Entertainment Earth

10/04/2011

Four Entires in The Howling Series

NOTE: All reviews are out of ****


One horror franchise that that I have no clue how it kept/ keeps inspiring sequels is The Howling. To me the first movie is THE finest werewolf movie ever made. Joe (Piranha, Gremlins) Dante's classic is scary, funny, sexy, awe inspiring, and thoroughly enjoyable.

A reporter (the lovely Dee Wallace Stone) barely escapes a serial killer in a porn shop. She is sent to a colony to rehab. But, said colony is overrun by werewolves. Everything about this movie is perfect: the acting, the dialogue, the script, the pacing, the FX. I have discussed this movie multiple times here, so I won't bore you by repeating myself again. Suffice to say that this one of my eleven favorite movies of all time. Sadly after that the series went downhill. ****

That movie was a success, and considered a classic (rightfully so, I may add), so, of course, it spawned a sequel. The Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf is a truly stupid movie. As I am sure you can tell by that ridiculous sub-title. Ben, the brother of Wallace Stone's character finds out that the world is full of werewolves, along with the help of a hunter (Christopher Lee), who convinces him of this, they go after Striba Queen of the Werewolves (yummy Sybil Danning)!

The werewolves look like shit, and it's all pretty empty headed. Worst of all it's a waste of Christoper Lee's immense talent. Hey, everyone needs a paycheck! On the bright side, Sybil Danning, and her boobs, look amazing! Clearly, the filmmakers agree as they loop her nudity over the end credits over and over again. The movie has a cult following due mostly, I would imagine, to this bit of fine knockers. It's really only worth watching for that! Beyond that, though, not so much... *1/2

That said part II was successful on some level (tits!!!), enough so that it inspired more films, though I would never bother to watch them, until I for some godforsaken reason, saw the snoozefest that is The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare. An authoress is sent to a to a town after a nervous breakdown. Problem is there are werewolves there. That ain't gonna cure her nerves. To be honest this movie put me mostly to sleep, and I find it hard to remember anything about it other than it sucked wolf cock. *

But, after reading some good reviews I decided to pay the Howling VI: The Freaks a look. This one takes place in a traveling carnival, it has the werewolf as the hero, who gets hired to be in the freakshow by the owner. Problem is the owner is actually an evil vampire! DOH! In all fairness, this is an enjoyable and fun movie. This one really shocked me, as there is no reason for this movie to be this good. ***

That did not mean that I wanted more of these films to be made, but sadly the series continued. And, I went back to ignoring it. The most recent entry The Howling: Reborn is a reboot of the series, that based on the trailer and what I heard from a friend, seems to be an attempt to make the series into a Twilight type pile of shit. Why?! I am in no rush to see this one, and to be honest, looks worse then the movies that preceded it!

By the way, this came thanks to a suggestion by authoress Staci Wilson, who tweeted to me to do something on The Howling series. When I asked on my Facebook page (which you should totally like as I post exclusive stuff there!) and Twitter, what franchises, scream queens, movies, etc. in the horror genre you wanna see me cover on this blog. Since it's October I really want to post lots of horror stuff. So just let me know. Thank you!

2 comments:

Staci Layne Wilson said...

Ha, ha. Love the label BOOBS. And you're not kidding with that pic of Sexy Sybil. Great write-up.

Giovanni Deldio said...

Thank you, Staci! Glad you enjoyed it! :)