Wolf Man [Leigh Whannell]

Mr Crispy

After helming the successful The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell returns to the world of Universal monsters with a re-treading of the Wolf Man. It looks like they're taking the same approach as Invisible Man, with this having little to do with the Joe Johnston remake of 2010 nor the classic originals of the 1920s and '40s. Supposedly Ryan Gosling was initially attached to star as the titular lycanthrope, but after the project spent some time in limbo the part now belongs to the underrated Christopher Abbott (Possessor, It Comes at Night, Poor Things). The brilliant Julia Garner also stars.

Here's the first teaser;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ2xPwXJpLM

The big hairy canine in the room is the design for the creature itself, which has apparently been revealed at a Halloween event at Universal's own theme park. It can certainly be described as a somewhat different take (click through the below link for a look).

https://www.slashfilm.com/1657811/halloween-horror-nights-universal-wolf-man-fans-hate/

To be fair, the picture is of a model at a theme park and we have no idea how good the "real thing" will look like on screen. Besides, I've enjoyed a fair bit of Blumhouse's horror output so they and Whannell deserve the benefit of the doubt for now. It releases in January of 2025.

Mr Crispy

Second trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAw4PH2IQgo

It looks like they're leaning into the body horror aspect of the transformation (some scenes reminded me of Cronenberg's The Fly). That might work, but I still can't get past the fact that the titular lycanthrope looks more like a

Spoiler Warning

feral hippy.

As it happens, there was another werewolf movie with a trailer out this week. Frank Grillo takes on werewolves in, uh, Werewolves, which seems to be pitching itself as The Purge meets Dog Soldiers. Might be silly yet entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAAUDfGSdqs

silliussoddius

I’m not too keen on the contained setting for a werewolf film.