Indie Review: DEAD HOWLING

We had the trailer for Dead Howling recently, and it looked good. It’s a zombie movie with a werewolf; what’s not to like?

In a nutshell, there is a good movie in there, but it doesn’t show itself.

Dead Howling stars Temuera Morrison, Ryan Kwanten, Joel Jackson, Tom Burlinson, Tea Heathcote-Marks and Riley Stiles. John V Soto is the director, and co-writes with James Pickering.

The Story

The plot for Dead Howling is:

A werewolf hunts zombies after losing his family. He meets two humans seeking sanctuary and joins their quest, protecting them with his powers. Their journey grows perilous as zombies start evolving.

We open with a family making their way down a road: Uncle Tony (Morrison), Megan (Heathcote-Marks, and Billy (Stiles). We learn that there has been a worldwide outbreak, turning most of the population into zombies. Why is there never an outbreak where it turns everyone nice?

The family are running out of fuel and food, only to find themselves locked in the car, with zombies trying to get in. Carter (Jackson) saves them, well, apart from Uncle Tony, who’s killed off in the first ten minutes.

We find out that Carter has a serum that can turn him into a werewolf when needed; you know, like when there are hordes of the undead attacking.

Carter takes the kids under his wing and helps them survive. He shows them how to kill the undead when not a werewolf. They learn about a sanctuary, where survivors are gathering. The rest of the movie is about getting to the sanctuary and fighting off the undead.

The Cast

I like Morrison, obviously. For me, Jeremy Bullock will always be Boba Fett, but Morrison taking over made sense, and I liked him for it. Disney did him dirty with The Book of Boba Fett; something that he has aired his annoyance about.

In Dead Howling, I was looking forward to seeing him chew bubble gum and kick ass. However, he mostly chews bubble gum, as he is killed off so soon.

Jackson is cool as Carter. He’s dealing with trauma, which was easy to guess, but he’s cool, even though he doesn’t seem to have a character arc.

The kids are perfectly OK as well. Again, they don’t have much of an arc.

Howling Mad

There are a few downsides to Dead Howling.

The budget. As I have said in the past, I try to give indie movies a bit of a pass. They don’t have a big budget, and every so penny counts.

Now, with a movie about zombies, with a werewolf, I would have loved to have seen a lot of zombies killed by said werewolf. However, I appreciate to get that on the screen costs money. Money this indie movie just didn’t have.

Yes, there are a few good moments with the werewolf doing what it does best. However, it’s only a few times, and they aren’t the best. It’s a man in a werewolf mask, swiping at slow-moving extras. There are a few fast-cut edits with some blood, but it’s not what you’re hoping for. They tried, but it just didn’t work.

Cliches

The other issue with Dead Howling is it’s a story that’s been done a million times before. There’s a group that has to survive a zombie onslaught and get to a sanctuary. Along the way, they are beset by other survivors, who are all horrible, rapey, and generally best avoided; see 28 Days Later.

Mild spoiler. The three of them find some more humans that have survived. They tie up the two men and threaten to rape the women. It’s OK, though, as the werewolf ‘somehow’ saves the day. I don’t want to see the girl getting attacked, but you knew exactly what was going to happen; they were never going to let it happen.

The ending is the same. I won’t spoil it, but it’s exactly how you think it ends up. Apart from the last 5 minutes, which was just silly. It ends in an obvious way, which is expected, but also makes no sense.

Overall

I really wanted to like Dead Howling, but I couldn’t. It’s not a badly made movie; everything is completely fine, but that’s about it. It misses a budget, so instead of zombies losing limbs and heads, it’s more about talking and keeping the budget down. I can’t help but think that if they hadn’t paid Morrison for his 10 minutes worth of filming, they could have spent it on more killings.

I haven’t seen in a good while, but Dog Soldiers is a good example of how to do this. It was on a budget, but it worked, as you’re invested in the main characters and the werewolves are ‘fun’. The irony being, Dead Howling is produced by the same people.

As I have said many, many times, there is a good movie in there, but it’s just not showing itself.

Kudos to everyone who worked on the movie; it takes a lot to get an indie movie to the screen. However, there are better movies out there, and I wanted to see more zombies vs werewolves.