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The Howling: Reborn (2011)

I’ve never read The Howling or its sequels, but they must be some of the greatest werewolf novels of all time. Why else would the eighth film in the franchise be yet another adaptation of the second book? Yup. We have yet another sequel that has nothing to do with any of the previous chapters. What's this one about?

Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) is just a regular guy, about to graduate from high school. Will pines after the hottest girl in his grade, but Eliana (Lindsey Shaw) doesn’t even know he exists because she’s dating the rich class bully (Niels Schneider as Roland) to whom no rules apply. Things become much more serious and deadly when Will encounters a werewolf at a graduation party.

What we have here is a director who saw Twilight and decided to re-imagine The Howling for a whole new generation of teen girls. Sounds like a bad idea on paper. It’s even worse on film. I accidentally missed VII, but I’m just going to say it anyway. This is easily the worst film in the franchise. We’ve seen were marsupials, Transylvanian werewolves that can only be killed with titanium bullets, mystery plots with comical musical cues, and lycanthropes so bad they looked more like sasquatches but this triumphs over them all.

This film is set in one of these schools where bullies can do whatever they want. Cutting someone in the neck, making death threats, physically assaulting other students, or bringing a gun to school is just business as usual for Eliana’s boyfriend and his cronies. None of their activities are reported to the authorities. Or maybe the teachers do know what's going on and just don’t do anything. Wouldn't be a shock when no one in this story acts like a human being. Our main character doesn’t even know what a werewolf is. How is that even possible?

Treat yourself to some of the worst camera work ever by watching The Howling Reborn. It’s one thing to use jittery camera work to hide your low-budget monster, but this technique is taken to a new level here. Simple scenes that require the tiniest choreography are made completely incoherent by a cameraman playing hot potato with their camera. You'll be made dizzy and nauseous as the camera circles around the simplest of scenes for no reason.

As the film progresses, it becomes more and more Stephenie Meyer-esque. Once our protagonist takes off his glasses, the tormented Edward-lookalike becomes increasingly concerned with the girl of his dreams. Then there’s a bunch of doomed romance stuff that'll make you think “please just get back to the rotten werewolf plot”. Too bad it isn't immune to the creeping infestation of badness. Will proves himself dumber than you thought humanly possible and then we get ludicrous revelations about his past. It makes less sense the more I think about it and the shoddy performances don’t help sell you on it at all.

Would you believe that every flaw I’ve listed is still secondary to the dialogue and soundtrack? Some of my favorite bits of dialogue include:   “He’s outgrown my usefulness to you my boy. Now it’s my turn.” “You don’t understand. Every second I’m with you is about restraint, reining myself in because the more I want you.” “I’ve always been scared of letting anyone in, or maybe I’ve been really scared of letting me out.” “It’s like somewhere along the way we were told that knowing too much about a partner somehow makes love less exciting.. we were led to believe wrong.” “I don’t want to lose you even though I feel like I’ve been seriously damaged by this relationship.”

Now read these lyrics and tell me a movie that features them could be worth anything: “I can take a punch; I don’t mind bleeding; as long as as afterwards you feel bad for me…” “The book of love is long and boring; no one can lift the damn thing; it’s full of charts; And facts and figures; And instructions for dancing; But I love it”

You’ve got to see The Howling: Reborn to believe it. It’s got one head-scratcher after another, like random electrical wires used as a defibrillator and teenagers deciding to have sex in the middle of a werewolf attack. It’s too bad two things preventing it from being truly “so bad it’s good”. Firstly, almost everything noteworthy or ironically amusing comes in the last half hour. For the most part, the picture is dull. The second is that this movie is rated PG-13. If your movie can’t be good, at least make it sleazy. There’s a scene in which two couples are getting ready to have sex… and nobody gets naked! There’s barely any gore. The money shot of any werewolf movie: that first full transformation scene is generated by the same special effects they used in the Animorphs TV show. It's pathetic.

Despite my low rating. I would recommend The Howling Reborn IF you meet the following criteria: you have seen at least half of the previous films in the series, you can get the movie for free/the price of a subscription, and you’re a werewolf enthusiast that also enjoys bad movies. While it’s often so bad I wanted to give it a zero star rating but when it starts getting funny bad, I was laughing out loud and continuously. The Howling Reborn is one crappy movie but the problems are so numerous and so inexplicable it kind of becomes a fascinating mess. (On DVD, October 23, 2015)