How Wolf Man updates traditional werewolf mythology for the modern age

Spoilers for “Wolf Man” follow.

Stories of half-animal/half-human creatures go back to the dawn of humanity. One might immediately think of the hairy, brutal Enkidu, the rival-turned-friend of King Gilgamesh in the ancient Mesopotamian epic. When it comes to werewolves, our modern perceptions of these creatures come straight from Hollywood. The first major werewolf film was Stuart Walker’s 1935 horror film Werewolf of London, and it introduced much of what modern pop audiences associate with the Wolf Men. The protagonist of “London” was a British botanist named Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) who discovered a rare moon-blooming planet in the hills of Tibet… right when he was bitten by a mysterious monstrous creature.

Back in London, Dr. Glendon makes a series of discoveries. First, he learns that werewolves are real. It was also found that they transform at the time of the full moon. The plant he discovered is an antidote, and that the werewolf “virus” can be spread through the bite. He also finds that werewolves must be killed every night, otherwise they will never turn back into humans.

From the jump, werewolves were a strange mixture of science and magic. Something in a werewolf’s saliva “infects” the victim, causing them to become a werewolf themselves, but a person’s werewolf is also closely associated with the full moon and killing curses. These tropes were cemented in George Wagner’s 1941 classic “The Wolf Man” starring Lon Chaney Jr. This film also featured a werewolf infection spread by a bite, but also a gypsy curse, a full moon, and strange occult symbols. This film has become a staple in the world of horror films, and Wolf Man is one of the heroes of Universal Monsters.

Lee Whannell’s new movie “Wolf Man” is a studio-friendly reboot of Waggner’s film, and seems to veer away from the traditional “fuck” elements. This time, the curse is more than just a metaphor.

“The Wolf Man” follows Blake’s life Christopher Abbott was raised in a remote cabin in Oregon by a survivor father. Blake’s father used to yell at him and scold him, constantly warning the boy that the forest was dangerous and that he needed to learn how to use a gun in order to survive. His father is not physically abusive, but he is temperamental. As an adult, Blake moves to the big city and settles down with his wife (Julia Garner) and daughter (Matilda Firth). When his father dies, Blake is summoned back to the cabin in the woods and must claim it as an inheritance. His family reluctantly agreed to join, and they packed a moving truck for an extended stay in Oregon. Naturally, there is… something… lurking in the forest when they arrive.

The thing is a wolf man. This is a creature that Blake encountered as a child, and he remembers stories about a hiker who got lost in the woods in 1995 and contracted “hill fever,” turning him into a monstrous, fleshy animal. Eat the monster. Stories of hill fever also coincide with a local First Nation legend about a magical being wearing the “face of a wolf.”

Blake is bitten by the Wolf Man early in their journey, and his wolf transformation begins almost immediately. There is no myth, no magic, no connection to the moon. As much as the film dramatizes, the Wolf Man’s curse is entirely biological. If there is any curse, it is of the metaphorical kind, symbolically representing the curse of neglect and violent upbringing associated with the woods that Blake experienced as a boy.

Honestly, it’s a good thing that the Wolf Man removed a magical “curse” from the werewolf’s soul, as it always had an element of elemental weirdness. The Werewolf of London was about a white man who discovers the strange dangers of Tibet. “The Wolf Man” is about a white man who discovers the strange dangers that the Romani people face. In many other werewolf films, this creature is a curse that was brought to the world of the Caucasus by First Nation magic. Many Wolf Man films depict a world where white people are safe in cities, and where magical curses all arise from the threat of “outside cultures.” There is an undercurrent of xenophobia to it.

“Wolf Man” has an element of First Nations mysticism – the aforementioned “wolf face” element – ​​but it is not prominent, and it is not an explanation of the origin of Wolf Man’s illness. Instead, “hill fever” is viewed as 100% biological in origin, transmitted through wounds. Whannell’s “Wolf Man” is a secular brutality film, rejecting the magic of the moon and the fear of other cultures. By turning the “curse” into something metaphorical, it (ostensibly) makes the story more interesting to a broad, secular audience.

Horror fans may know that Whannell also made ‘The Invisible Man’ reboot in 2020and both of his neo-monster movies lean into the “man” part of the title as hard as they do “Invisible” and “Wolf.” “The Invisible Man” is about a stalker who attempts to manipulate his emotionally and physically abusive girlfriend and keeps her prisoner in his home. “Wolf Man” also takes a very traditionally masculine element of American culture — hunting and survival — and turns it into something brutal. It’s a smart approach.

“The Wolf Man” is now showing in theaters.