Primarily known as a writer for the Saw and Insidious franchises, Leigh Whannell scored a nice hit with his first directorial effort, 2015’s Insidious: Chapter 3. His next effort – 2018’s Upgrade - essentially flopped, though given its miniscule $3 million budget, its $16 million worldwide gross meant it turned a profit.

Whannell did even better with his next film, 2020’s Invisible Man. It brought in $144 million globally on a tiny $7 million budget, a feat made even more amazing given that COVID largely shut down theaters about two weeks after its release.

Five years later, Whannell returns with his next directorial effort. Like the 2020 Invisible Man, 2025’s Wolf Man provides Whannell’s reimagining of a classic horror property.

Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) learns that the state of Oregon finally declared his long-missing – and long-estranged – father Grady (Sam Jaeger) dead. He needs to return to his childhood home to root through his dad’s things.

With his marriage to Charlotte (Julia Garner) in a rocky situation, Blake brings her and young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) with him, as he feels some time away will help the relationship. This backfires when an animal attacks Blake and causes him to transform into a beast that threatens his loved ones.

As you can see if you click the links included above, I liked Whannell’s first two directorial efforts. However, this winning streak collapsed with Invisible Man.

Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the guy who thought highly of the much-lambasted Joker: Folie à Deux doesn’t always follow the hive mind, but I hated Whannell’s Invisible Man - really really hated it. An idiotic collection of plot holes and absurdity, its critical and commercial popularity perplexed me.

This brought me into Wolf Man with lowered expectations. Given that I thought Insidious 3 and Upgrade worked pretty well, I hoped Invisible Man would offer an aberration and Wolf Man would bring Whannell back on course, but I thought the 2020 film’s success would embolden the filmmaker to turn his next flick into more of the moronic same.

Happily, Wolf Man fares much better than Invisible Man did. Of course, that felt virtually inevitable and could fall into the same category as “syphilis is better than cancer”, but I still find myself largely pleased with Whannell’s latest horror effort.

Unlike 2010’s The Wolfman, shouldn’t expect a remake of the 1941 classic. Whannell takes the story down firmly different paths.

Though not entirely fresh avenues, mainly because the 2025 Wolf Man embraces the “body horror” genre. In this manner, it much more closely resembles David Cronenberg’s 1986 take on The Fly.

Which Whannell clearly knew. Wolf Man bears far too many close similarities to Cronenberg’s masterpiece for these to exist as coincidence.

I don’t think this means Wolf Man winds up as a ripoff, though. Yeah, the connections occasionally felt a little too close for comfort, but I appreciate that the sight of Blake’s physical decline ala Fly’s Seth Brundle allows for the tired and trope-heavy werewolf genre to branch out from the same old.

With its secluded setting, small cast and nod toward the damage fathers can bring to sons, Wolf Man also seems reminiscent of 2024’s The Beast Within. However, that one hammered home its point in a much more heavy-handed manner and became more eye-rolling than scary or compelling.

Indeed, while one can see how Blake’s father negatively impacted him, Wolf Man also shows that Blake turned these into positives via his doting relationship with Ginger. Although Beast Within offered a clear tale of how generational violence hands down from father to son, I think Wolf Man offers a lighter hint of this and doesn’t make it a primary concern.

Wolf Man fails to paint Grady as a true villain. We meet him in the movie’s prologue and see how he presents a strict and demanding figure.

However, it also seems clear that Grady behaves the way he does to protect young Blake (Zac Chandler), especially since we find a clear hint that a lycanthrope already stalks their remote location. Tough as Grady might be, he doesn’t seem truly abusive.

In any event, I think that whatever thematic hints Wolf Man provides, it doesn’t really care a whole lot about them. It prefers to focus on basic scares, and it does well in that regard.

The “body horror” developments give the tale a twist, and the concentration of action and violence makes this a brisk tale. Wolf Man delves into character domains enough to add some depth, but it remains a horror project at its core.

I can’t call Wolf Man a classic, but I think it fares well as a whole. It adds spark to a well-worn genre and turns into a tight thriller.

Wolf Man appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect a solid representation of a challenging image.

Much of Wolf Man took place in dim locations, and that presented real challenges. Happily, low-light shots – of which we found an abundance – offered appropriate clarity.

Will viewers occasionally struggle to discern the action? Yes, but this came by design, and those instances remained infrequent, as most of the movie brought visuals we could make out easily.

Sharpness always worked well. Even with the dimly-lit shots, the movie remained well-defined.

I witnessed no issues with jaggies or moiré effects, and edge haloes failed to materialize. No source flaws cropped up either.

Unsurprisingly, Wolf Man opted for a palette that heavily emphasized Hollywood Standard Orange and Teal. Tedious as those choices felt, the disc reproduced them appropriately.

Blacks felt deep and dense. This wound up as a highly satisfying visual presentation.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Wolf Man also fared nicely. This meant a broad and engaging soundfield.

Of course, the various action scenes used the spectrum best, as those created a good sense of menace and involvement. Quieter scenes boasted effective use of the different speakers too, as these formed a creepy and ominous sensibility.

Audio quality satisfied, as speech appeared natural and crisp. Music showed nice range and vibrancy.

Effects came across as accurate and full, with deep low-end. I felt pleased with this terrific soundtrack.

As we shift to extras, we start with an audio commentary from writer/director Leigh Whannell. He brings a running, screen-specific view of story/characters, cast and performances, sets, locations and production design, audio and music, editing, photography, genre domains and various effects.

As usual, Whannell jokes around too much. Admittedly, I’d not mind if he made amusing remarks, but his stabs at humor tend to fall flat.

Nonetheless, Whannell still offers a good look at various aspects of the production. Despite the failed attempts to garner laughs, this winds up as an informative chat.

Four featurettes follow, and Unleashing a New Monster goes for eight minutes, seven seconds. It involves Whannell, executive producer Beatriz Sequeira, supervising location manager Jordi Scott Smith, production designer Ruby Mathers, director of photography Stefan Duscio, and actors Julia Garner, Christopher Abbott, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, and Sam Jaeger.

“Unleashing” covers Whannell’s approach to the werewolf genre and the film’s development as well as story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations and cinematography. Despite the usual happy talk, “Unleashing” comes with enough useful content to deserve a look.

Designing Wolf Man lasts eight minutes, 54 seconds. It provides info from Whannell, Abbott, Garner, Duscio, Firth, special makeup effects designer Arjen Tuiten, prosthetics artist Alice Baueris, prosthetics key artist Jason Docherty, and hair/makeup designer Jane O’Kane.

“Designing” looks at the various effects used to bring the titular lycanthrope to life. It gives us some worthwhile insights.

With Hands-On Horror, we get a six-minute, 51-second reel. This one features Firth, Abbott, Garner, Whannell, Duscio, stunt coordinator Steve McQuillan, assistant stunt coordinator Rodney Cook, stunt rigger James Smith, visual effects supervisor Stuart White, and actor Ben Prendergast.

Here we get a take on the film’s stunts. Despite a bit too much self-praise, this still turns into a reasonably informative reel.

Finally, Nightmares and Soundscapes spans six minutes, 56 seconds. Here we find remarks from Whannell, Abbott, Duscio, Garner, Firth, and production sound mixer Chris Hiles.

As implied by the title, this program investigates the film’s audio. Like its predecessors, it comes with a fair amount of puffery, but it nonetheless tosses out a few worthwhile nuggets.

After 2020’s terrible Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell rebounds with the largely satisfying Wolf Man. A good reinvention of the werewolf genre, the movie provides a taut and compelling ride. The Blu-ray boasts excellent picture and audio as well as a decent array of bonus materials. This winds up as an above average horror experience.