Howl (2012)

 I had all the plans in the world to just write a two paragraph user comments on this film for my IMDb account...yeah, didn't turn out that way!

Werewolves on a Train. Works for me! Joe (Ed Speleers) didn’t get the promotion at his Waterloo Station job where he morosely accepts that his current role as a train “guard” (he checks to see that all passengers have their passes which proves they paid to board and tries to make sure they are treated respectively) will be one he’s stuck with for a while. His rival got the supervisor job which assigns work shifts and behavioral evals that Joe desired. Double shift is what he’s stuck with, his rival no doubt sticking him with it out of spite (and just because he can). Joe does notice that Ellen (Holly Weston) is also working the shift (she’s the food and beverages girl who also works in concert with the guard to attend to the passengers). On board, the movie shows Joe solemnly, shoulders slumbering and head drooping, moving like a mourner at a funeral as he inspected the passengers’ tickets, receiving a mix of aggravated and intense looks to just plain ignoring him. You can tell this is something that is an everyday occurrence…he’s the guy who makes sure you are on the up and up. When a train hits an emergency brake, the conductor (Sean Pertwee in a rather insignificant cameo) goes out to see what went under the train, learning that it was a deer…running from a werewolf in the wilderness on the outskirts of Waterloo Station. The deer meal disturbed, Pertwee will be a fine substitute! Joe, Ellen, and the passengers will find themselves in a fight for survival as the werewolf returns after lunching on Pertwee for some extra grub.

Flesh wounds

Rounding out the cast: Shauna Macdonald (The Descent (2005)) is mid-thirties business casual office beauty momentarily bonding with a teenage girl later pulled from a broken window by the werewolf, Elliot Cowan is the womanizing broker who is only out for himself (he has the expected scene where he tries to tactically convince Joe that they, the fittest, should escape, leaving the rest behind), Amit Shah a bookworm who goes gonzo on the werewolf with an ax, Sam Gittins as an engineering study with some appreciated knowledge of trains (he’s the one who informs Joe that the fuel line is cut and goes outside to fix it), Rosie Day as the text-happy snobbish teen, and Duncan Preston and Ania Marson as elder husband and wife.

Disaster strikes when the passengers insist that Joe let them from the train to supposedly walk to the nearest city, and the werewolf emerges, taking a bite from Marson’s leg. Marson is “infected with lycanthropy”, later to turn. Before this, the werewolf takes off Day, but upon return, the collective on the train gang up on it using whatever weapons (including ax, crowbar, and especially fire extinguisher) are available to beat the holy hell out of it. When Shah accompanies Gittins to the cut fuel line, he realizes that the werewolf on the train wasn’t the only one!

While not particularly spectacular, as a midnight monster movie, “Howl” shouldn’t be disappointing. The werewolf on the train is decent (they honestly try to make it look different than the other classic lycans the genre had produced), with a large mouth and scattered teeth (imagine a broken window pane with shards protruding), hairy with a hulking, hind-legged profile. One great scene has the werewolf’s hand clawing across the side of the train as the passengers listen on in terror…it is that kind of provoking mischief by an animal enjoying a bit of fear foreplay before engaging the potential meal.

The scene with Shah, an ax in hand, as the werewolves in the woods startle him while Gittins tries to tape the fuel line (the way he hides is clever) removes that feeling of exhalation that happens when the passengers (with Joe and Ellen) pummel and vanquish the initial werewolf when it attempts to attack them. Horror movies (particularly monster movies/creature features) are good at that: sometimes about the hour or so an initial threat is dispelled, allowing the viewer to have that relief only for the film to reveal further dangers to the remaining characters. With Marson bit and spitting out blood and teeth, catching a fever, on the verge of turning into a werewolf, Cowan decides to insert himself into ridding them of her with her husband (and his high blood pressure), Preston, standing in his way. There’s this inevitability we’re just predisposed to: she will turn and someone will most likely get a bite taken out of them. Cowan is the antagonist: there’s always a human nuisance to go along with the typical monsters. Those who oppose Cowan often are sacrificed to save his own hide. His fate at the end is fitting.

There are heroes, the everyday working joes who take a brave stand as the beasts seem to be closing in that are the antithesis of the Cowan character. Gittins, and his flaming torch, allows Joe and Ellen to get out of the train car after Cowan ditches them. Ultimately as the werewolves descend upon them, Joe will get his kiss and try to make sure Ellen gets away safe.

I actually preferred the werewolves at a distance in the dark of the woods in silhouette with glowing eyes. Sometimes less really is more. I still like that we get to see a band of humans take matters into their own hands and fight the werewolf. I like that it takes a licking and keeps ticking, with Joe having to bash its face in with the aforementioned fire extinguisher. They are toothy, with fierce growls. And they give out the ominous howl of the title. The situation itself affords the siege plot, with the night and woods a backdrop cloaking the dangers that surface at the worse times for our heroes. Cowan proving how low he’ll sink, pushes a victim trying to keep from being pried from an open door so he could use the wrench in her hand. Her watching the train leave her behind as a werewolf approaches, begging for her life while distraught at the knowledge that she’s doomed is one of the best scenes in my opinion. To be so close to possible safe haven only for the vehicle to get you there leaving you behind is a tragic piece of horror. Just desserts await Cowan for contributing to her doom.