Howl

Image credit: IMDb

Moving a step away from the natural monsters that can disembowel us, but still opting for a horror in which everyone makes bad choices and thus create a fun film to yell at, the most recent Friday night couch movie Partner and I did was Howl.

Train guard Joe (Ed Speleers) has been having a rough day: the promotion he wanted went to a jerk who then dumps the graveyard shift onto him, the coworker he fancies declines his invitation to a drink, and the passengers on the last train are rude, belittling, and judgmental. But his day gets a lot worse when the train hits something on the track and the driver goes missing when out investigating. After hearing chilling howls, one of the passengers is attacked, and it falls to Joe to try and keep the peace as they run through their options on how to survive. And all the while there is a terrifying creature trying to get in.

What we’ve got here is a British werewolf movie set on a train. At the very least, this movie has a number of characters who you immediately hate and can’t wait to see dismembered. Having worked in customer service, there is a satisfying edge in watching movies with unreasonable, arrogant, and distasteful customer-characters who you know are going to meet a gruesome end. For Howl, it would have been even better if the lead character didn’t have the personality of a wet blanket. Strike one of this movie is that there are no characters that audiences are inspired to root for.

Strike two is the panicked and desperate script. The visual part of the screenplay is fine with a good number of disturbing monsters attack scenes that turn the stomach and jolt the heart. But the central narrative is weak from the beginning, the chosen environment limits creative solutions for escape, and there is an exposition dump in the middle that raises more questions than it answers. Not to mention the haphazard backstories of a couple of characters that comes to light under the pressure of the outside threat.

And strike three, the monster is revealed way too early. I think this is what caused the already wobbly plot to be completely derailed, as it didn’t work to increase the suspense or spark any sort of narrative development. If anything, it removed a good chunk of the suspense and put the writers into panic when they realised they needed some sort of explanation as to why there’s a pack of werewolves in this England woodland.

Image credit: The EOFFTV Review - Wordpress.com

I would only recommend this movie if you are looking for something to get mad at. It’s a film that begins with only the vaguest plot destination in mind and then gets completely derailed through its own lack of creativity. And sin of sins, there’s not even a good ending that brings any sort of closure.

Director: Paul Hyett, 2015

Cast: Elliott Cowan, Rosie Day, Calvin Dean, Sam Griffiths, Shauna Macdonald, Duncan Preston, Ania Marson, Amit Shah, Ed Speleers, & Holly Weston