31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Howl

Howl

92 mins.

Dir. Paul Hyett

2015/UK

The backwoods of England definitely have a werewolf problem.  Howl is a no frills, in your face, no place for humor straight up werewolf movie.  It's not trying to be anything more then it is and doesn't really break much new ground.  They change up the looks of the werewolf a little, but this a barebones horror movie from beginning to end.

Joe is a train conductor, he was just passed up for a promotion and is now forced to work a red eye from London to Eastborourgh.  A few miles out from its destination the train hits a big deer or elk or something which gets caught underneath the train and causes it to come to a screeching halt.  In the middle of nowhere.   In the rain.  In the middle of the night.  On a full moon.  The engineer gets out to survey the damage and is attacked.  The very few passengers on the train cry mutiny against Joe for them to get off and walk the few miles to the last stop since no one can find the engineer.  And the radio isn't working.  And they are in an area with no cell service (this actually can happen, I can attest to this having been a commuter on a train for 14 years).  So a group of travelers starts to walk down the tracks until they stumble upon the mauled body of the engineer and then it's everybody quickly back to the train.  They all rush back on, but of course the old people are always last in line and an old lady's leg is grabbed and cut up as she makes an effort to get inside train before the doors close.  Badly bleeding, assuming a bear or dog or something is outside, they barricade themselves inside a train car.  However one by one they begin to get picked off as the creature makes its way inside the train.  The panic stricken everyday passengers go ape shit and start attacking this thing, with everything they can find, a crowbar, fire extinguisher, and eventually a fire ax to beat it to a bloody pulp.  It was refreshing to see average people take charge of a situation and band together to kill a monster.  They come to the assumption that this may be a werewolf even though it is has the face and upper torso of a man, but the hind legs of a wolf.  And you do know that wolves travel in packs, which means the threat isn't over yet, and what about that lady that was bit?

The whole premise of this movie is, you are trapped on a train in the middle of nowhere and there is a pack of werewolves outside that want to eat you, what are you going to do?  It's real people in a real situation, because I am going to assume this is a problem on the Moors of England.  While the conductor has a crush on the beverage cart girl, there is really no love interest, there is no pregnant lady about to give birth.  The cast is just mostly young people.  We get character development without being overly talking.  We get backstory while still getting to the action right off the bat.  We get full blown werewolves with no explanation given and none needed.  While these creatures don't have snouts and aren't excessively covered in hair, they are werewolfish enough.  We get 90 minutes of a straight up horror story with nothing too illogical happening.  The only thing we don't get is something we haven't seen before or overly excessive gore.  

Good werewolf movies are few and far between anymore, so it is always exciting to see a good one.  While this one doesn't really add much more to the mythos, it does give you want you came to see, and sometimes in this day age that can be enough.  It was directed by Paul Hyett, who is mostly known for special effects work, especially in The Descent, Doomsday and Attack the Block.  The werewolf creatures look creepy making this a very watchable monster movie.  Considering it is Oct. 27th and I haven't seen one new movie this month that has blown my socks off yet, I am not complain over this.