Wolves At The Door: "HOWL", "Dog Soldiers" and the Monster Siege Movie

Don't judge me too hard, but I really like Spam.

But I notice that nobody's panic-buying it....

I don't care that it is probably the lips and assholes of a variety of hogs. It's probably a lot of things. You're occasionally happier when you stop asking questions about things that make you happy.

I like it. I like saying it, and I like eating it. Often with ketchup. It's versatile too- anything that could have regular meat in it could have Spam in it. There's a whole Monty Python sketch about that.

But you know what I like almost as much?

Spam in a Cabin...

Buuuut we're not talking about this cabin. Much. ...today. Later.

'Spam in a Cabin' or 'Spam in a Can' is what a lot of us horror junkies refer to as any film where a bunch of characters get stuffed into a small, easy to film and manage location, then get stuck in there with some terrible thing trying to crack the seal and, well... eat the Spam. Often with ketchup.
This is a pretty reliable way to make a horror movie if you happen to be trying to do so on the cheap (and if you're making a horror movie, you've already resigned yourself to that, nine times out of ten).
SO that is exactly what a plucky young lad by the name of Sam Raimi did when he decided to move from his more amateur efforts into the realm of a feature film, stuck a bunch of his best friends and some raw meat into a cabin and called what came out the other side The Evil Dead.

And in so doing gave the world of cinema its finest chin.

That film was uh, kind of a big deal?

And it spawned many imitators and folks trying to emulate the style, aesthetic, and sometimes just the budget conscious nature of its set-up: basic setting + teenagers + sum spooky shit = $$$.
The set-up became its own genre for a while, and in my mind kind of became the go-to 'don't waste your time' signifier for a long stretch of time in the 2000s, with my interest instantly shifting elsewhere with any synopsis that began "A group of college kids go to a secluded..." and BOOM I was out, looking for bloodier pastures.
See, that particular brand ran out of imagination pretty quickly in the hands of a jobber, and then if you'd seen one, you'd seen them all. If you weren't there for the story (scoff), and you weren't particularly interested in the nigh guaranteed boobs (OK FINE, I still watched a lot of these), then you were just doing it for the love of the game and not to enrich your sinful horror lover's heart. From the turn of the century, basically all of them were bad, with the obvious exception of the to-be-discussed-later Cabin in the Woods, by Drew Goddard.

So why do I talk about loving this sub genre so?

Because when someone approaches it with guts, imagination, and verve the results are something AMAZING...

And brings us handily to today's entries for discussion.

Now, you might notice this little blog of mine has gone under the knife a little since yesterday, Like, how the word "reviews" is absent from the banner, along with any reference to 'review bombing'. When I made that name up, I wasn't aware of the practice of "Review Bombing" on Rotten Tomatoes to try to hurt a movie's performance. I wanted to drop thoughts on films like bombs, that's all. But I don't even want to be tangentially related to that kind of scum and villainy. And I don't want to think of myself as a critic either, because I'm not. I'm a fan of film, particularly the trashy world of B-movies and monsters.

So Beyond Midnight Movies is about film discussion, admiration, and occasionally comparison and analysis.

So anyway, here's my review of HOWL.

"Oh, that sneaky bastard..."

But, it's gonna be short, because what I really wanna do in this entry is compare and contrast two werewolf movies I really like, dissect what makes siege movies fun, and make you all watch me do it.

HOWL is a 2015 film directed by Paul Hyett. If you don't know who that is, that's okay. Not all of them are Richard Stanley or John Carpenter. He's done a handful of features, and has mostly worked in effects, specifically special effects make-up. He helped create creatures and gore for more widely known flicks like The Descent films and Attack the Block, while also turning his hand to directing.
Which reminds me vaguely of Pumpkinhead again, which was also the directorial effort of a longtime effects guy...hmm, signs are pointing to me doing that one next, methinks... or something with Lance Henriksen at the very least.

The main character of the film is Joe, a put-upon guy who works on a train in Britain as a ticket-taker and guard. One of the first things we learn about him is that he's been passed over for a promotion that a smarmy co-worker got, and said smarmster rubs it in by assigning him an extra shift when he thought he was going home.

And of course, because this is a horror movie, his night gets worse from there. He has to deal with one of the most terrifying things in the world: the public.

I've worked my share of customer service jobs and let me tell you the cringe in the scene that introduces us to the rest of the Spam in this picture is very VERY real. Taking tickets from folks with their heads firmly lodged in their asses, talking on phones, expecting special treatment because they ride so often, etc. It's the same kind of thing I dealt with behind a fair share of cash registers and elsewhere and it hurts to watch. It's also one of the first things to hurt this movie, since we meet all these people through Joe's eyes, and Joe hates the world right now, so these characters take a LOOOONG time to become something other than a bunch of whiny, self-obsessed cowards in the face of the danger that they literally speed towards.

When the train breaks down in a remote stretch of rural woodland (on a full moon) it quickly becomes apparent that there is something out there that is super hungry and super dangerous.

A shitload of werewolves. Cue the struggle to survive, and the steady devouring of the Spam in this very literal Can.

THINGS WHAT ROCK:
 First off, this film is paced pretty well, and has a lot of imagination for how the beasties work, how they hunt, and how they slot into the folklore of the area (including a scene where an old man tells the story of the Thornton Railway Massacre of 1963, retroactively tying the same creatures to that as we see now which is a chilling bit of business). The gore is exceptional, including a long and harrowing sequence with a vicious bite wound that looks very intimately real, while also adding the unnatural detail that it seems to refuse to stop bleeding (as if the wounds inflicted by the creatures can't or won't heal).
And the creatures themselves are very cool, some of my favorite werewolves on screen in the last decade. They're largely practical (and you all know what a slut I am for a good practical effect), except for their legs, which are blended very seamlessly with the performances from the actors in the suits and make-up, and they feel designed explicitly to evoke what it would look like if werewolves were a real thing in our world. The suit actors give wonderful performances, amply aided by good shot composition, clear editing, and a creepy as hell  CG glowing eye effect that feels just subtle enough to be natural.

This particular shot is probably my favorite use of the full package, along with the downright unnatural gait this actor gives the beast. It really sells the CG leg effect and creates a seamless creature.

THINGS THAT DON'T WORK:
I already mentioned the characters in this movie are pretty awful people for too much of the film's run-time, but there's more to it than just that. I watched this one on Amazon Prime (and you can and should too, as I always recommend it highly on it's creature work) and I always like to have closed caption on for that kind of thing, especially a re-watch like I did today. And the captions for this one are hilarious, because the film takes so long to assign names to half the people on screen.
(One of the only other named characters early on is Ellen, Joe's co-worker, whose main character trait is not wanting to date Joe, being pretty, and being scared.)
Because of that, the caption makers kind of went with whatever stood out in these uniformly flat landscapes, and thus we end up getting what amounts to a really lame version of the Justice League getting their shit pushed in by lycanthropes.

Thrill to the adventures of Assertive Man, Glamorous Woman and her husband Old Man, Rude Girl and Smart Woman,  with cameos from all over the Character Archetypes Cinematic Universe like Young Man, Man with Glasses, and Football Man!

And aside from some efforts to give them more dimension than this (see, Assertive Man is also a massive douchebag who cheats on his wife, who'da-thunk, and Football Man is also A Fat and needs to poop!) there isn't much beyond this minimal  effort on display. Such shallow caricatures just don't work for a variety of reasons, but the main thing is they're so overdrawn at first that attempts to humanize them later feel like rushed rewrites and never ring true. Am I supposed to be hoping they die or not, movie? Either make me worried for their safety or make me despise them, you can't have both.
 Also, as a fat guy I tend to judge a movie pretty harshly on if a character's entire being seems to revolve around their being heavyset on screen. Especially for the purposes of 'humor'.
(Oh, those Fats, they sure love their food, huh? Can you imagine if one needed a shit on a train? Hilarious!)

Oh fuck, I think Smart Woman is on to my sarcasm, cheese it guys!

There's also an attempt to sketch out a "survival of the fittest" theme, but it falls flat since it's mostly just Assertive Man being a dick and making sure other people die instead of him. There's a much better version of this arc in Train to Busan, by the way.

IN COMPARISON, AND THE FUN OF THE SIEGE

Now, to compare this film to one as unassailable as Dog Soldiers is poor sportsmanship, but it's also available on Prime, or I have it here so come one over and watch it with me once all this blows over.

Dog Soldiers is the tale of a genial bunch of English squaddies, soldiers out on training maneuvers in Scotland, finding themselves under assault from werewolves instead of the Special Forces boys they thoght they were up against. Now, the best part is that there is nore to it than that, and the film delivers on all counts. I breifly thought of reviewing Dog Soldiers instead of HOWL, but I knew that any attempts to 'review' it would just be me shamelessly fellating this absolute champion of a film, and HOWL is on the list of rquests that Amber gave me, so I thought I'd try this approach instead.

Because I love that flick, and what's more- even though I haven't watched it in a while I could still tell you who most of the character in it are, despite 90 percent of them being in identical uniforms! The Sarge, played by son of the Third Doctor Sean Pertwee (a hard bloke with a knack for keeping morale with badass stories), Cooper, (a blonde mountain of Kevin McKidd in full hero mode), Spoony, Joe, Terry, Bruce, and the nefarious Captain Ryan and the helpful camper Megan, a bunch of lads that make more of a hearty stew than just Spam, and that shows the difference a great script and some excellent casting and chemistry can do for ya.

"Oy, fuckin' 'ell, he's talkin' 'bout us, lads!"

In fact, I could discuss this film for a long while before you noticed I actually have barely mentioned the werewolves! And they are in the movie quite a bit, but the difference is Dog Soldiers is about the soldiers where HOWL is about werewolves attacking a train full of Mystery Meat (which we have to spend most of the movie with, a problem similar to how people go to Godzilla movies to see Godzilla and not all these people running around pointing upwards).  Now that said, it is interesting to note that the werewolves in my favorite werewolf film actually aren't that great, though they are interesting. Neat side notes about the way they were realized: the director Neil Marshall wanted very elegant and graceful creatures so he cast dancers instead of stunt performers for the the wolf-pack, resulting in a group that is pretty statuesque and cool, but lack some of the ferocity and dazzle of the lycans in HOWL. As a result, the wolves work best as a threat from without, a mysterious foe out there somewhere...

But aside from these examples being such absolute bangers, what is it that makes a Spam in a Cabin flick, the horror equivalent of a siege film, so much fun?

Well, it's interesting I ask this question now, huh?

Of all times?

Because right now there is a threat out there. Just outside the door. We can't see it. But we know it's out there. Just waiting for us to slip up and let it inside.

But you know what I'm seeing as well? A lot of people pulling their shit together to fight back, finding the way to save as many as possible, and ensure that it isn't just the fittest that survive, it's all of us. I went to the store today and found people being absurdly kind to each other, while still keeping distance and being careful- but the cashiers were being treated with some dignity and respect, and nobody was complaining that the store wold be closing early to clean, disinfect, and restock.

We were in this together.

And that is part of what is cool about siege horror movies. In those stories, we're reminded that it is human nature to put aside petty shit in the face of a greater threat.

They show us that we are at our best in times of crisis, stuck together, Spam in out Cabins. Each one is an object lesson that our purest colors shine through in hard times and we'll beat back anything, monster, serial killer, alien, robot, genetically engineered super-soldier, zombies, or the fucking Corona virus... with the power of our combined humanity. Whatever it takes.

SO....

Go watch HOWL. Or go watch Dog Soldiers. Or watch 'em both, man. We got time.

Whatever keeps the wolf from the door.

Until then, I'll be here waiting- just Beyond Midnight.

Oh hot damn, I think that's gonna be a thing....

NEXT TIME: IN THIS TOWN WE CALL HOME, EVERYONE HAILS TO THE PUMPKIN SONG...