Bringing the Wolf Man to life is a monumental feat, and wanting to honor the original 1941 classic of the same name, director Leigh Whannell channels inspiration from horror history. . “If you think about that look that was created for Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein in 1931 or Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man in 1941, those were things that audiences had never seen,” Whannell says. “Those images have lasted because they’re so striking. Anybody dealing with monsters today lives in the shadow of these artists. Every makeup artist whose name is etched into the Hall of Fame—from Rick Baker and Rob Bottin to Stan Winston and Jack Pierce, all these artists have created something brilliant that sticks in your mind.”
Wolf Man follows the Lovell family as Blake Lovell, patriarch of the family, slowly transforms into the iconic monster as his wife Charlotte and daughter Ginger try to survive the night and go through the turmoil of watching a loved one transform into a beast on the hunt.
As the film features such an enduring horror icon, Whannell pays tribute to 80s monster horror. The team applied as many practical effects as possible to keep it grounded and visceral. “When you’re working in supernatural horror, a lot of the horror is implied,” Whannell says. “It’s what you can’t see that’s scary. I wanted to make my own version of a creature feature. This film is my tribute to the ‘80s movies I loved growing up—ones that were driven by practical effects and told horror stories that were creative in their use of bodily morphing. In The Thing and The Fly, CGI was not yet an option.”
In the film, the main character, Blake Lovell, has no clue that he is transforming through the night. That type of body horror, and the fear of painful and terrifying anatomical changes is what director Whannell leaned into. As his skin begins to scale and his extremities elongate, our hero grows in confusion. “Blake loses his ability to understand what human beings are saying,” Whannell says. “Blake’s vision changes, then the physical changes begin, and his vision begins to alter. His skin morphs: his fingernails and teeth come out. It’s a tribute to body horror. That’s one of the great sub-genres of horror that I love. Our bodies are the source of all our pain, as well as our joy.”
Witness the horrifying transformation as Wolf Man arrives in Philippine cinemas on January 15, 2025. Follow Universal Pictures PH (FB), UniversalPicturesPH (IG), and UniversalPicsPH (TikTok) for the latest updates.