The Howling Reborn Reboots the Series
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The Howling Reborn has a very good story, but falls down a bit in the ‘R’ rating department, as well as the gore and werewolf appearances.
Written by Justin “TheBuck” Lesniak
January 8, 2011
Release: 2011
Directed by: Joe Nimziki
Written by: Joe Nimziki and James Robert Johnston
Starring:
Landon Liboiron as Will
Lindsey Shaw as Eliana
Ivana Milicevic as Kay
Jesse Rath as Sachin
Rating: R
Plot:
Will Kidman discovers a dark secret from his past - that he is heir to
a powerful line of werewolves. He finds he has a choice to make between
succumbing to his primal nature, or turning against his own to help
save humanity.
1995 - what does that have to do with this movie you ask? That's when the last Howling sequel was made. That's 16 years ago. I'm sure you're wondering if much changed since then aren't ya? Well honestly, I haven't a clue. I couldn't finish watching any of them after part three, which came out in 1987, for reasons I think you can all understand… they were terrible. What I can tell you is that this is a good reboot. The Howling Reborn is very different from the original in story and tone. The story in this remake is actually better, but the tone sides more with the dramatic feel you get with comic book movies rather than horror.
I know what the plot summary above states this, but really in it's
simplest form The Howling Reborn is about a kid who was torn from the
womb of his mother 18 years ago who just happens to be a werewolf, and
after
all these years she comes back to take him into
her pack so they can rule over the humans together. Does he join the
dark side or does he fight against the forces of evil? You'll have to
watch to find out.
The items that make up an R rated horror movie (which this is) are really lacking in The Howling Reborn, but I found myself not caring too much due to the compelling story and the ‘not so typical’ writing of high school kids set in a horror flick. Still, the three ‘R’ elements lacking are tits, kills/gore and werewolves.
I think the most disappointing was the lack of werewolves. We didn't
get our first full-on werewolf until the 1hr 5min mark. That is
waaaaaay to long to wait for a werewolf in a werewolf movie. I was
happy, however, to see they didn't go the True Blood/Twilight
route and give us people who turn into wolves. Nope, we get the
werewolves that stand on two legs and look like huge-ass dogs. The
second most disappointing thing about the movie was the lack of
kills/gore. The first kill comes in at around the 29 minute mark and
there were a total five or six 
on-screen kills: one dude tossed
over a railing from the 4th floor or so without any blood pooling
around his body; one dude who gets his head smashed into an LCD monitor
(and this time we get a little blood); one werewolf shot in the head
with a sliver bullet and no blood or brains flying out; there is a kill
near the end where a heart is ripped out, and that is the most gory
thing in the movie; and finally just a few toss-away weres near the end
who go up in fire. There are a lot of implied off screen kills but I'm
not factoring them since we didn't see them.
Finally the lack of tits. Typically ‘R’ rated horror movies that involve high schoolers have a good amount of nakedness, and there were a few times when I really thought I was going to see boobs and ass - but it was just a giant tease. So if you're one of those people who love to watch horror for the T&A then The Howling Reborn is not the movie for you.
Even with the issues above The Howling Reborn is decent and I think could really make werewolf movies viable again if enough people find out about it. There is stuff in there that needs to be fleshed out and you could tell the writers were thinking ‘sequel’ when putting pen to paper, but I for one actually hope to see more Howling movies in the near future. What they did as the credits rolled really makes me interested in seeing where this franchise goes.
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