Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man, starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, and Matilda Firth arrives on home video this week. The film received mixed reviews from critics (including our ), but a UHD Blu-ray release is always a reason to celebrate, and this one is no exception. So, let’s take a closer look at Wolf Man on UHD Blu-ray.
The Story of Wolf Man
Wolf Man follows a young family on a trip home. Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) has received word that his father has passed away, and he takes his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), on a road trip to his childhood home, a house nestled in the woods in a remote part of Oregon. On the way, they are attacked by a creature, and Blake is wounded. They make it to the conspicuously well-fortified house, but as the night progresses, Blake starts exhibiting animalistic behaviours and qualities.
It’s a sharp idea for a wolf-man story to be set in a single place on a single night, and the remote setting gives the story a sense of tension, at least at first. Abbott and Garner are both giving their all throughout, but unfortunately, the film loses some steam in the middle as it becomes a mash-up of things you’ve seen before. Still, Whannell brings his trademark eye for composition and effects to the picture, so while it may feel familiar, it’s also never boring to look at.
UHD picture & sound
This is where UHD Blu-ray shines. For a start, the camera work in Wolf Man is dynamic and engaging, and the 4K image really ups the immersion factor. The film is set at night, and there’s no better way to watch the film if you want to peer into the shadows for details in the set decoration or monsters hiding in corners. Similarly, the sound design is genuinely unnerving, and if you have the set up to take advantage, it brings a whole extra level of creepiness to the affair and helps to ramp up the tension.
Special Features in the Wolf Man UHD
The special features are where this UHD release excels. There are several bonus items, including closer looks at some of the film’s action sequences and Leigh Whannell’s intent and process when creating this new take on the story. The two best special features though are the ones that examine the sound design and the practical effects that were created for the film.
In the first case, the soundscape of the film is immersive and unnerving in general, and the sound designers understand how to make that happen, but more specifically, there are sequences in the film that take place from Blake’s point of view that require a different sound design from the rest of the movie, and it’s fascinating to see how those were created. In particular, the examination of a scene that slowly transitions from Charlotte to Blake’s point of view and back again works well in the film to establish the changes in Blake and the desperation Charlotte is starting to feel. The level of thought and detail that went into it is incredible.
Similarly, the feature that focuses on creature and prosthetic designer Arjen Tuiten is the most rewarding and surprising. Fans often complain that genre films have an overreliance on computer-generated imagery, but Wolf Man uses practical effects in many places you wouldn’t expect and in some ways, you may not expect either, including how the Wolf Man was created and how the transition was accomplished with prosthetics, a full upper torso animatronic, and clever camera tricks.
Physical Media Editions
Wolf Man will be available on Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray in 4k, and the latter of these is the easy one to recommend. It’s difficult to overstate the power of the 4k presentation, but also, the Collector’s Edition includes a Blu-ray copy, so you are future-proof if you haven’t picked up a 4k player yet.
There is also a steelbook release for those collectors who either don’t like the standard Blu-ray case or who simply want as much thought put into the packaging as the film itself.
Conclusion
As always, the best reason to buy the movies you like is that they then remain available to you as long as you have a player. Studios can’t raid your home for copies in the same way they sometimes remove them from streaming services, and buying the movie on physical media shows direct support for the film in a way that streaming does.
At the end of the day, Wolf Man still has fairly mixed reviews, but for fans of Whannell’s work or any of the cast, there is a lot of good to be found here. This holds true for fans of horror and werewolf movies as well, as well as anyone who is a fan of Universal Monster movies.
Wolf Man is now available to purchase in UHD at your favorite retailer.
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