The Howling Reborn starring Lindsay Shaw, Ivana Milicevic, and Declan from Degrassi as a American or Canadian teenage werewolf.
The Howling is one of those horror franchises in which the first movie started out really strong and the rest of the movies TOTALLY went downhill. Allow me to shortly summarize each film.
The Howling-The second greatest werewolf movie ever made( the first being An American Werewolf in London btw)
The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf-The downward spiral begins under the pale pale light of the moon.
The Howling III: The Marsupials-Kangaroo werewolves of the Outback rated PG-13 !?!!?!?!?!?!?!!?
The Howling IV:The Original Nightmare-A retelling of the 1st movie with somewhat facts from the book.
The Howling V: Rebirth-A Scooby-Doo Mystery with LOTS of snow.
The Howling VI: The Freaks-Before Edward and Jacob there was Harker and Ian.
The Howling:The New Moon-A complete piece of shit.
And now the Howling Reborn....When I first heard about somebody doing another Howling movie, I had mixed emotions. After seeing most of movies a number of times, I thought would it bring back the horrific triumph from the first movie or turn into what I make in the bathroom after I had some beans. Kinda both actually.
The movie starts off with a pregnant woman talking on a cell phone about her unborn child. And all the time she was being followed by a growling stranger. She then enters into an art studio to do some paintings only to be killed by a werewolf....Who also done a Si-Section. And at it's mother corpse, the baby's fist popped out from mommy's oven.
Now we're fast forward 18 years later where we meet Will Kidman played by Landon Liboiron and his lush commentary of life. Only to slowly to discover that he might be a werewolf. Oh my. It's the day before his high school graduation, he gets invited to this party by his love interest played by Lindsay Shaw. Will goes to this party which is located under the high school grounds which used to be a church. And now it's a church with a very high security system. In this party he meets three beefed up guys who gives him a ruffie. As Will starts to dance with his girlfriend, the effect of the ruffie kicks in and starts to see very wild shit. He starts to see werewolves. Well technically shadows of a werewolf. He freaks out and leaves the party only to be chased by a werewolf. We only get to see some running action we don't get to see the actual beast yet, which is a downer. But I guess they were trying to build up the suspense. But as Will escapes through a manhole, we see a small glimpse of the werewolf it look like a computer generated mess. My hopes for this movie began to sink.
After a while night, Will begins to feel weird. His eyesight starts to get better, he gets stronger, and more confident. And this alarms him!?!?! He goes to the doctors who diagnosed him as being overly stressed. Then calls his best friend who happens to be a horror movie buff and tells him that he might be a werewolf and ask him if there's anything he can do to stop it. Hmm, this sounds oddly familiar . His friend thinks he bullshitting him and starts to prove himself by using a scalpel to slid his wrist and heal himself knowing that all werewolves can only die by silver, fire, or by another wolf. So after he finally decides to slid his wrist, he panics only to finds out that the wound healed. OMG I'm a werewolf.
Lets talk about Will's dad for a second. An old guy, yes. Still mourning over the death of his wife and reminisce about her as his son's birthday present, absolutely. Takes home a mysterious female stranger that he meets at the hospital lobby which they both had a few drinks and decides to da da da DOWN, go Daddy. Then we get a scene in which we get Will in a library with his girlfriend getting to it and Daddy with his lady friend doing the same. It was then we found out that Daddy's date is not what she seems. It's revealed that she's.....his dead wife turned into a werewolf and now she wants Will. After the tease in the library, Mommy shows up and revealed herself to Will. And those three underwear models from the party earlier, she owns them. I could see how she kept herself fit for 18 years. She wants Will to join her and her pack with some cartoonish explanation of ruling mankind. So Will is like “fuck you, bitch,” and jumped out of the window with his girlfriend to briefly escape from the pack. The girlfriend was surprised that Will survived the fall and revealed to her that he's a dog.
Did I mention that there high school has automatic locking doors and window shutters? WHAT SCHOOL HAS THIS TYPE OF SECURITY!!!!!!! Like the engineers were prepping for a terrorist attack or some shit. What city is this? Why make a church in to a fucking school with a security system that would make Cobra Commander proud? Well as the two lovers try to escape, the school begins to lockdown. Now they're stuck. What do they do? They go to the chem lab, made themselves some makeshift flame throwers and about to go John Rambo on these wolves. So they back to the schools underground and not only dead bodies and the pack, but Will's dad chained up. After refusing to join her the second time, Mommy kills Daddy in front of Will. Using the flame thrower to separate himself and the wolves Will and his girlfriend went back up to the school and it was here when we start seeing the wolves full on. And Jesus Christ they look like the goblins from the Lord of the Rings trilogy with hair on there arms and legs. This makes the makeup from The Howling VI look appealing. And the amidst of having werewolves all around them what I found out really fucked up about this is that girlfriend wants to fuck Will. You're in a building with bloodthirsty creatures, and you want to get some dick. I believe in dying happy. But there's a difference between dying happy and dying really stupid. But it turns out that she also want to become a werewolf to even the odds. During there somewhat sex, Will scratch her leaving her claw marks on her back. Mission accomplished. After killing off the three wolf duds, Will faces off with his mother. And there makeup is somewhat better. They look more like wolves then goblins. And after knocking each other through walls, Will turns back to normal with his mom still a wolf glaring down at him. He was saved by his girlfriend in wolf form holding his mother's beating heart. He convinced her to find her humanity so she can change back to normal, which she does. The movie ends with Will's homemade video of him turning into a werewolf going viral worldwide, giving a nod to the end of the 1st movie.
Final thoughts: the killings were cheap, the pace was too fast, the wolf make up was horrible on the exception of Will, Mommy, and girlfriend's, we don't really see any werewolves until the very end, and lots of growling. Every time there's a black/white scene there's a growling. Hell, this movie should be title The Growling Reborn. It's cheap, tasteless, not scary, and dull. I expected more for a potential reboot to a series in which the first film is a cult classic. A highly not recommend. See the first one instead and stay away from the others.
