather than lycanthropy. In the run-up to release, he noted that he always “wanted to focus on the family” and that he prefers films that don’t overexplain things to the audience.
“I didn’t want that scene where they discover a dusty book in the basement like, ‘Here’s the rules’,” he laughs, miming someone blowing a binder clean and flicking through its pages. “The library montage, you might call it… where you figure everything out.
“Exposition is such a tricky thing to handle, and how much you want to explain to people. A lot of times you might do a test screening and people tell you they want more, but my personal preference is to keep things more mysterious,” Whannell admits. “I love the films of David Lynch, they’re like these puzzle boxes and he deliberately avoids explanations. I find that makes the film stay with me, because nothing was spoon fed. I can walk away and live with the movie, and interpret it, then I’ll get online. I’m like anyone else, I’ve googled ‘What does Mulholland Drive mean?’ I’m seeking an answer, and I think that’s what he wants with his movies. I’m not saying these are David Lynch movies that I’m making, but I like being sparing with that stuff.”
Wolf Man is Whannell’s second time tackling a more modern take on a Classic Monsters movie, following his huge hit The Invisible Man back in 2020. While the former is reportedly a comment on COVID-style themes and distance between married couples, the latter saw Elisabeth Moss play Cecilia, a woman terrorized by her abusive ex-husband – a terrible situation complicated by the fact that her former partner has supposedly died.
“They say a good horror film should be able to work as a drama if you took the supernatural out of it, and I do think about it a lot from that perspective,” Whannell continues. “You want believable characters and you want a story that would work without anything outlandish.” It just so happens this movie has a…
Wolf Man claws its ways into theaters on January 17. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
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