After making thin air terrifying again (sorry, The Happening, you tried) with 2020’s atmospheric and chilling horror film The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell is taking another bite out of the Universal Monsters rogue’s gallery with Wolf Man. Before everyone logs off for the weekend, Whannell and Blumhouse hit horror fans with a Wolf Man teaser trailer, previewing the filmmaker’s latest bone-chilling horror film.

Today’s Wolf Man teaser trailer begins with footage of a praying mantis stalking an unsuspecting lunch, striking with lightning-fast speed as the meal feels fangs piercing its exterior. As the words Wolf Man steadily slash onto the screen, the footage shows a remote house in Oregon where a mysterious animal waits in the woods. While trying to adjust to their new lives, Christopher Abbott is attacked by what he says is a ferocious wolf-like creature standing on two legs. As the lycanthropy surges through his system, he changes, leaving Julia Garner and Matilda Firth to fend for themselves against a man driven mad by the full moon. The Wolf Man teaser displays what we love about Whannell’s film style: atmosphere, compelling performances, and a bone-chilling ramp-up to an all-out horror fest that promises to leave an impression.

When Universal announced this project in 2020, Ryan Gosling was set to star in it – and it got rolling when Gosling pitched this take on the concept of The Wolf Man to Universal. Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo then fleshed out the ideas into a screenplay (Blum is also married to Blumhouse founder Jason Blum). The story was “believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller Nightcrawler with an obvious supernatural twist.” The final version of the script credits Blum and Angelo, as well as Whannell and his wife, Corbett Tuck.

Whannell first signed on to direct the film in 2020 but then dropped out the following year. That’s when Gosling’s Blue Valentine and Place Beyond the Pines director Derek Cianfrance came on board. Gosling and Cianfrance stepped away from Wolf Man early last year, and then Whannell returned.

Welp, I know what I’ll see during my birthday weekend next year! I’m a major fan of Whannell’s The Invisible Man, and I can’t wait to see what he does with my favorite of Universal’s classic monsters. How about you? What do you think about today’s Wolf Man teaser trailer? Is this what we can expect Abbott’s Wolf Man to look like? I highly doubt it.

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