There's a beast deep inside everyone, waiting to be unleashed - that's the core idea behind most werewolf movies, whether they're scary or not (Howler), sexy ( twilight movies), or occasionally both (Jack Nicholson/Michelle Pfeiffer bad movies Wolf). Sometimes this full moon craze is seen as liberating. Other times it's a painful ordeal. There is very little subtext. Since the bloody glory days of horror films in the 1980s, artists like Rob Bottin and Rick Baker have turned these lupine transformation scenes into stunning special effects. Next to their nocturnal cousins (aka vampires), werewolves have always been one of the safest bets in the genre. What's scarier than losing control of your physical and mental self when your most primal animal instincts take over?
Ray Whannell's werewolf Recognize that, regardless of the presence of inner conflict, all werewolf horror is essentially more body horror than usual. Only this time, you'll see the hapless hero's metamorphosis come in fits and starts rather than in full swing - which, darling, drives a very specific metaphor all the better. Like the director's extraordinary version invisible man (2020), a take on a curse that can affect even men who are pure of heart and pray at night, is not a remake of the original Universal monster movie. Unlike his previous films, which were extremely overt in their social commentary, here there's little push and wink to the larger picture.
Yet despite the lengthy prologue it does make you feel like you're unraveling how masculinity can become its own inner destroyer: a boy named Blake (Zach Chandler) is killed in the woods of central Oregon by his Raised by his father (Sam Chandler). Jaeger) is a former Marine and survivalist whose protectiveness of his son borders on abuse. To be fair, there are yes A hitchhiker roams the land, which is said to suffer from what the area's indigenous people call "wolf face." You sympathize with Dad's concern for his family's safety.
Cut to 30 years later, where a now-grown Blake (Christopher Abbott) displays the same aggressive father pattern when it comes to his own daughter, Ginger (Matilda Fells) . His love for his children is genuine and you can tell they are very close. But Blake inherited his old man's anger issues, which he's working on. This temper may be the cause of friction between him and his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner). The fact that she's a journalist and he's a writer doesn't make the atmosphere in their modest San Francisco apartment any less tense between shows.
So when a letter arrived saying that Blake's long-missing father had finally been pronounced dead, he came up with an idea. He had to drive to Oregon to clean out his father's place. Why don't Charlotte and Ginger join him? They can spend some much needed time together. It's all fun, games and family bonding until they arrive at Blake's old place and he can't find the house. A creepy local hunter (Benedict Hardy) offers to help because it's dark and they shouldn't go out after the sun goes down. Long story short, they encountered a wolf-like gentleman and Blake was scratched by this predator's claws and his poop became shaggy.
the rest werewolf It becomes a waiting game: How much time do they have before the man sworn to protect his family from harm turns out to be the most hurt thing? There may be something evil lurking outside, but what about the growing threats inside? What happens when you're forced to watch someone you love transform into something else entirely? Whannell has said that he wanted to see the werewolf aspect as an allegory for the deterioration that accompanies terminal illness, and was quicker than Susan Sontag to say that this use of illness as metaphor The concept became the decisive idea behind his entry into this field. Werewolf Cinema Canon. To his credit, Abbott will gradually devolve into a chaotic, carnivorous hybrid with more nuances than you might imagine, letting us see each new twist (sensory enhancements, speaking or understanding English How does it happen that the ability of the patient is getting worse and the old teeth are falling out). for sharper dental work) but also a loss of humanity. You know how a wolf will bite its own leg off if it's trapped in a trap? Let’s just say this self-mutilation also extends to hunger.
So much of the psychological pain is shifted to Garner, who proves that her horrified facial expressions are indeed over the top, and the switch in perspective is an interesting pivot from the usual "how did I tame my inner predator" in the roar. This monster now stands where the husband and father once stood, and it is untamable. The family could only stand by and watch as he collapsed and ultimately begged for death. The closest analogy to what Whannell is trying to do here isn't a werewolf movie, but a David Cronenberg movie fly (1986), which turned a 1950s B-movie into a bloody, gooey look at the havoc disease wreaks on people on either side of a hospital bed. You can see the movie aiming for that landmark mix of body horror, sadness, tension and tragedy. You'll also notice that it starts to fall short of that standard in terms of maintaining the mix in a way that itself doesn't degrade or outright atrophy.
Ultimately what you're left with is a classic catch-and-release horror template that occasionally succumbs to its own ambition and, by exhausting the idea's potential early on, only limps to the finish line. . Some stray thoughts about the responsibilities of parenting, so prevalent in the first half of the film, emerge in the second act, with Black worrying about how we've become so worried about our children being hurt that we'll "end up scarring them." "People". But for every unique wrinkle or clever bit—the spider's crawl turns into a thunderous symphony once its hearing becomes sharper—there's a jump scare or fake cliché that's better than Checklists are even less chilling and some of these column page elements come from. invisible man Will actually be welcomed. werewolf It does end with a grace that restores one bond even as another is severed. You just wish there was more to it in its transition from genre film to rough-and-tumble, chin-stroking fable.