Back when Leigh Whannell and Blumhouse teamed up with Universal to bring new versions of their classic monster stable to screen, it didn’t seem like Whannell — previously the writer of the Insidious movies and the director of Upgrade — would be the one in charge of what came after the failure of “The Dark Universe.” Yet his Invisible Man was a bona fide hit (one of the last ones before COVID came along, anyhow), so he became the man. Or, frankly, the Wolf Man, starring Christopher Abbott as everyone’s favorite man-beast lycanthrope.
Upon reading this, you may ask yourself one important question: “Wasn’t Ryan Gosling supposed to star in this?” The answer is “Yes, he was,” but Gosling had other things to do, so Abbot, one of his generation’s most underrated actors, filled in for him. Blumhouse dropped the first trailer for the project over the weekend, and, you know what? It looks pretty dope, or, at least, much better than the Wolf Man’s debut at Halloween Horror Nights implied.
When the director is straight-up comparing your theme park’s make-up work to Spirit Halloween, you know you’ve fucked up. Peep it:
Here’s a hair-raising synopsis:
“From Blumhouse and visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell, the creators of the chilling modern monster tale ‘The Invisible Man,’ comes a terrifying new lupine nightmare: ‘Wolf Man.’ Golden Globe nominee Christopher 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 (Emmy winner 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.“
Wolf Man hits theaters on January 17.