PHOTO BY NICOLA DOVE / UNIVERSAL PICTURES

We never go too long between big-screen appearances by one of the classic Universal Monsters. Since the studio’s famed characters established big-screen horror in the 1930s, they’ve popped up with regularity.

And with mixed results. Universal hoped to Marvel-ify its stable in the ’10s, launching the dreadfully named Dark Universe franchise with a 2017 update to “The Mummy.” That film tanked and plans were scrapped. Fortunately, director Leigh Whannell had more luck with his 2020 take on “The Invisible Man,” which kept the idea of a sinister see-through figure but scrapped the particulars.

Whannell has tried again with “Wolf Man,” a small-cast tale of lupine dread. Other than a painful transformation and a human turned canid, there’s nothing to tie this film to the Lon Chaney, Jr. version — except perhaps the menace of a nocturnal forest.

Blake (Christopher Abbott) receives word that his estranged father (Sam Jaeger) is missing and presumed dead. He packs up a reluctant family (Julia Garner and Matilda Firth) and heads to inspect his father’s cabin in a remote corner of the Oregon forest; en route, however, the family is waylaid by a mysterious beast — and Blake comes to with a bite mark on his arm.

Other than an opening flashback where a young Blake has his first encounter with the creature, the action takes place over one night; the family struggles against the monster without and the rapidly changing human within. The results aren’t pretty, either from a narrative sense or a visual one — the design on these lycanthropes leaves a lot to be desired — as scant hope remains for a happy ending amid miles of sinister wilderness.

Whannell and his co-writer, Corbett Tuck, can’t do much with the characters; there’s merit in keeping the backstory simple, but there’s nothing in the script to attach the audience to these folks. Fortunately, they’ve come up with a much more effective setting and structure, which keeps things moving even as the drama sags.

At least there’s a pair of toothy beasts, promising an eventual throwdown. In most werewolf tales, the humans can’t put up much of a fight; wolf man vs. wolf man is a more intriguing conflict.

My Rating: 6/10

“Wolf Man” is now playing in theaters.