4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / GIVEAWAY WINNER / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) is transforming into what the Indigenous call the “face of the wolf.” His wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) are frightened by the creature that attacked him.
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“WOLF MAN”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 2024; R for bloody violent content, grisly images, and some profanity; Digital copy via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Movies Anywhere (4K), YouTube (4K)
Best extra: Commentary with writer/director Leigh Whannell
THE NAME pulled out of the hat for the free 4K UHD copy of Australian writer/director Leigh Whannell’s “Wolf Man” was Steve Sequeira of Rhode Island.
Universal Studios and High-Def Watch provided the opportunity for entries to select their favorite Universal Monster movie and to submit their names to the drawing.
Sequeira selected the original “Frankenstein” (1933), which followed the successful “Dracula” (1931), pulling Universal out of possible bankruptcy. Initially, studio founder Carl Laemmle and his son Carl Jr. considered making an adaptation of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in which he takes on Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Jekyll and Hyde,” but settled on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel, written when she was a teenager.
Boris Karloff played Frankenstein after Bela Lugosi, who played Dracula, turned the role down. Karloff is uncredited with a question mark in the opening titles but gets full credit at the end. The role was his 81st motion picture.
(1&2) Grady Lovell (Sam Jaeger) and young son Blake (Zac Chandler) head out on a deer hunting excursion. The forests near Wellington, New Zealand subs for central Oregon. (3) Grady uses a CB radio to report a wolfman sighting to other hunters in the area.
WHANNELL’S “Wolf Man,” a follow-up to his exceptional thriller “The Invisible Man” (2020), co-written with his wife Corbett Tuck, avoids traditional werewolf full-moons and hairy man-beasts. The Dark Universal tale centers around Blake Lovell, scarred from an emotional childhood, played by Zac Chandler, with his protective father Grady (Sam Jaeger). They live off-the-grid in the woods of central Oregon – subbed by a forest near Wellington, New Zealand. Metal bars protect the windows of the farmhouse as an unseen creature threatens outside – what the Indigenous people call the “face of the wolf.”
Fast-forward thirty years and we see Blake (Christopher Abbott), an unemployed writer in San Francisco, with a daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) and wife Charlotte, played by Julia Garner (“Ozark” TV series), a hardworking journalist. Blake and Charlotte’s relationship is stressed, when he gets notice that his childhood home and farm have been willed to him. The Linn County court papers have officially announced his father’s death. “I wish I knew him better, but he always made me afraid of him. So, when I was old enough, I left,” Blake says. He convinces Charlotte to take some time off, so they can go to the farmhouse and, hopefully, patch up their relationship.
Driving into the isolated backwoods, Blake gets lost. They stumble upon Derek (Benedick Hardie), an old childhood friend, who points the way to the farm. On the darkened road, Blake veers the rental truck to avoid a mysterious man in the middle of the road, and the truck ends up in a tree over an embankment. Derek falls out and is attacked by dangerous wildlife as Ginger and Charlotte escape onto the top of the truck. Blake is trapped and badly injured by the creature that leaves a deep gash in his arm.
By the time they get into the house, Blake starts to show signs of a feverish sweat. His condition quickly goes downhill, and the terror begins.
“Wolf Man” received mixed reviews and struggled at the box office earning $34 million, compared to “The Invisible Man,” which grossed $144 million worldwide, a month before the COVID-19 shutdown.
Empire.com selected the 10 best werewolf movies: No. 1 “An American Werewolf in London” (1981), No. 2 “The Company of Wolves” (1984), No. 3 “The Howling” (1981), No. 4 “The Wolf Man” (1941), No. 5 “Dog Soldiers” (2002), No. 6 “Ginger Snaps” (2000), No. 7 “Werewolves Within (2021), No. 8 “The Curse of the Werewolf” (1961), No. 9 “Brotherhood of the Wolf” (2001) and No. 10 “Wolf” (1994).
VIDEO
Whannell and his cinematographer Stefan Duscio (“The Invisible Man,” “Dry”) reunite using the 4.5K ARRIRAW digital camera (2.39:1 aspect), mounted with anamorphic Panavision lens. The digital files were mastered in TRUE 4K with clean, dark, and moody imagery with a touch of post-production film grain and with excellent clarity from wide shots to close-ups and overhead drone footage. The HDR10 grading is toned darker than the 1080p disc, with more defined highlights and detailed shadows, especially when Blake visualizes vibrant colors during his transformation.
Everything was encoded on the 100 GB disc, and it consistently runs from 50 Megabits per second to nearly 100 Mbps.
AUDIO
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack on the 4K and Blu-ray is extremely active with a deep, deep bass response to effects (thunder, rain, wildlife, gunshots) running through the height speakers and around the room. You won’t be disappointed.
EXTRAS
The 4K disc and Blu-ray include Whannell’s commentary, and four behind-the-scenes featurettes “Unleashing a New Monster,” “Designing Wolf Man,” “Hands-On Horror” and “Nightmares and Soundscapes,” each running less than 10 minutes. You discover Abbott spent 3.5 to 7 hours in the chair with makeup artists and prosthetics attached to become the Wolf Man.
Again, congratulations to Steve Sequeira for winning the 4K/Blu-ray combo set of “Wolf Man.”
— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
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