Howl (18)
Genre: Horror / Thriller

When I got an invite to see this film, I was actually quite excited as I am a sucker for monster horror movies and in particular the Werewolf flick.

Ok, I’ll admit this kind of genre has been done a thousand times before but never on the Waterloo to Eastborough line.
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What was that horrible noise?

Joe, (played by Londoner Ed Speelers from Downton Abbey, 2010) is a station guard looking after passengers on the Alpha Trax service from London Waterloo. Having just finished his shift, he finds a letter in his locker informing him that he has been unsuccessful in his application for Supervisor.

To make things worse the position has been given to his obnoxious colleague who pressgangs Joe into doing a double shift on the red eye to the south coast.

His other co-workers on the train are his fellow guard Ellen (Holly Weston) who he has a bit of a crush on and the driver Tony, (Sean Pertwee in a cameo, although credited and no doubt a nod to Brit werewolf movie Dog Soldiers). The eight passengers, or should I say ‘The werewolf buffet carriage’ travelling at this unearthly time in the early morning, are all pretty unlikeable and all deserve to be eaten!
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The Passengers fight back

In a typical British fashion the train suffers a delay en route, breaking down in the dark and scary forest stretch of the journey. Joe does his job and apologises to the passengers for the delay but just receives grief from them all.

It’s not too long before the sound of howling can be heard surrounding the carriages. The werewolves obviously know that this film is 89 minutes long and so they really need to pick off the passengers one by one rather than all at once!

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Come and get it if you think you're hard enough!

Seriously though, there was probably an opportunity here to do something different with the Werewolf genre but the script is quite formula led. For a start if you find yourself outside of the train for some reason and you hear strange voices coming from the spooky dark forest, DON’T go to investigate. You already know werewolves are out there! And please don’t announce your arrival but shouting “Is there anybody out there?”

However, there is a positive note here. The creature make-up is superb particularly from an Independent production company, in this case Starchild Pictures.
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Behind you!

Not any noticeable dodgy CGI in sight. In fact the make-up and prosthetics was carried out by some of the best in the industry with the likes of Steven Byrnes (Legend, Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Rachel Coenen (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and TVs Game of Thrones).

Also, all the actors involved play it straight and it’s a fairly young cast with some up and coming actors to watch such as Sam Gittins who plays the role of Billy and our Ed Speleers who plays our hero Joe.
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Joe grows a pair.
This film stands up well against the brilliant ‘Dog Soldiers (2002)’ although that was more tongue in cheek and full of fun acknowledgements to other thriller movies.

So the good news is that despite my nitpicking, I really enjoyed this film and I wanted to know how it turned out.

So what is my rating of this film?

‘Come on!..It’s Werewolves on a train!’
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In cinemas October 16

Running time 89 minutes