Leigh Whannell’s new Wolf Man reboot has a subtle but unforgettable reference to the hit horror movie franchise that kickstarted his filmmaking career way back in 2004. Wolf Man has the core elements of the original Universal Monsters classic — a doomed romance, an estranged father-son relationship, and, of course, a werewolf — but it tells the story in its own way. Christopher Abbott leads the Wolf Man cast as Blake Lovell, a mild-mannered everyman who drives up to his late father’s farm in Oregon, gets attacked by a werewolf, and slowly transforms before his family’s eyes.
Wolf Man is Whannell’s second reimagining of an iconic monster movie; he previously retooled The Invisible Man as a haunting psychological drama about an abusive relationship. Whannell has made a lot of great movies over the years, from his thrilling cyberpunk actioner Upgrade to the chilling Insidious franchise (which he co-created), but his first film is still one of his best. Whannell burst onto the scene when he wrote and starred in the original Saw movie — and there’s a reference to that modern classic in his latest horror opus.
Wolf Man Has The Same Gruesome Climactic Sequence As Saw
Toward the end of Wolf Man, Blake’s wife Charlotte and his daughter Ginger lock themselves in the barn to escape his werewolf form. He burrows under the door and stalks them through the barn. While Charlotte and Ginger can’t see a thing in the pitch-black of the night, Blake’s werewolf vision shows that he can see them clear as day. He’s standing right in front of them, staring at them. Fortunately for Charlotte and Ginger, they’re saved at the last second by a deus ex machina: Blake gets his foot caught in a beartrap.
While these sequences are essentially the same, they carry very different meanings.
As Charlotte and Ginger flee from the barn and run into the woods, Blake tries to get the beartrap open. Failing that, he resolves to gnaw off his own foot. This is similar to how Dr. Lawrence Gordon sawed off his own foot to escape from Jigsaw’s twisted game at the end of Saw. While these sequences are essentially the same, they carry very different meanings. Dr. Gordon cutting off his foot was supposed to show just how desperate he’d become, while Blake biting off his foot is supposed to show that his newfound animalistic instincts have fully taken over.
Leigh Whannell Has A History Of Including Saw References In His Movies
A Lot Of Whannell's Movies Have Homages To Saw
This isn’t the only callback to Saw throughout Whannell’s filmography. The director has never forgotten where he came from and has included references to his breakout film in a bunch of his subsequent works. In Upgrade, the face of Jigsaw’s puppet Billy can be seen spray-painted as graffiti on the wall of the computer hacker’s lair. Billy can also be spotted amongst Mary Shaw’s puppet collection in the ventriloquist thriller Dead Silence, which Whannell co-wrote with his Saw collaborator James Wan. In Insidious, which Whannell also wrote, Billy can be seen scrawled on a blackboard underneath Wan’s name.
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From an underdeveloped story to an underwhelming werewolf design, there are a few reasons why Wolf Man has been getting such mixed reviews.
It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to reference their earlier works in their movies. The character of Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino’s second movie, Pulp Fiction, is implied to be the brother of Vic Vega, a character from his first film, Reservoir Dogs. In Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, a DVD copy of Shaun of the Dead can be seen in a bargain bin at the supermarket. Sam Raimi has snuck his beloved 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 into as many of his movies as possible. Saw references are a similar signature flourish for Whannell.
Wolf Man Highlights How Much Leigh Whannell's Career Has Changed Since Saw
He's Gone From Microbudget Indie Movies To Big-Budget Studio Movies
Wolf Man shows just how far Whannell has come since Saw. In 2004, he started out making an independent horror film on a tiny budget, set almost entirely in one room. The unexpected blockbuster success of Saw has allowed Whannell to gradually make bigger and bigger movies. The first couple of Saw sequels, which Whannell returned to write, each got a slightly larger budget than the last. The Insidious movies proved that Whannell could still tell an effective horror story without relying on gore and so-called “torture porn,” which opened up more career opportunities.
Whannell made his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3 in 2015.
The success of Upgrade followed by the even greater success of The Invisible Man has made Whannell a bigger name than ever in Hollywood. Now, he’s being trusted with big-budget studio horror movies based on blockbuster I.P. like the Universal Monsters. Wolf Man cost 25 times as much to produce as Saw. It allowed Whannell to realize stunning visuals like fog rolling over the countryside and werewolves brutally attacking each other, which he couldn’t have afforded when he made Saw off the backs of independent investors.
Release Date
January 15, 2025
Runtime
103 minutes
Director
Leigh Whannell
Writers
Leigh Whannell
, Rebecca Angelo
Producers
Beatriz Sequeira
, Jason Blum
, Ryan Gosling
, Ken Kao
English (US) ·