Julia Garner Thinks Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ Is ‘Scarier’ Than Any Previous Iteration

From creating the “Saw” franchise alongside James Wan to revitalizing the monster-movie genre with his critical and financial hit “The Invisible Man,” Leigh Whannell has been tapping into our fears for over two decades, and his latest star, Julia Garner, believes he’s done it again with “Wolf Man.” Not only that, but that he’s gone further than ever before.

In a recent interview with ScreenRant, Garner shared that Whannell’s “Wolf Man” sources more terror than previous iterations by making the transformation from man to wolf part of the journey. In the film, Garner’s character is forced watch in alarm as her husband (Christopher Abbott) starts to become a beast, both physically and emotionally — like a disease slowly taking hold.

“It’s more scary when it is a slower transition because I still recognized little elements of Chris,” said Garner. “His skin and his hair was changing, but he still had his eyes and I think if you want to make anything scarier just go with something familiar. That’s why they always put dolls in horror films because you see a doll like almost every day. So I think that this ‘Wolf Man’ is almost scarier for that reason — that’s there’s something familiar, that Charlotte still sees her husband, but he’s not there anymore.”

As scary as Abbott’s breakdown reads on screen and as off-putting as it was to perform opposite him, Garner did admit that the novelty of his grotesque appearance wore off quick on set.

“The first time I saw him with the prosthetics I could not stop looking at him,” she said to ScreenRant. “It was very weird and bizarre and I was just like, ‘Oh my God this is terrifying,’ and then I got used to it after like three days.”

Speaking to IndieWire’s Jim Hemphill for a recent interview, Whannell detailed how he wrote the script for “Wolf Man” during the COVID-19 lockdowns and that he was drawn to the idea of disease as a monster many are forced to face. David Cronenberg worked in similar territory with his 1986 take on “The Fly,” a film that served as strong influence for Whannell.

“‘The Fly’ was an allegory for disease, and I felt like that’s what my ‘Wolf Man’ story was,” the writer/director said. “I have to find the emotional call for me, because scaring people is very mechanical. The emotional bedrock underneath is the thing that’s provoking feeling in me. And I trust that.”

Watch Garner’s interview with ScreenRant below.

“Wolf Man” is currently in theaters from Universal Pictures.