Wolf

SPQRaaaarg!

Wolf
2019 UK
Directed by Stuart Brennan
UK cinema release print.

Wolf is written by Stuart Brennan and George McCluskey, who both play main parts in this film... and it’s directed by Brennan. It’s one of those movies which, even before you get to the cinema, presents you with a puzzle. That puzzle being... how in heck did anyone manage to make a movie with the premise, Roman legionnaires versus Werewolves in Scotland, without it getting any kind of promotional publicity at all. I mean come on... Romans VS Werewolves (which would have been a better title, by the way) is something everyone is going to want to watch, right? This film, however, wasn’t even a blip on my radar until I looked up what was on at the cinema over the weekend and found it listed as opening the next day. I promptly went to one of the only ‘two performances per day’ screenings and asked the one fellow audience member I encountered if he’d seen any promotion for this and he basically repeated to me my own feelings on it. That being, ‘nope, only found out by looking up cinema times’ and ‘they had me at werewolf’. So there you go.

And then the film, which isn’t half bad, by the way, started playing and, right away, the mystery of the lack of publicity was revealed. That being that this production obviously had very little money to speak of. I can’t seem to find details of the budget on the IMDB for some reason but it becomes obvious that this story of a group of Romans and their scout who are sent from behind the safety of Hadrian’s Wall and into the forest, to track down some missing soldiers supposed to be offering peace with the Picts, was definitely on the micro-budget level when they can’t even afford to show Hadrian’s Wall in the movie. And also, later on, there’s a ‘time lapse’ shot of stars which looks like a badly manipulated slide shot.

So, yeah, I’m guessing there was no money available for a marketing budget and I’m kinda surprised this one didn’t play at FrightFest a few weeks ago... although, power to these people for getting their movie out into cinemas (although it’s not looking like it’s been scheduled for a release in any other country, as yet).

And... it’s one of those films that reveals its lack of facilities while simultaneously making you realise how clever and creative the cast and crew are being in managing to get what they did get up on screen. Let’s look at some of the more positive elements because, frankly, it’s a nicely made movie, despite the lack of funding.

Okay, so the plot is simple but effective, as you slowly see the team of Roman men and women slowly picked off by... ‘things unseen’ for the most part. And, what it lacks in budget, it makes up for with some quite good dialogue. Clichéd, for sure, as the majority of the team bond and villains are singled out by their actions and allegiances but it’s quite effectively written and the cast perform it spectacularly. I loved the way that it really demonstrated how the Romans took their fighting strategies and formations seriously in the face of the enemy. George McCluskey as the leader of the group is very solid and the three main female characters among the cast... played by Adanna Oji, Jennifer Chippindale and the scene stealing Victoria Morrison... are all absolutely wonderful here too. There’s not a bad one in the lot, to be honest but, I’m not going to name check everyone here.

And then there’s the creative way of shooting this. I’ll tell you now, to save disappointment, when I say that the film obviously had a low budget, that stretches to including any werewolf makeup whatsoever, unless you count fangs. The werewolf attacks which punctuate the film at certain points are masterpieces of mis-direction where you feel, rather than see what is going on. So blurry, silhouettes of figures running at speed in the front of the camera with the reactions of the Romans caught in long shot behind them before cutting back to the various human cast and then cutting back out again in short bursts are very much the order of the day here. And lots of hand held camera throughout the movie, of course.

The director has definitely learnt the old school horror trick of 'less is more' which has been with us throughout the history of the genre on screen and which makes even more sense when you don’t have anything really to show or, as in some movies, something really badly designed. When you do finally catch a glimpse of a werewolf they are pretty much just naked people with fangs so... yeah... people gone feral. That being said, although you don’t see any physical transformations in this, the ostentatious vomiting which accompanies the ‘non-transformations’, post-bite, are quite effectively performed and just about manage to carry the weight of the idea for the length of the feature.

There’s even a nice ‘feminist horror’ pitch threaded through the DNA of the movie which is tapped into for the final scenes. This isn’t just a ‘final girl’ movie its... yeah, like I’m going to put spoilers in here. You need to watch this one for yourself because, frankly, these people are going to need your money and I just hope, with skilled craftsmanship like this, given the budget, that they get to make another feature sometime soon.

Also, I can find no details of who actually composed the somewhat synth heavy score for this but it’s actually pretty good also. Lots of cymbals, scraping metal and percussion to emphasis the chaos in the battle sequences and it’s quite appropriate to the film, even though it’s somewhat anachronistic to the period being filmed. As is most historical scoring so, no problems there. It’s also got a kind of strident three note motif which actually kept the melody gong around in my head on the journey home too so... yeah, if I could get a CD of this score it would be nice but I don’t see a release happening in the near future, to be honest.

Other than that, though... what more can I say. It’s obvious that, with a script and premise like this, a much bigger budget could have made Wolf a truly great piece of genre cinema. As it is, the genius of the cast and crew give us something that is more than entertainingly watchable on a more modest scale and which, frankly, deserves a lot more attention than I expect it’s going to get. Sure, some things look a bit unpolished but I was amazed by just how good this did look in places and the enthusiasm for the material by the cast and crew is obvious from what’s caught on screen. If you are in the mood for something a bit different from the majority of films playing in cinemas this week then get yourself down to see Wolf because, frankly, I can’t imagine this one will last more than a week at the cinema and it’s very much worth a watch for fans of horror. Definitely a good candidate for a ‘mates around for drinks and a movie’ all-nighter, if it gets a home video release.

Howl

Hairless Whisper

Howl
UK 2015 Directed by Paul Hyett
Metrodome Blu Ray Zone B

This is one of those movies I bought a few months back on a cheap Blu Ray because someone had tweeted about it and the premise looked pretty good. I was going to get around to watching it soon anyway but recently, when I skyped my cousin in Australia, he told me he and his girlfriend had rented it from their local shop (yeah, that rental thing still happens in Australia... cool) and that it was a fantastic film. So I moved it up the list, past all the other backlogged movies.

Howl is one of those British made, low budget horror films that you really hope is going to succeed and overcome both the budgetary restraints and the working conditions caused by those limitations. More often than not, and this applies for all realms of art, the more limited you are, the more creative you become to compensate and find new ways around problems that having an unlimited palette would solve easier... but in a less interesting fashion.

Now, sometimes, that idea can go wrong with films because when money becomes one of those restraints, it can be hard to creatively solve certain issues when, for instance, you can’t pay the actors and you can’t lock down a location. However, it’s good to see that with Howl, that’s not an issue and, although it has its problems in places, I found I could forgive it a lot because of it’s basic idea, good performances, mostly shrewd structure and, ultimately, it’s really good to see something small but quietly ambitious pulled off really well.

The film follows the exploits of a train guard called Joe, played by Ed Speelers, on the final ‘red eye’ train out from Waterloo Station. He’s pulling a double shift and the only reason he’s been talked into it is because a woman he likes, Ellen (played by Holly Weston), is ‘doing the food trolley’ for the journey... it’s one of those long journeys where the trains have toilets and a person walks the length of the train selling food and drink to the customers. I used to have to get the train to Ipswich out of Liverpool Street a number of years ago and it was exactly this kind of train journey that I used to have to take... which is one of the appealing things to me about this movie... that it’s set relatively close to home.

As Ed does his round of checking the tickets of all the passengers, we start to meet the usual character types that make up these kinds of small, ensemble pieces... where personalities clash and people bond in the short time they know each other. This film is no different and has a great cast including some more famous and reliable character actors such as Shauna McDonald (so good in The Descent), Duncan Oreston and, in a relatively small role, Sean Pertwee. And, of course once we’re just getting to know the characters and how they start to relate to each other... the train comes to a crashing halt in the country, miles from anywhere because... werewolves on the line!

Yep. That’s the concept. We have a bunch of werewolves (I’ll get back to those properly a little later) who are preying on the passengers of this damaged train. So the guard and his sometimes hostile customers have to try and barricade themselves in and survive for as long as they can. And yeah, it’s mostly done pretty well and with the kind of atmosphere and great performances you’d expect from a low budget British movie. However, there are some problems too.

I think the main problem for me was the absolute sloppiness of the long term set up for one of the scares. It telegraphs itself a good 20 or more minutes before it actually happens because, when the director is introducing the various passengers in the early stages of the film. He deliberately hangs around with Joe and Ellen having a conversation in front of one of the passengers who is, himself, pretty memorable and unique to the film in terms of his physical type. The director and writers obviously want him to stick in your mind a bit and I think, possibly because of his looks, this whole sequence is a little overplayed. So then he just drops out of the narrative for a while and, after having made so sure we remember him, it’s obvious the director wants us to just overlook his absence. However, as soon as he’s not on screen, when the passengers decide to ‘walk the line’, you know he’s being held back as a character to be a ‘bluff scare’ at some point and this, unfortunately, is exactly how this character is used. He’s the basic equivalent of a cat in a horror movie (think ALIEN, among others). So the audience is supposed to be frightened by what we’re supposed to think is a werewolf in the toilet when it’s really this character in there instead. But, of course, because he’s been rendered so memorable, the scare isn’t there and you instead spend your time waiting for the passengers to wise up.

However, although this movie hits all the clichés you’d expect from a character led movie of this kind... the guy who everybody hates, the nice old lady who’s been infected and is a ticking time bomb, the teenage brat who needs to wise up and calm down and the older man with the high blood pressure who needs to get back home for his pills... I have to say that, for the most part, the director pulls off everything pretty well, actually.

One of the tricks he starts off with to maintain a sense of credibility is the tried and true method of obscuring your monsters in the dark and only showing bits of them. Compounded with the old chestnut of using a ‘first person point of view’ from the monster’s eyes whenever they are near, voyeuristically scoping out their human prey. This method is used quite well a lot of the time and... I kinda wished he’d left things like this. Later on, when we get to see more of the ‘werewolves’, things become a bit questionable and I could understand if, for some people, the illusion of reality is stretched beyond the point they’d want it to go. The werewolves themselves are, in fact, pretty hairless apart from the main parts of a human body where you would expect hair to be growing from, like the top of the head. And because they’re less covered, the man in suit (or at least man with many prosthetics and make-up enhancements) nature of the practical effects is maybe highlighted a little more than it should be. Personally, I had no problem with the make-up effects and, to me, the creatures here more closely resembled the Morlocks as they were depicted in the 1960 Rod Taylor version of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine... which I always found kinda scary anyway.

And, frankly, I guess there’s no written law or consistent myth that shapeshifters such as werewolves (a relatively new creation in the history of monsters, from what I recall) have to necessarily be covered in hair... so it’s really not an issue. They are never specifically named as such and the howling they make during the full moon implies the nature of the creatures, rather than spells it out, I think. So, yeah, even though I liked the monsters here... I still think it may have been better to keep them fairly obscured during the full running time of the movie. Things such as the quick flash of a claw or the full on homage in the first third of the movie to the opening sequence of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (reviewed here), only done with a person being dragged up and down a set of train doors instead of the gate and cage set up, are more than enough, I suspect, to give the full illusion and add in a significant amount of approaching menace to the proceedings.

But, other than that, I can only recommend Howl as being one of those great little British B-movies that we seem to have refound our footing with in recent years. It’s no The Descent, for sure, but it is significantly better than a lot of other low budget fair coming out of this country lately and, if you’re a horror movie fan, then this is probably something you can add to your list of ‘movies where they got it right’. Looking forward to seeing more from this director in the future but, in the meantime, take a look at this one next time you’ve got a hankering for watching a claustrophobic ensemble piece with just the right mix of goriness and suspense. Not one to ignore, for sure.