Wolf Man Addendum: Wikipedia and interpretive authority

The beauty about fiction is that all our experiences are different. Our life influences how we view and interpret a piece of media and it can be so joyful to discuss these interpretations. 

Sometimes when I go to Wikipedia to check something about a movie or a book, I will be confronted with an interpretation that is quite different than mine. And that's generally not an issue. Despite what I might joke about from time to time, I do not actually believe my opinions are the only correct ones. However, because these interpretations on Wikipedia usually aren't presented as such and are instead, for example, part of the plot synopsis on the same site that lists facts about the movie like its director or year of release, that makes it seem like a fact as well. 

 For example: In the plot summary of Wolf Man (2025) it says "like his now-estranged father, he [Blake] struggles to control his temper when he senses Ginger is in trouble", which makes it sound like he has anger issues that are in line with his own father. Especially considering the next part of the sentence talks about his wife's growing sense of alienation from her family, a problem that marks her character throughout the movie. I viewed - and therefore described to you - the scene with his daughter differently. Yes, it parallels Blake and his daughter with earlier scenes of Blake and his father but - in my opinion - not to show how they are similar but instead how they are different. Instead of treating her harshly in general, Blake just yells out when he thinks she might get hurt. As is reasonable I think. And instead of more anger and blame, he is the one to apologize to her and get on her level to explain. To me, this is an early sign of how Blake managed to break the cycle and not how he is like his father. 

Maybe this seems nitpicky to you - and admittedly, it isn't that important in this instance - but it is just the most recent example of a phenomenon I've come across many times in the past. 

And sure, I, too, don't constantly add "in my opinion" or "I believe" to sentences I write but on personal blogs you can expect the audience to understand that. People don't go to Wikipedia for opinions. 

 I feel similar about some of those "XY ending explained" videos or articles. Because while they sometimes do just explain references or symbols or similar you might have missed, sometimes they do in fact present and interpretation of a purposefully ambiguous ending as the one true and correct one. 

All in all, it is not a major problem in the grand scheme of things, especially considering the stresses fiction is under, but I want to remind everybody that while some interpretations might be more valid than others (and some interpretations are plain wrong), just because it's written down on Wikipedia or presented by a YouTuber as the truth doesn't mean it isn't merely one of many interpretations. 

A rundown of horror movies of 2025: Wolf Man

A friend found this movie for us and we ended up all going together. I wasn’t sold on the trailer and went mostly for the friend hang-out, but this movie positively surprised me so much that it became my second favorite horror movie of the year so far. 

Wolf Man (2025)

A young boy grows up with his father in the woods. The father is strict and violent and claims to be so to protect his son from what is hiding in the forest. When decades later the estranged father is declared dead, the son, who now has a daughter and a slightly struggling marriage, and his family revisit his childhood home and get confronted with his childhood curse.

Spoilers from here on out

I like it when movies have a theme and stick to it. My favorite horror uses the horrific happenstances, the monster out to get you, as allegory for something else. To say it with tumblr user valtsv’s words “the symbolism is Real and Trying to Kill You”.

The symbolism here is generational trauma. Because it turns out, the werewolf menacing the son and his family is not what was waiting in the woods for him as a child but his own father; his father who now in turn infects him with the werewolf curse.

Watching the trailer it was already clear that the husband, Blake, would be turning into a werewolf during the course of the movie and it looked like the mother, Charlotte, and daughter, Ginger, would have to defend against him as well. I was pleasantly surprised when that did not turn out to be the case. While the transformation is unsettling both for mother and daughter as well as for Blake himself - made visible and tangible for the audience with distorted vision and him gradually losing the ability to parse speech - he is never a danger to them, even when they fear it. In fact, he protects them from his father and in the end chooses death over harming anyone else and passing the curse on, and thus breaking the cycle. 

The beauty of this is that you could already see Blake’s refusal to pass on the metaphorical family curse when early on the daughter behaves thoughtlessly and almost gets hurt. His own father treated him like a soldier and here he raises his voice at his daughter in alarm. But instead of justifying his actions and doubling down as his own father would have, Blake promptly apologizes for it, gently explains why her behavior was dangerous and reaffirms his love for her.

The movie is straight-forward in its plot and theming and contains emotional moments like the repeated ritual Blake has with his daughter that shows their love for each other. It is wonderfully self-contained creature transformation horror and makes me very glad for the scrapping of Universal’s “Dark Universe” without which it never would have existed.