Spook Out! Day 16 ~ Howl (2015)

Shudder Says...

"Passengers on a night train are attacked by a vicious creature out of folklore, and must band together in order to survive until morning."

I Say...
If only it were just "a" vicious creature...

Horror Type...
Werewolves

Main Players...
Ed Speleers as Joe (Humble Guard)

Holly Weston as Ellen (Love Object)

Elliot Cowan as Adrian (Treacherous Ass)

I liked...

• how the basic horror story rule of isolating your characters with The Big Bad was applied--by stranding a train in the woods at night, and
• how they made the most of this atmospheric, though stationary, setting to build dread
• that the eight passengers, and two crew, managed to kill one of the beasties
• that an older couple proved important to the plot--the gentleman stopped an early descent into panicked chaos and got the group to focus on survival, and his lady wife...well...I can't say, but she's something else!
• the pacing, which was pretty good, and the even cycling of action with dialogue

The Meh...

• The beasties were CGI, which I don't object to in principal, but that can lead to somewhat unlikely looking creatures--I mean, they gave me the heebie-freaking-jeebies, for realz, but I'd have liked some more practical effects, over the slick swiftness of digital. As well, they were peculiarly hairless, for werewolves.
• One of the passengers takes on a difficult and dangerous task in order to get the stalled train moving, and that person's fate just goes to show that no good deed goes rewarded in a horror movie. 

Would I recommend it...?

Sure, it's a perfectly competent creature feature, and werewolf movies have been in short supply of late. But, given the weirdly awful political climate in which we've been living since 2016, it wouldn't surprise me if more appeared on the scene. Anyway, loads of jump scares here, and closeups of the critters (though just seeing their glowing eyes emerge from the dark woods is pretty terrifying), so sensitive types may wish to watch something like Jim & Jamie Dutcher: The Hidden Life of Wolves instead.

Miscellany...

The wonderfully gruff Sean Pertwee, alumnus of the most excellently chilling Dog Soldiers, has a (brief) cameo here!

Ratings...

My Grade: B

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: Tomatometer=67%, Audience Score=36%

Details, Schmeetails...

I Watched Howl on Shudder (the Rotten Tomatoes page linked above provides links to other streaming platforms)

Check it out on IMDb

Learn more about it on Wikipedia (Contains Spoilers)

I've been putting a movie trailer just before

the closing of the blogpost more or less in this area,

however,

as the still shot for this movie's trailer

features a close-up

of a creature,

I've moved it to after the blogfest badge appears.

SO

if you are of a sensitive nature,

you may wish to stop reading here.

This concludes Day 16 of

Thanks for reading and come back tomorrow...

IF YOU DARE