Anyone tuning into any of the English movie channels around 9 pm any day would agree that what’s on offer is nothing to write home about. You see the names of the action movies that have been shown countless number of times in the past. But browse the TV Guide for a while and you will notice that after midnight the list features movies that have never been shown before and have interesting plots. I cannot, for the life of me, fathom the reason for this. Why should the insomniacs be treated to a better set of movies? But that’s how it is.
So I was pleasantly surprised last week when I saw that one of the channels – I forget which one – was telecasting ‘Howl’ at 9 pm and ‘The Last Passenger’ right after that i.e. around 10:30 pm. If I mistake not, ‘The Last Passenger’ has been shown a couple of times before because I distinctly remember seeing it in the TV guide – the timing being late at night, had been, of course, very unsuitable on both occasions. ‘Howl’, however, seemed like a new offering. The plots mentioned on the guide seemed mundane but a quick search on the net revealed both to be British films. Ah well, we all know how Hollywood likes to treat its werewolves and suicidal drivers. Let's see what the British have done with them, shall we?
Howl is a 2015 direct-to-video British film. The plot revolves around a night train going from point A to point B in English countryside – I mention points A and B because I have already forgotten the names of the places - and its shy, hesitant, sort-of-clumsy guard, named appropriately enough as Joe. There aren't many passengers on this train – a rude teenage girl constantly talking on the phone, an elderly couple, an obese man with an upset tummy, an Indian guy with a nerdy look and a couple of assorted other souls just about sum up the list. Joe is particularly morose that night because he has been turned down for the post of supervisor, the girl who is he sweet on (and happens to be working on the same train that night) doesn't seem to harbor the same feelings towards him and he has been compelled to work right after completing an earlier shift. He checks everyone's tickets and settles down for what he thinks will be an average night on the routine journey. But fate has other things in store for him.
Somewhere along the journey, in a heavily forested land, the train comes to an abrupt stop after hitting something. The driver gets down to check what the problem is and is never heard from again. After waiting for him for a while, Joe, in an attempt to pacify the passengers who are getting increasingly restless, gets down himself to check on things but can't spot the driver anywhere. After a lot of discussion everyone decides to disembark from the train and make it to the next station on foot. But as they start walking they realize that something is following them through the woods and that something is not human. The rest of the story is predictable enough for anyone who has watched even a single movie with a similar storyline. It all comes down to finally who will make it to the land of the living by the time the credits roll. And most of us can make a pretty good guess about it.
The reason why I liked the movie is because the protagonist is depicted as a very unsure plain-looking fellow – very different from the hunk of an average Hollywood movie who looks like a jack of all trades and the master of each one of them. Of course, it follows that he will rise to the occasion and lead the rescue efforts. I also liked the backdrop – the sparsely populated lonely train halted right in the middle of a mysterious misty forest land, the passengers trekking through the tracks, the mad rush back to the train, the utter helplessness and the eerie feeling of being watched. It also helped that for a good part of the movie we cannot see the creatures though we can guess about their identity.
Of course, they had to ruin it all in the end by showing the werewolves that have been popularized by countless Hollywood movies :-( It also looked like none of the Britons on the train had watched even a single Hollywood movie featuring werewolves. Or else they would have known that it is dangerous to stand next to a window when the werewolves are prowling outside and anyone unlucky enough to be bitten turns into one sooner rather than later.
That said, I would still recommend this movie to those of us who don’t mind a few cliches just to see a pack of werewolves scaring the living daylights out of a group of hapless human beings :-)
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