Some bark, not much bite.

When Universal’s ill-conceived and poorly received Dark Universe swiftly imploded after The Mummy roundly bombed at the box office, the future of the studio’s vast pool of classic monsters looked precarious to say the least.

In the modern era, the issues with Universal’s many failed attempts to cash in on their classic monsters are numerous, yet the overriding problem with their approach is just how needlessly overblown they inevitably become. And, par for the course, this was the case with The Mummy. Aiming for an expansive, interconnected universe with characters ill-suited to it felt doomed from the start, and it led to a bloated, Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie that left no real option but to scrap the whole thing and go back to the drawing board.

And go back to the drawing board Universal most certainly did as they handed the keys to their vast vault of legendary monsters over to lo-fi horror kings Blumhouse, who promptly hired director Leigh Whannell for a unique take on The Invisible Man that – despite having its box office run curtailed by covid – well and truly got things back on track.

Despite The Invisible Man’s success, however, several box office stumbles in the last few years mean the future of these classic monsters once again remains uncertain. But if anyone can get things back on track again, it’s Blumhouse and Leigh Whannell. Or can they?

Blake (Christopher Abbott), a San Francisco husband and dad, inherits a remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to high-powered wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), fraying, Blake persuades her to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). But when the family are attacked by an unseen animal on their way to the farmhouse, things rapidly escalate. Trapped in the house with the night stretching on, Blake soon begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognisable, as Charlotte is forced to decide whether the terror within the house is more lethal than the danger without.

For quite some time now, the temptation to turn Universal Studio’s iconic collection of monsters into big budget, CGI-heavy action movies has seemingly been too great to refuse. Of course, there are certain cases where this has worked, but more often than not, these overblown blockbusters miss the point entirely – primarily that these monsters operate far better with small, personal stories and within cramped, confined spaces.

Like so many fumbles in the recent history of the disparate Universal Monsters franchise, 2010’s The Wolfman misses the boat almost entirely with its eponymous monster. So, if you, like so many, are of the opinion that the Benicio del Toro box office bomb was too empty, overblown, and CGI-laden to really capture the essence of its central character, Leigh Whannell’s new take on the story is definitely the film for you.

For better or worse, this particular take on the Wolf Man story is about as scaled down and tightly told as you can get. Essentially set in one location and very much homing in on the core cast of three, there’s very little meat on this film’s bones to gnaw on, and while this is certainly a breath of fresh air considering many of its Universal Monsters predecessors and puts it a million miles away from The Wolfman, the back-to-basics approach holds it back from doing anything particularly substantial.

While the pared-down, direct approach is admirable, Wolf Man does it to such an extent that there’s almost nothing to it. There are scares, sure, but not nearly as many, nor to as an effective a level, as you’d want or expect, and while some groundwork is done to feel emotionally connected to the story through Blake’s childhood trauma and father issues, it all falls a little flat.

For its part, with Leigh Whannell adding his distinctive style to proceedings, some rather squishy, squelchy body horror, and with the ever-reliable Benjamin Wallfisch delivering chills via an utterly unnerving score, the film’s atmospherics deliver. Whether it’s the distinctive werewolf-eye perspective that we switch to frequently or Whannell’s signature kinetic camerawork that pops up throughout, there’s much to appreciate here.

The same goes for the film’s small but impressive cast, namely Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, who both put in superb performances with the relatively little they are given. It’s no easy task to make something happen from such a sparse script and cramped setting, however, both absolutely nail it as they put everything into their roles both physically and mentally, elevating the material in the process.

That said, for all Wolf Man’s nice touches, creepy atmospherics, and great central performances, there’s a distinct lack of bite to the film as a whole. The condensed script, abbreviated run time, and restricted, under-lit location stop it from feeling bloated, yet it also holds the film back from doing anything of note with itself.

Whether it’s the film’s underbaked, underdeveloped fatherhood theme or the plot’s abridged time frame, which causes the entire werewolf transformation process to feel oddly and unsatisfyingly rushed, there’s an awful lot to Wolf Man that just doesn’t click.

Where Leigh Whannell’s previous film, The Invisible Man, married its concise approach with an impressively potent exploration of gaslighting and domestic abuse, the director’s follow up here gets the first part right while forgetting the second part almost entirely. The result is a solid but somewhat weak horror film that never truly offers enough to fully get your teeth into.

With a stripped-down approach that gets the job done without ever taking things further, Wolf Man is far from the overblown CGI mess many Universal Monster movies have become in the past but there’s undoubtedly something missing there. With satisfyingly icky body horror, great lead performances, and flashes of Leigh Whannell’s signature style throughout, there’s certainly much to admire with Wolf Man, however, there’s no escaping its distinct lack of bite.