Leigh Whannell has long had a propensity for producing palpitation-inducing terror. He co-created both Saw and Insidious alongside James Wan; stepped up as director for Insidious: Chapter 3; and more recently has conjured gag-worthy gore and breathless tension with the likes of Upgrade and The Invisible Man. But as Whannell sees it, his previous two critically-lauded features have been more horror-adjacent genre hybrids – and with his upcoming Wolf Man, another fresh take on one of Universal’s classic monsters, he’s ready to really scare you again.
“Upgrade was more sci-fi action,” Whannell tells Empire. “I was watching a lot of domestic thrillers when I wrote The Invisible Man, because I love that genre. [Wolf Man] is me saying, ‘I just wanted to make something that is straight-up, pure horror.’” At the heart of the lycanthropic lunacy is Christopher Abbott, whose Blake returns to his childhood home in the Oregon wilderness, taking his family with him. But after he’s attacked by something in the night, he starts to transform into something more beast than man, placing his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) in serious peril.
For Whannell, it’s another chance to reinvent one of cinema’s oldest horror properties – just like he did with his smart and seriously tense take on The Invisible Man. “I think of it as a companion piece to The Invisible Man,” he says. “I didn’t want this film to be a nostalgic or a retro Wolf Man film in any way.” And that meant coming up with all-new ideas of how to bring werewolf mythology to the big screen. “[I was] actually writing down in my notepad everything that’s been done, and then saying, ‘Okay, that’s the list of what not to do,’” he says. “I’m hoping that you go in and say, ‘Oh wow, I haven’t seen that werewolf movie before,’ when the lights come up.” We’re already howling at the moon in anticipation.
Read Empire’s full Wolf Man story in the 40 Years Of The Terminator issue – on sale Thursday 26 September. Pre-order a copy online here. Wolf Man comes to UK cinemas on 17 January.