Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Wolf Man (2025)
Although 2025’sWolf Manisn’t perfect, director Leigh Whannell’s Blumhouse horror movie provides evidence of an abiding love for the history of the genre. 2025’sWolf Manfollows the story of Christopher Abbott’s Blake Lovell, a writer and stay-at-home father who brings his wife and daughter to his childhood home. After his estranged father who went missing years earlier is pronounced dead, Blake takes the opportunity to revisit the isolated mountainside where he grew up. This plan turns out to be a mistake.
AlthoughWolf Man’s version of werewolvesare different from most movie incarnations of the iconic monsters, the Blumhouse horror still hits many of the beats viewers anticipate from a retelling of Universal’s iconic 1941 movieThe Wolf Man. Blake is attacked by a mysterious monster after crashing his car, he gradually transforms into an inhuman monster and, inWolf Man’s ending, his wife and daughter put him out of his misery shortly after he becomes a werewolf. The story might be familiar, but the journey is filled with Easter eggs for horror fans.
10Ginger Snaps
Blake’s Daughter Gets Her Name From A Famous Werewolf
The first ofWolf Man’s many horror movie Easter eggs comes in the name of Blake’s daughter. Ginger is named after the main character of 2000’s unconventional werewolf movieGinger Snaps. An inventive fusion of blackly comic werewolf horror and coming-of-age dramedy,Ginger Snapsuses lycanthropy as a stand-in for the perils of puberty. However, viewers expecting a playful romp like 1985’sTeen Wolfshould look elsewhere.
Ginger Snapsis as bloody and brutal asWolf Man, and Katharine Isabelle is both tragic and terrifying as the title character. A teenage girl who develops a thirst for human blood after an encounter with a werewolf, Ginger remains movingly human even as her wild side takes over. As such,Wolf Mannaming Blake’s daughter after the tragic heroine ofGinger Snapsis a fitting tributeto this still-underrated cult classic.
9The Shining
One of the most obvious Easter eggs inWolf Manarrives when the Lovell family travels to Blake’s childhood home. Their car is seen snaking through the wooded mountain roads in an overhead shot that calls to mind the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s Stephen King adaptationThe Shining. A plethora of movies have since replicated this aerial shot, among themMidsommar,Us,Bats,Fallen,Dead End,Silent Hill,Sometimes They Come Back,The Descent, 2024’sSpeaks No Evilremake,The Haunting,Green Room, 2016’sCabin Feverremake, and many, many more.
This trope even earned a video tribute fromYouTubecreatorWhere Have I Seen This, entitled “Foreboding Overhead Shots of Cars Driving On Long Roads In Horror Movies,” back in 2020. However, as over-familiar as this particular reference might have become,Wolf Man’s reference toThe Shiningmakes thematic sensein a way many other horror movies fail to. Like the characters ofThe Shining,the family inWolf Manis heading toward an encounter with the father’s dark family past. Like Kubrick’s characters, they are also on track for a journey that will come to destroy the family’s father and end with him dying while trying to attack his wife and child.
8Silver Bullet
This Stephen King Adaptation Sees A Werewolf Run The Hero Off The Road
On the topic ofThe Shining,Wolf Manfeatures an early nod to a largely forgotten Stephen King werewolf story. 1984’sSilver Bulletfollows Marty, a young paraplegic boy, as he attempts to discover the human identity of a local werewolf responsible for numerous murders. When he does, Marty is trapped in a race against time to expose the werewolf before he becomes his next victim.
BothWolf ManandSilver Bulletfeature scenes where a werewolf runs the hero off the road. The difference is that the werewolf’s human self is driving toward Marty inSilver Bullet, whereas the werewolf’s creature form jumps out in front of the car inWolf Man. Marty also escapes his attacker, while Blake crashes his car.
7The Monster (2016)
Wolf Man’s Tense Car Crash Sequence Borrows From This Underrated Horror
Perhaps the most explicit borrow inWolf Mancomes immediately after the werewolf causes the Lovell family’s car crash.2016’sThe MonsterandWolf Manboth feature a sequence of characters hanging suspended in a flipped car as a monster lurks below them on the roadside, although this lasts a lot longer in director Bryan Bertino’s 2016 horror movie.The Monsteris an underrated A24 horror whose simple setup belies a surprisingly gripping, intense story andWolf Man’s scary car crash sceneowes the movie a creative debt for this inventive scare.
6Dog Soldiers
This British Horror Movie Trapped Its Heroes In An Empty Farmhouse
2002’sDog SoldierswasThe Descentdirector Neil Marshall’s first major critical hit, and the British indie horror remains fondly remembered. LikeWolf Man,Dog Soldiersalso focuses on a group of characters holing up in an empty farmhouse as werewolves attempt to break inside. Like Whannel’s movie,Dog Soldiersalso eventually reveals that the werewolves are secretly related to each other. However, this twist is a lot more poignant inWolf Man’s plot.
5Predator
Wolf Man’s Wolf Vision Sequences Recall The Seminal Sci-Fi Horror
One of the saddest elements ofWolf Man’s story is watching Blake slowly lose contact with his humanity as he becomes the titular threat. This is achieved via some trippy scenes where Blake loses the ability to understand human language and becomes able to hear noises far more clearly, perceiving a spider’s footsteps as loud drumming. As he transforms,Blake’s vision becomes more heat-based, much like the eponymous villain of 1987’s classic sci-fi horrorPredator.
4The Wolf Man (1941)
Larry Talbot’s Name Is Mentioned Among Grady’s Notes
AlthoughWolf Man’s director Leigh Whannel madeThe Invisible Mana few years before this reboot, the movie resists the urge to connect the two Dark Universe installments in-universe. However, one of the most explicit shout-outs to the Wolf Man’s lengthy screen history is hidden early in the movie’s story. Among the notes that Blake’s father has made on the lycanthropy-like disease he is investigating, viewers can discern the name of a missing camper.
The missing hiker has the same name as the hero of both 1941’sThe Wolf Manand the Universal monster movie’s 2010 remake.
This camper is named “Larry Talbot,” a.k.a Lawrence Talbot. The missing hiker has the same name as the hero of both 1941’sThe Wolf Manand the Universal monster movie’s 2010 remake. That Benicia Del Toro vehicle may not have succeeded in recouping its sizable budget at the box office, but its big plot twist does get a shout-out inWolf Man.
3The Wolfman (2010)
Wolf Man’s Big Twist Borrows From The 2010 Remake
Both 2010’sThe Wolf Manand 2025’sWolf Manreveal that the protagonist’s father is the original werewolf,although the handling of this twist is markedly different in the two iterations of the story. In 2010’sThe Wolf Man, a hammy Anthony Hopkins plays Talbot’s father as an outright cruel, vindictive villain. In 2025’sWolf Man, the realization that Blake’s father is the werewolf that attacked him is more tragic as it is clear he has no control over himself and can’t return to his human form.
2The Fly (1986)
Brundlefly’s Fingernails Also Fell Off Mid-Transformation
WhileWolf Man’s changes to the werewolf mythosdon’t all work, the most inspired moments of Blake’s transformation owe a debt to the master of body horror. When Balke finally transforms shortly before the movie’s ending, his teeth fall free from his mouth and his fingernails pop off his hands to reveal claws. This particularly nasty moment is borrowed from director David Cronenberg’s infamously intense 1986 remake of 1958’s campy sci-fi horror movieThe Fly.
Jeff Goldblum’s transformation into “Brundlefly” is a clear influence on Blake’s fingernail ordeal, although the earlier character’s transformation was a lot slower. Not only is this particular detail tough for viewers to forget, but the movie’s creators even citedCronenberg’s work as an influence onWolf Man. Interestingly, the underrated horror TV showHemlock Grovefeatured a similarly nasty, blood-soaked werewolf transformation 12 years earlier, complete with missing teeth and fingernails falling off the hero’s hands.
1Saw (2004)
Blake’s Bear Trap Encounter References Leigh Whannel’s Infamous Psychological Horror
One of the best moments inWolf Manis lifted almost directly from the breakout movie written by its director, Leigh Whannel. Before he became a horror icon, Whannel was the screenwriter of 2004’sSaw, a psychological thriller whose massive box-office success went on to spawn a ten-movie franchise and kick start Whannel’s career.Wolf ManreferencesSawwith the brutal scene where Blake gets trapped in a bear trapand, unable to escape the snare, responds by chewing off his own foot. This horrifying moment is more than a little similar to the fate of Cary Elwes’ Dr. Lawrence Gordon.
Whannell revealed toThe Hollywood Reporterthat this nod wasn’t entirely conscious during the writing process.
After waking up chained to a dank, empty bathroom wall with another captive, Elwes’s character eventually resorts to sawing off his foot so he can escape his death. AlthoughWolf Man’s new take onThe Wolf Manstoryseems to clearly borrow this moment from the 2004 movie, Whannell revealed toThe Hollywood Reporterthat this nod wasn’t entirely conscious during the writing process. Instead, he mostly intended to use the scene to highlight the differences between human and animal behavior, as a wolf would be more likely to resort to pragmatic auto-cannibalism than a human.
Somewhat ironically,Saw’s similar scene proves that humans are very capable of the same behavior if given a strong enough impetus. However,Wolf Man’s nastiest shock still serves as a brutal way to prove Blake is losing touch with the last lingering shreds of his humanity. It also just so happens to also be, like so many standout moments inWolf Man, a nod to a classic piece of horror movie history.
