A train full of English passengers is making a late-night run through a dense forest. Beleaguered ticket taker Billy (Sam Gittens) deals with the small group of travelers, many of whom are grouchy and noticeably hostile towards him. He’s been having a bad day—passed on for a promotion, rejected by a girl who he’s asked out for a date—and being overall dissed by everyone as being soft and weak. The train hits a snag and has to stop, disabled right in the middle of this forbidding forest. The Driver (Sean Pertwee, in his two minutes total of screen time), gets out to take a look and is attacked by some savage beast. The crew doesn’t know this and they sit and wait, eventually deciding to take the passengers and walk along the tracks to the next station, which is a couple of miles straight ahead. Only problem is, the creature that killed the Driver attacks them and the passengers and crew must hole-up inside the stalled train to try to stay alive until help comes. Oh, and the creature? It just happens to be a werewolf.
Howl is a fun little movie and a pretty damned good werewolf film. It has compelling characters, plenty of action, and it does not skimp on the gore. The siege situation has been done millions of times in horror films and it’s hard to do something original with it, but Howl does the best it can, injecting the sense of danger with high adrenaline. As the story carries on, we learn more about the passengers and about Billy and our sympathies grow. To its credit, they keep everything pretty real, and nothing gets too outlandish (I mean, besides werewolves, but you know, that’s what you’re here for). The attacks come fast and furious and as the numbers of survivors are whittled down, you begin to think that just maybe nobody is going to make it out alive. The only real drawbacks to the movie is that it leans a little too much on stereotypical storytelling tropes (here’s the confession between two characters that bitterly despise one another, there’s the asshole white guy who only looks after himself, etc.) and sometimes the werewolf suits look a little too puffy. But these are minor quibbles.
Howl was a pleasant surprise and if you’re a fan of werewolf movies, you really need to see it. No, it doesn’t revolutionize the subgenre and it certainly doesn’t add anything new. But the film manages to be not only entertaining, but deeply engaging, which is a feat these days of rare strength. You really care about what’s going to happen to these people, and that comes down to great storytelling and great acting. Definitely a hidden gem.
★★★☆
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