Film Review: HOWL (2015)

Screenwriters Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler try to craft a new version of the werewolf tale in their film Howl (2015).  A train of passengers led in part by one of the ticket takers Joe (Ed Speleers) gets sidelined and their train is forced to stop in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.  With only a couple miles between them and their destination, the passengers of the train talk Joe into unlocking the outer doors and allowing them to walk the couple of miles to the next station after Joe realizes that the conductor is missing.  It’s not long before they all realize that there is something in the woods bent on killing them all and once they make their way back to the train, the train becomes their tomb as the creatures on the outside fight to get on the inside.

Joe must work with the eclectic group of passengers in order to find a way to get the train running again and get them all to safety but time is running out and the creatures outside will stop at nothing to get inside and the tensions among the passengers escalates as they all refuse to band together as one.

Howl looks great as directed by Paul Hyett but suffers from a lack of likable characters as most of the characters you want to see killed by the werewolf-like creatures in the film.  It’s no trick saying that they are not werewolves as the title of the film and the fact that once someone is bit they turn into one but they don’t really look like your typical werewolf and probably act like something more in line with the ones seen in Dog Soldiers or Underworld.  This being said the CGI for the creatures doesn’t really hold up and get overused when more of the creatures show up.  The film also has a problem in that there is way too much padding to the film and after the halfway mark the characters start making very dumb decisions which get annoying after a while.   This may deter most horror fans but if you’re looking for a decent werewolf time waster than you can do worse than this one.

"Rants & Ravings About Horror" - “My Love of the Film Lone Wolf (1988)”

“My Love of the Film Lone Wolf (1988)”

Being as old as I am and having grown up watching horror films of the late ‘80s and ‘90s I tended to gravitate towards some of the most obscure films that have stayed with me my entire life.   I saw Phantasm II (1988) before the original and it turned me into a huge fan.  I’ve seen The Gate (1987) more than a hundred times and Basket Case 2 (1990) and Brain Damage (1988) introduced me to the warped mind of director Frank Henenlotter (I didn’t see the original Basket Case until over a decade later as my local video store didn’t carry it because someone damaged it).  These are but a small sampling of some of my favorites but none has been as elusive as Lone Wolf (1988) which I’ve been looking for, for over a decade.  This film has been very elusive thanks to my bad memory of thinking the film was simply called Werewolf or Wolf but also because the film is missing in action on DVD and Blu-Ray and that there isn’t a huge cult following for the film which made asking questions about the film to my other horror fans very hard.

Even when I discovered the true name of the film (only about two years ago) the film has been elusive to me, until now.  With no official release of the film I had to turn to getting a DVD bootleg of the film as even a VHS copy was out of my range (average cost between $60-$80 when one managed to show itself on EBay).  You may not know about this film, and I won’t fault you if you don’t since it’s a pretty standard werewolf film.  Growing up I loved werewolf movies more than all other movie monsters.  The Howling (1981) and Silver Bullet (1985) were my favorites and even though most people would put An American Werewolf in London (1981) above those, I never did since that film always seemed far removed from me since it took place in London.  Both The Howling and Silver Bullet were American films that seemed like they could happen in my own neighborhood and even though I identified with the fire cracker Marty (Corey Haim) of Silver Bullet it was the rock band bad boy of Lone Wolf that I really wanted to be who might also “be” the werewolf.  Both The Howling and Lone Wolf made it kind of cool to be the werewolf so those are films I watched a lot growing up.

As the years passed and I watched more werewolf films (countless Howling sequels among them), I forgot about Lone Wolf enough to have forgotten the name of the film but I always remembered scenes that I loved.  The film remained this elusive memory in the back of my brain for years because it was a film that I couldn’t find anywhere and that no one knew of.

When I recently watched the film again for the first time in probably twenty-plus years the film still had an effect on me, despite being dated.  It’s one of those films that stays with you if it had an effect on you when you were a kid.  There are many films (both good and bad) that stick with you and remind you of your childhood despite the lack of quality of the film.  An American Werewolf in London is probably the more fondly remembered of all the werewolf films thus far mentioned as it is the least dated but Lone Wolf is the film that will probably stay with me the longest.  Now that I have the film (and the right title for the film) I can make sure it never disappears from my conscious again and if you’ve never seen the film you should look it up especially if you’re a fan of werewolf films.

 

We all have films that we remember better than they actually are but we should never stop appreciating them as they are part of our history and why we love the genre.  Despite others opinions to the contrary you should embrace these films – good, bad, horrendous, etc. and remember that at one point in your life this was the perfect film at just that perfect moment and that as a grownup we don’t get those perfect moments as often so we should cherish the memories of all those that we had as a child when we can.

Film Review: WOLFCOP (2014)

There’s a new cop in town.  He’s horny, a drunk, and now he’s part wolf and part cop and he’s here to take out the trash.  This is the allure of the film WolfCop (2014), an homage to ‘80s and ‘90s action films that cared more about action and less about everything else.  Written and directed by Lowell Dean this is the story of Lou Garou (Leo Fafard) who doesn’t value his job as a cop and is more often drunk or late or both when on the job.  One night he is abducted and becomes part of a sacred ritual in which he is made into a werewolf as part of a sacrificial lamb. 

Instead of sitting down and doing nothing he decides to give back to his community and take out the trash which have been calling the streets of his city home.  As he discovers a newborn strength he never had, Lou soon realizes that he’s got only until the eclipse to discover who wants him dead and why before he becomes food for an even more deadly menace.

Fans of such recent throwback films as Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009), Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) and Machete (2010) will enjoy this style of film.  It does play loose and hard with the werewolf mythology which is part of its greatest strength as it tries to bring something new and interesting to the tired genre.  Those looking for something new and different should definitely check this film out but traditionalist should probably stay clear of this film.

There is plenty of gore and violence to appease the horror fan and enough action to appease the action junkies but the film lacks any real sense of dread or suspense which is defused by the comedy in the film.  All in all, not a bad film but not a great one either.

Film Review: BEAST BENEATH (2011)

The film Beast Beneath (2011) is one of those cheap horror films that has a very simple premise that sells itself on the monster which is (thankfully) kept in the shadows most of the time so as not to show just how cheap the whole thing is.  This is a film that is part legend, part treasure hunt, and part campfire tale as if mixes a lot of different perspectives to tell an otherwise basic monster story. 

A father and son are camping out in Griffin Park which used to be an old ranch owned by an Antonio Feliz who put a curse upon the land for anyone trying to steal his inheritance.  It seems that there is legend of a monster that has been killing people in the park for a very long time, or that is how the story is told.   In the modern day there is a tale in which Antonio’s descendant will come to him to claim her inheritance (the treasure) and allow him to finally move on (ascend to Heaven).  There are a lot of characters all trying to get to Antonio’s treasure but all meeting the unlucky fate of the monster that protects the treasure (which is like a big werewolf-like creature).

This is unfortunately the plot of the whole film which is filled with uninteresting characters that fall flat underneath the inexperienced cast and uninspired direction and cinematography.  The film’s production values are low and the lack of any real suspense means that audiences need to at least get their fill from the gore and monster FX which are poor and lack any immediacy or suspense.  This is a very bland film from start to finish in which the first order of business should have been cutting the wrap-around sequence of the father and son campfire tale set up which really adds nothing to the overall film.  This is a film that can be completely avoided.