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Wolf Man's End-Credits Tribute to Chandler Tuck Explained

syfy.com 1 day ago

The horror film’s tragic storyline hit especially close to home as the director grappled with family tragedy in real life.

True to its classic Universal Monsters legacy, Wolf Man is a movie about terrifying transformation. A reimagining of the original 1941 werewolf horror movie The Wolf Man (stream it here on Peacock!), director Leigh Whannell’s fresh-in-theaters feature film serves up a surprisingly poignant present-day take on the anguish of succumbing to sinister forces. 

Without giving too much away (score your tickets here to go see it in theaters now), Wolf Man follows a family leader named Blake (Christopher Abbott) who becomes cursed (or maybe infected?) after being clawed by a werewolf as he and his family head toward his father's isolated Oregon farmhouse.

As changes set in that transform him into a strange and dangerous creature, Blake’s family watches in stunned terror… while realizing their survival might ultimately depend on destroying the husband and father they love. 

Wolf Man: Director Leigh Whannell explains real-life tribute in film's end credits

Whannell co-wrote the screenplay for Wolf Man alongside his wife Corbett Tuck. Their collaboration on the film took place during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of universally heightened awareness that powers beyond humanity’s control can sweep the rug out from under people’s stability and happiness. 

“This idea of seeing the world from the Wolf Man's perspective and him not being able to communicate with his family seemed like such rich, potent material — disease and illness, these things that rob you from your family,” Whannell recently shared with Entertainment Weekly. "Corbett and I had personal experience with a friend of ours and watching how these diseases can disintegrate a family. There's no rhyme or reason, the cruelty of nature to select certain people and put their families through this trauma. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, whatever these things are, you're supposed to put up a brave front, but there is that cruelty."

Wolf Man’s post-pandemic filming commenced early last year, and by then, an even more personal tragedy had unfolded for Whannell and Tuck — one whose emotional wounds were still fresh as the film’s March 2024 production was getting underway in New Zealand. 

Chandler Tuck, Corbett’s 44 year-old brother, had died by suicide late in 2023, only months before filming on Wolf Man began. The loss left Whannell and Tuck grappling with a real-life tragedy that made a lasting mark on the movie itself. “It's a hand grenade, a loss like that,” Whannell confided to EW. “It just leaves so many unanswered questions.”

Wolf Man’s final few scenes bring the film’s devastating storyline full circle, looking both backward and forward within Blake’s family timeline to uncover a shocking truth about the film’s multi-generational werewolf curse. “I think he [Chandler] was with me while I was making the film, that there was this very raw attachment to grief,” Whannell explained. “…I had [Chandler] in mind the whole time. I think the film ended up being cathartic for me in terms of grieving in those scenes.”

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