Not All Men Are Werewolves

But They Might Be

Especially if they don’t hit their daddy issues head-on with an unbranded U-Haul.

*Major Spoilers Alert for Wolf Man 2025*

A feminist reading of the new Wolf Man movie is a stretch in some spots, but it is there. I know this movie wasn’t written to be feminist, it was focused on the psychological horror of the man’s experience and the women were just kind of there. Plus, it was written by a man.

However, focusing on what happens to the women in a story often reveals things that a male author maybe didn’t even think about or intend, which is the point.

The fact is: the only ones who survive this movie are the mother and daughter, Charlotte and Ginger.

(highly-paraphrased quote incoming) “There’s this view in the mountains that makes you feel like everything is gonna be ok. I want you to see it.” And that’s how Blake moves his big city family back to the rural part of Oregon where his dad went missing at an undetermined part of the timeline.

Yes, sir, let’s move my wife and daughter to the place where my trauma started, surely this will be a healing experience without us having to actually talk about my feelings or the actual issues in our relationship.

Back Story:

When he was a kid, Blake almost got taken out by a werewolf for not listening to his dad, who was militantly strict about being safe in the woods because there was a dangerous thing in them.

However, if everyone knows there’s a dangerous thing in the woods…like the community knows, for years, why don’t they do anything about it?

Here is where the dangerous thing becomes a metaphor for the patriarchy.

We all know the patriarchy is shitty and dangerous. But rather than dealing with the reason it’s unsafe to walk outside at night, we often just say don’t go out at night.

Flash forward to the present day and Blake is an angry man, just like his Dad, yelling at his daughter in the street (she is being a little unsafe and not listening). At least he apologizes, the script wants us to think he’s different from his dad because he apologizes after he yells. You know, instead of not yelling in the first place…

He also gets mad at his wife for not understanding that he’s upset when she’s on the phone. How was she supposed to know that he just got the letter saying his dad has been declared dead and now he’s sad? Is she supposed to read his mind? (Remember this italicized point for later.)

It’s called communicating, Blake.

Anyway, so they decide to go together to the estate to pack up his dad’s stuff.

They’re driving on the way to the old farm, and they get lost in the woods because it’s been so long since Blake’s been back here he doesn’t know how to navigate this emotionally fraught landscape. An apt metaphor, if you will! (and I always will.)

Then a strange animal figure appears in the road, and instead of hitting it with his giant truck, Blake swerves and hell breaks loose. The werewolf (later we confirm it’s his estranged dad) scratches Blake and the rest of the movie is Blake turning into a werewolf while his dad is hunting them in his childhood home.

Long story short: the only way out of this is if Charlotte kills her husband. And once again, the women have to deal with the trauma of the man to save themselves.

A Scene I Keep Coming Back To

Blake is sitting with his terrified daughter and he says he would hate for this experience to scar her. I almost laughed at the bad, over-the-top scripting. He says that sometimes dads work so hard to protect their kid that they become the thing that scars them. What could’ve felt like a lightbulb moment is just him intellectualizing the problem instead of actually offering comfort.

He basically says “Please don’t let this ruin you,” rather than saying “Your feelings are valid, here’s how we can cope.” Because, truthfully, Blake doesn’t know how to cope, and the sickness from his dad is already starting to consume him.

The Daughter Overcomes the Sins of the Father…Sort of?

Ginger has an interesting arc. She’s very much a daddy’s girl and they have an inside joke where she “reads his mind” to understand that he loves her. Which…women are so often expected to “read the minds” of men because the men can’t articulate their emotions. (Here is where you should remember the earlier italics). Boy howdy.

At first, Ginger is upset that her mom won’t let her animalistic father back in the house. Classic woman blaming woman behavior. We don’t love to see it. But by the end of the movie Ginger is the one who tells her mom to pull the trigger.

So I guess Ginger Snaps (*buh dum tiss* for other werewolf movie fans, the rest of you, google it).

The movie ends with mother and daughter staring at that bright, beautiful view Blake had mentioned earlier. This is maybe supposed to be cathartic? But everything does not feel ok.

She just shot her husband.

All because Blake didn’t deal with his trauma head-on. (Here meaning: hit his werewolf dad with a U-Haul.)

Final Thoughts

A closing note, I think it’s important to remember a complete feminist reading of a work doesn’t just celebrate the women overcoming despite the man’s decline. It also suggests that Blake didn’t have to die at all, if society hadn’t let his dad, and then him, down.

Women aren’t the only victims in the patriarchy.

A key moment early in the story is Blake’s dad wanting to take care of the original monster before it gets to his kid, he asks another dude for help. And the other guy basically says don’t go looking for trouble, it is what it is. Just don’t go out at night.

Of course, even when confronted with the monster directly, Blake’s dad doesn’t kill it, even though he is armed, ready, and in perfect position. He doesn’t pull the trigger. But also, he can’t see it. He just knows it’s on the other side of the door to the deer blind.

It’s the same perfect position (down to the same deer blind) that Charlotte is in at the end of the movie. The difference is she can see the monster and she takes the shot. Because of course, like so often in real life, it’s often up to women to deal with what the men won’t.

Most of the reviews say this movie is bad, because it’s cool to not like things these days. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s was a scary good time and an interesting take on a classic monster. But, for me, the final scene was still chilling rather than triumphant: Charlotte and Ginger standing alone and traumatized in the wilderness.