Leigh Whannell’s unfocused follow-up to The Invisible Man is a howling disappointment, misjudged and dull

Horror virtuoso Leigh Whannell, screenwriter of the original Saw and writer-director of The Invisible Man, gets into an awful mess with this fundamentally muddled and unsatisfying attempt at reviving the Wolf Man from Universal Studios’ monster stable as part of a possible integrated franchise series – the first since Benicio Del Toro found the cheek whiskers and lupine dodgy teeth sprouting at the first touch of moonlight back in 2010. There’s an excellent opening prologue sequence and a very smart final shot – but everything between is silly, misjudged and dull with dud storytelling, middling prosthetics and wide-eyed “I’m scared” reaction acting that will have you checking the time on your phone.

Christopher Abbott plays Blake, a failed writer and successful dad and househusband, living in New York with adorable daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) and workaholic journalist-breadwinner Charlotte (Julia Garner). Blake is haunted by childhood memories of being brought up in remote Oregon by his angry and emotionally cold single father (Sam Jaeger). (The film sports half-heartedly with wolfmanness being a metaphor for toxic masculinity and abusive fatherhood.) A flashback reveals how the pair were hunting in the woods one day and menaced by a creature that Blake’s dad gruffly assures his son was a bear. When grownup Blake inherits his dad’s creepy old Andrew Wyeth farmstead, he suggests to Charlotte that they all go on a family trip out there together as a bonding experience. Hugely bad idea.