Posted in: Blumhouse, Movies, Universal | Tagged: wolf man

Wolf Man: Leigh Whannell Teases A "100% Practical, All Make-Up" Wolf

Wolf Man director Leigh Whannell teases a wolf that is "100% practical, all make-up - there are no CGI elements."

If there was a genre that really suffered with the onslaught of VFX and computer graphics, it was probably horror. We talk about it all the time at Bleeding Cool, but one of the main reasons your favorite horror movies from decades ago are so good is that they had to be incredibly well-directed. Those creatures were being held together with a shoelace duct tape and the hopes and dreams of the production team, so they could only be shot from very specific angles. In a move that screams irony, as VFX continues to improve, horror has made the push away and back toward practical effects. Wolf Man is yet another modern horror movie that looks back instead of forward when creating its monster. Director Leigh Whannell told SFX Magazine that this wolf is "100% practical, all make-up – there are no CGI elements."

Whannell said, "I think you have to bring a new approach. Maybe there are some people that won't like it because they love the traditional wolf too much, but that was the approach I wanted." The director did do something different with The Invisible Man, and it was one of the rare bright spots of 2020. It is still a shame that many of you didn't get to see that movie in theaters.

So far, Blumhouse and Universal haven't shown us the wolf in question in any official marketing materials, but there was a leak that could have ruined things for the Wolf Man crew. According to Whannell, Universal decided to promote the movie at Horror Nights at Universal last October. However, the wolf at the event was not the final design, and, unfortunately, you only get one first impression.

"Things slipped through the cracks, and it was like, 'Oh, they're doing this promotion for Wolf Man at a theme park, but it doesn't look right,'" Whannell explains. "We shouldn't be putting that out in the world, because people are going to think that's what our wolf looks like.' My only response is to say, 'Look, that doesn't represent what we're doing.' All I can do is wait for the movie to come out. Then hopefully people will be like, 'Oh, I see what they were doing.'"

While we can see that Universal and Blumhouse thought that was the right approach for trying to get the word out for this movie, monsters are at their scariest when we don't see them. All you need to do is look at the marketing for Nosferatu to see how well it is working out for that film. It's fascinating to see Universal so on board with keeping that hidden, but were so quick to push this one out. You would think Blumhouse, of all people, would know the value of the unknown.

Wolf Man: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

What if someone you loved became something else?

From Blumhouse and visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell, the creators of the chilling modern monster tale The Invisible Man comes a terrifying new lupine nightmare: Wolf Man.

Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma).

But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they're attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

The film co-stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid's Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man), with newcomer Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly (Shortland Street) and Milo Cawthorne (Shortland Street).

Wolf Man is directed by Whannell and written by Whannell & Corbett Tuck. Whannell's previous films with Blumhouse include The Invisible Man, Upgrade and Insidious: Chapter 3.

The film is produced by Blumhouse founder and CEO Jason Blum p.g.a., and Ryan Gosling (The Fall Guy, Lost River) and is executive produced by Whannell, Beatriz Sequeira, Mel Turner and Ken Kao. Universal Pictures and Blumhouse present a Gosling/Waypoint Entertainment production, in association with Cloak & Co: Wolf Man. It will be released in theaters on January 17, 2025.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!