THE HOWLING REBORN (2011)

THE HOWLING REBORN (2011)

Tagline: Full Moon. New Blood. 

(Horror, Fantasy, 18 And Life To Go) [R]

I don’t want to lose you… even though I feel like I’ve been seriously damaged by this relationship. 

Basically, the plot here is that we find out our main character Will is a werewolf but doesn’t know it yet. Apparently, his mother died and left him under the care of his father until he turned 18. Now it is time for her to show her true form and collect her son for the inevitable "werewolves taking over the world" scenario. Let me first say that this film has several things about it that are epically successful.

1) They brought on Lindsey Shaw (Pretty Little Liars) and anyone familiar with her knows she can actually act.

They do over-darken her character at the beginning of the film, but it is probably a more honest take on high school life for girls than most of what is out there.

2) The lead and secondary characters are all well-chosen.

3) The stills on this one match the original quite nicely. Superb werewolf design etc.

4) There is a line in this one by Lindsey Shaw’s character Eliana towards the end of this film that makes this whole thing not only watchable but endearing. At times it’s hard to tell if Landon Liboiron (who plays Will) and Lindsey have great chemistry, or if Lindsey is just so good, that she carries this thing. 

Now to the bad. I hate to rip films I am starting to like more and more, but this one deserves a few shots to the gut. Here goes, do not be fooled by the title. This movie comes across far more as a CURSED II than it does a member of THE HOWLING family (which by the way was loaded with crap at times too). When you read reviews that say this is “TWILIGHT WITH WEREWOLVES” sadly they are kind of right, only don’t worry, it's better overall. This film is not intended for fans of the original by any stretch of the imagination. It is a re-setting of THE HOWLING werewolf lore in a completely unrelated setting. We do get a nod to the original like the fact that they are trying to broadcast the problem to the world, but that is about where it stops. There are a couple of Godophobic lines in this, but it is a secular horror film, so occasionally you have to deal with that BS. We also get several lines of narrative dialogue that become increasingly “woe is me”.

Also – unfortunately the lead Landon Liboiron looks a ton like Harry Potter. He also overplays his part and it comes across as unbalanced where it didn’t need to be. Perhaps the film's second BIGGEST offense however is the actual werewolf transformations. The original THE HOWLING is still hands down in most people’s eyes “the standard” on how to do werewolf transformations. This one is really sped-up CGI crap. The end results are great, but the transformations suck and that is what in my opinion buried this film. On top of all that, a lot of the soundtrack doesn’t match the tone of the film.

I give this film a 4 out of 7. I am not going to lie, it’s growing on me. For most, however – don’t buy it just yet. Find it on a streaming service or try to RED BOX it first.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF EMBASSY PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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