Full Moon Renaissance

'THE HOWLING: REBORN': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

This reboot to the 1981 Joe Dante cult classic is sort of like 'TWILIGHT' with werewolves. It's not quite that horrifying but it is definitely aimed at the teen youth market with a lot of the same styled gimmicks. It's full of attractive young actors and the star (Landon Liboiron) looks a lot like 'Harry Potter' (Daniele Randcliffe) actually. There are some cool visuals and effects (the werewolves actually don't look half bad) but it's still got all that cheesy teen angst and melodrama. Not quite as poorly done as the 'TWILIGHT' films but it's still pretty bad.

Liboiron plays Will Kidman, an insecure nerd crushing on a popular hot girl at school, Eliana Wynter (Lindsey Shaw). He lives with his father Jack (Frank Schorpion) and has been brought up under the impression that his mom died giving birth to him. Oddly Eliana is impressed by his stalker like obsession with her and invites him to a party one night. Once there Will is drugged by a popular clique of creepy guys and believes he's being pursued by a monster he thinks is a werewolf. Will goes to his friend Sachin (Jesse Rath), a media school nerd working on a horror project, the next day at school and asks him what he knows about werewolves. He soon believes he is becoming a 'teen wolf' himself and also learns that his mother may not be dead after all.

The story has nothing to do with the other films in the 'HOWLING' franchise and is a reboot by all senses of the word. It's credited as being based on 'The Howling II' novel and was written and directed by first time filmmaker Joe Nimziki. I haven't seen any other chapters in the 'HOWLING' series except this and the first one so I can't say how it compares to the entire franchise but it definitely doesn't live up to the beloved original. The production values are impressive for such a low budget film it's just a shame they're all spent trying to cash in on the 'TWILIGHT' craze. Fans of that series will probably be more than pleased with this but I doubt die-hard fans of the werewolf franchise it's attached itself to will be happy. Overall I'd say it pretty much matched my pretty low expectations (maybe even exceeded them). I found it mildly amusing and definitely would say this is one time when the rip-off is better than the material it's knocking off (I'm referring to the popular teen vampire series of course).

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Howling: Reborn, The (2011)

* (out of 4)

Thirty-years after Joe Dante's THE HOWLING was released, we get this direct-to-DVD sequel that's obviously more interested in copying TWILIGHT than actually doing anything on its own. Eighteen years after his mother was murdered, Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) is about to graduate when he starts feeling certain changes. It turns out that he's actually a werewolf and a "wolf leader" (Ivana Milicevic) is after his powers so he must try to fight them off while at the same time falling in love with a girl (Lindsey Shaw) that he's always had a thing for. THE HOWLING: REBORN is the eighth film in the series but the first one in sixteen-years and I think it's easy to say that we wouldn't have had this movie had the TWLIGHT movies not been so popular. Granted, none of the previous sequels were all that good and none of them could touch the original but this film here is a real insult to everything that pre-dated it and it's a real shame because for months the producers have been talking this film up as some sort of return to form but in the end it's just pure garbage. The biggest problem is the screenplay by writer/director Joe Nimziki. It's clear he just wanted to deliver a love story with horror elements but the problem is that everything is just so corny that you'd have to be 12-years-old to take it serious. Throughout we get this stupid narration with the character talking about how different he feels and when you hear this speech you'll be wondering why the TWLIGHT producers haven't gone after this film. This is followed with the various "groups" being laid out and if you've seen TWILIGHT then you know what to expect. The majority of the running time is devoted to the love story aspect and it's just downright boring and never goes anywhere. If you come into a film called THE HOWLING anything then you're going to expect werewolves but these here don't show up until after sixty-minutes. Even worse is when they do show up and we're treated to some of the worst transformation scenes that you're ever going to witness. Throughout the movie we get these little speeches that appear to be trying to "connect" with a younger generation and this includes a few shots at older movies and werewolves. It's all just so stupid and insulting to fans of the original series and once again the dialogue is just so bad that you can't help but roll your eyes. Liboiron isn't too bad in the film but he just doesn't have enough energy to really push the film. He is made out to look like Harry Potter though. Shaw is actually the best thing going in the film but it's a shame the screenplay doesn't give her anything to do. Considering the love story aspect it really doesn't help that the two don't have any chemistry. The entire film is just a poor excuse for a movie and not only does it rip TWILIGHT but we also get some SCREAM elements including a nerdy friend who knows everything about werewolves. The only good thing THE HOWLING: REBORN has done is gotten Wes Craven off the hook for CURSED as it's not longer the worst of the recent werewolf movies.

The Howling series has gotten a lot of flack over the years, and rightly so. Following the Joe Dante's original werewolf classic, a whole slurry of sequels were made, none of which even remotely living up to anything half as good as the original - and they were getting progressivly worse. Now after 15+ years since the last sequel a new Howling has come out. When I first heard this news, I did what every horror fan did, rolled their eyes and expected the worst - another sequel! BUT after watching it I actually really really enjoyed it! It takes a whole new approach to the series (so there's no need to have seen any of the previous installments). A mix between SCREAM and THE HOWLING, this is without doubt the second best film in the franchise, just second to the undeniable classic. Whilst it's comparison to TWILIGHT may put some of the more gore-hungry horror fans off, don't let it! Although there are TWILIGHT elements present such as werewolves, romance and a topless guy (the very fetching Landon Liboiron) to satisfy those fans, there's much much more on offer here. From the werewolf-know-it-all a la SCREAM, sexy werewolf women and a fresh new story that really draws you in and keeps you captivated right up to the action-packed ending, it's got lots here to please hardcore horror fans as well as those just getting into horror.

If you like horror films with plenty of teens running around, fearing for their lives like URBAN LEGEND, SCREAM, HALLOWEEN and countless others with a werewolf twist, then I would highly recommend this film! It's surprisingly the best werewolf film of recent years with some rather nice touches. The werewolves look incredible in this and there's plenty of them especially in the second half.

I'd give it a 7/10. A must see for all werewolf fans, HOWLING fans and horror fans (both old and new).

I actually like how they kept the werewolves similar in appearance to the original movie. Pretty sure that was done on purpose. Being a fan of Landon Liboiron from Hemlock Grove and Frontier as well as Lindsey Shaw from Pretty Little Liars I decided to give it a chance. No, it wasn't ground breaking by any means but this day in age its pretty hard to do something completely original that hasn't been done at some point already. That said I found entertaining enough and enjoyed it. I liked the music,nothing wrong with doing a score that isn't all top list songs. It fit well. I would probably rate it more of a 6 but due to such bad reviews pulling it down I decided to rate it a bit higher.

There is a theory of film study which asserts that an important factor in how a film is experienced is the time and setting in which one sees it. It's especially true for horror films. Teens who see films like the original Texas Chainsaw and The Howling for the first time decades after they were made will compare them to films like Saw and other films they've seen earlier. People who saw them when they first came out got the full impact of the new ground they were breaking at the time.

The Howling: Reborn breaks no new ground. It does however break one of the cardinal rules of screen writing: avoid voice-over as much as possible. This film is plastered wall-to-wall with the pretentious observations of a "teenaged mind." The main characters are like rejects from an MTV dramedy, slinging pseudo-pithy ruminations of teen angst that only a pre-adolescent could find intriguing.

It's not all bad though. There is Lindsey Shaw to look at. And the lighting is top notch. Unfortunately the cinematography is lost in a flashy mess of music video after effects and choppy editing, apparently used to cover up the less-than-state-of-the-art CG work.

The original Howling was a notable entry in the horror genre. Aside from the fact that it was genuinely scary and atmospheric, it featured the first truly impressive "real time" full body on screen transformation of a man into a werewolf. (Yes American Werewolf had good efx too, if you found it impressive to see one hand transform at a time.) And this was before CG, when make-up artists had to figure out complex robotics combined with masterful sculpted skins.

And while the original Howling drew you in with realistic situations and characters, Reborn starts off with a few unreal clunkers. One is a security guard in charge of a school lockdown system that would be the envy of any maximum security prison. The second is when a high school student is pushed against a locker and has a three inch blood-gushing gash sliced across his jugular, and shrugs it off as if the school bully just rubbed a booger in his hair.

Not long after that we find ourselves immersed in a wannabe feature length MTV video with standard rock video efx like color desaturation, flash cuts, and worst of all, a string of songs with sappy vocals that make the mickey mouse orchestral score even more mickey mouse.

In the end, the bombastic direction and flashy editing fail to make up for what this film lacks: substance.

Kids will probably like it though. Fans of the original hoping for a state-of-the-art update will be sorely disappointed.