“Wolf Man” is here.
Universal and Blumhouse’s latest update on a classic Universal Monsters character, following 2020’s excellent “The Invisible Man” (also written and directed by “Wolf Man” filmmaker Leigh Whannell) has finally arrived. In this blood-soaked retelling, Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) takes his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and baby Ginger (Matilda Firth) out to their family’s secluded home after his estranged father (Sam Jaeger) dies. But while there, they encounter a terrifying creature and must all try to get away – and stay alive.
But how does “Wolf Man” end?
We are here to tell. But we must issue one first major spoiler alert. Reading this before seeing “Wolf Man” may result in a nightmarish nocturnal creature coming after you. And we wouldn’t want that!
First things first – who is the werewolf?
There are actually two werewolves… werewolves… Whatever.
Who are they?
They are both Blake and his father.
Continue.
When they arrive at his father’s seemingly abandoned house, they are attacked by a creature. The creature scratches Blake, who then begins to change. Blake has enough of himself to slay the beast and protect his family, but change is inevitable. His senses are heightened, he begins to see in near-dark vision, and he cannot understand his wife or his child, whose words come out garbled and meaningless. When the change is complete, he begins to terrorize his wife and child.
How can they finally defeat him?
He doesn’t know what they’re saying, and both his attacks and their attempts to escape become increasingly desperate. Finally, his wife finds a gun from a neighbor that Blake’s father had killed and when Blake goes after her, Ginger suggests that Charlotte shoot him. It’s not like he’s become a cool werewolf with cool powers and needs a break. He is a sick man, stricken with an illness he cannot understand, and he will continue to come to his beloved family until they are dead. It was Ginger and Charlotte or him.
What happens next?
Charlotte and Ginger have defeated the werewolf, and now they are on their own. They look out over the Great Plains (said to be Oregon, actually shot in New Zealand). The grandeur before them is terrifying but there is also something sweet about it. Through their trauma, mother (early seen as a workaholic with little time for her family) and daughter (who was more involved with her father) unite. Their bond is stronger than it has ever been. And this new life they will have to embrace will be full of challenges. But there are challenges that mother and daughter will face together. In a nice bit of symmetry, the final shot is reminiscent of a shot early in the film, when Blake (as a kid in the mid-90s) and his dad go hunting in the wilderness. Life, it seems to suggest, is wild.
