The Howling: The Wolves Grow Hungrier

 Recently, I decided to watch the first seven Howling movies. And the only reason I didn't watch the eighth was due to convenience. I didn't think it was very necessary when I started the series, and after going through seven of them. I was right. The Howling movies peak at the first film, and nosedive into a stream of bad or mediocre films. This surprised me because most film franchises don't even make it past two or three. So, to constantly ride on the coattails of the success of a single hit feels a bit odd. Until you realize that the series had a handful of people who still wanted to make Howling films. And that's how you get so many low budget sequels. Because someone with money wanted to make it happen. 

But this isn't some grandiose takedown of a dormant franchise. This is about the positives and negatives that came out of the the Howlings. A series about Werewolves, sometimes. And that's the biggest issue that I have with the sequels. They mostly try to reinvent the wheel, or become so engrossed in other ideas that they make the Werewolves feel less special. But, not all of them are like this. And we'll see this as I go through the first seven films and give my piece. So without further ado, let's begin.

To kick it off, obviously I have to talk about The Howling. The first and best film in the series. There're just a lot of elements in this movie that I really liked. It started with this setup about how local news anchor Karen White (Played by Dee Wallace) was being stalked and harassed. The tension can really be felt here as she had gone out on her own to confront the man behind her troubles, only to become scarred in the process. I just thought that the initial meeting between Karen and Eddie (Played by Robert Picardo) struck a remarkable fear in the heart. I could totally see this scene being a seat gripper, especially when he made her watch the rape porno film. I would say that this not only plays into the power dynamic that Eddie desired, but it also gave a look into the dynamic between the Colony and the subsequent victims later on. I say this because not only did the Werewolves desire the taste of the flesh, they desired the taste of the body. It's how they balanced the pack. The Colony wanted Karen, not Terry (Played by Belinda Balaski). And so they will be used in accordance to this balance. 

And that's where the core of The Howling succeeded. The mystery, and horror displayed while it unraveled was engrossing. Karen for the most part has to take it head-on. All the while her journalist friends, Terry and Chris (Played by Dennis Dugan) were making these discoveries through this off-the-record investigation into Eddie. So, the two plots give you a two-in-one kinda deal that converges quite nicely. Like, Karen's side was still the A-Plot, yet Joe Dante and his crew still gave enough time for Terry and Chris to feel equally as important. An aspect that was definitely not true in any other sequel outside of Howling V. And that's stretching it. But before moving on to Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf. I just wanted to talk a bit about Eddie's transformation scene. 

To be blunt, it's a tad goofy, yet terrifying at the same time. It's so slow, that you feel like Terry could have just killed him in the middle of it. However, I can understand the feeling of paralyzing fear. This dangerous stalker killer that you just found out was a Werewolf was not only at the colony, but right in your face. Not to mention his towering presence and mad ramblings. It certainly helped that Rob Bottin, the Effects Artist, made it look as disturbing as possible. The skin on the forehead bubbling made me extremely curious. Like, "How the hell did they do that one?" It had that good ol' movie magic about it. If there were any scenes to watch from this film, I would say the porn theater scene and the transformation scene. Two masterclass efforts in horror that featured Robert Picardo's Eddie. 

So, coming off this high, I got dealt a devastating blow. A blow known as Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf. A film that felt utterly baffling. As you have a direct sequel that sought to undo the original in bizarre ways. Like, the subtitle, "Your Sister Is a Werewolf", made me think that a sister would be important. But that's not the case in any context. It moreso just existed to place a significance on the main character, Ben White (Played by Reb Brown). However, the story revolved more around a completely new and unrelated pack of Werewolves led by Stirba (Played by Sybil Danning), against her brother Stefan (Played by Christopher Lee). So, there could've been parallels to Ben and Stefan with Karen and Stirba, yet the film never went the extra length to do so. Ben and Stefan, along with Jenny (Played by Annie McEnroe), Ben's Girlfriend, just kind of meander toward the new pack with a singular goal, to kill. 

Not only was the movie fairly vanilla, it felt disjointed. The family aspect never really became a point of contention as Stefan and Stirba already hated each other, and Karen never made any real appearance that wasn't inside of a coffin. And the constant showings of the Half-Human Half-Wolf sex amounted to nothing. It felt like they saw how much sex was selling in the first film and other popular Horror movies, and went, "We can also do that". Like, I don't even think anyone got converted into a Werewolf in the entire film. Howling II was one of those movies that had the right amount of camp, but never utilized it to its fullest potential. I would say that the only part that actually felt right in the movie was Stirba. But overall, there's not much fun to be had with it. 

And speaking of Werewolf families, we have Howling III: The Marsupials. Easily the worst Howling movie for me. I honestly can't think of a single solid element to this one. It's clearly Australian, and in Australia, yet they try to convince you that some parts were in the United States of America, and these matters concerned the US president. Like, what the fuck are you on about? Not to mention, the movie tried to talk about race relations while being incredibly racist. Treating Australian Aboriginals like some savage caricatures really wasn't the play at all. I can understand the attempt to make good natured Werewolves, but it doesn't work when you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. They're clearly supposed to be just like the Australian Aboriginals, but they're using one to prop up the other. And it also didn't help when they excused the behavior of the abusive pack leader, as the racism storyline didn't work without him apparently. But on the upside, there was Wolf Son, and it doesn't get better than a weird hybrid child. 

But we're not done yet. What does "The Marsupials" part have to do with anything? Jerboa (Played by Imogen Annesly), the main Werewolf, has a pouch. I don't think anyone else from her pack has one, or why she does. I think she has a pouch because they're in Australia, and Marsupials exist there. It's really only seen a couple of times. I will say that the best part was when they clearly ripped off the first movies shock ending, yet didn't kill Jerboa. They just did the Werewolf reveal, but that doesn't end up mattering. Because the next one's a remake. 

Yup, you heard that right. It only took them three movies to do a remake. However, that was not the only change. Now, the remaining films would only be Direct-to-Video. No more theatrical releases. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing as we'll see soon. Yet that means this remake that was billed as the fourth film would never be better than the first. 

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare definitely disguised itself well for a minute, but you quickly start to see the similarities between it and The Howling. The big difference being that Howling IV more closely resembled the book. Which I'm not entirely sure was a good direction. The journalism angle worked really well in the first film, yet that seemed to be absent for the most part in the more book accurate fourth. It still lived on in the Janice (Played by Susanne Severeid) character, but she was no Terry or Chris. And it also didn't help that Marie Adams (Played by Romy Windsor) wasn't as compelling or interesting. She wasn't in peril before, she was suffering from nightmares, or premonitions. So, I wound up liking Janice a lot more as a result as she was looking into the demise of her friend while helping Marie out. The plots converged because of her and not the main character in Marie. 

Yet Howling IV still went above and beyond the previous two films. It felt like they wanted to reset and get back to the basics of what made The Howling a hit. They just didn't have the right team to do it. And that's why I gave this movie some slack. It's clearly trying to do something to right the ship. It felt like a movie that people wanted to make, and not some weird fever dream. 

And the tides would begin to change with Howling V: The Rebirth. But not really though. Howling V certainly felt like it had the perfect amount of campiness needed from a sequel that didn't feel the need to match the original. The Neal Sundstrom directed film went with the fun idea of Clue, but with Werewolf. An idea that worked really well. Social deduction games and shape shifters go hand-in-hand. So why not add Werewolves to the mix. 

I especially enjoyed Phillip Davis as The Count. Like, he obviously had an air about him, yet you could never be sure. That's not to say that he was the Werewolf in question, but that he made the game more interesting. Sneaking around, having Hungarian servants that only spoke their own language. Like, how could he not top the suspect list. And I would say that many other characters would fit this bill as well. Having little bits of dialogue for the audience to chew on as the cast dwindled. Like, Anna (Played by Mary Stävin) for example. An older actress who made it a point to mention acting itself. It's one of the elements that made her character stand out as a lead candidate for Werewolf. You could never be too sure of a person's words or actions. You must be cautious.

And cautious one should be about the next Howling film, Howling VI: The Freaks. Not because of quality, but because to me this movie was boring as hell. They went back to the well and tried their hand at the good guy Werewolf thing again. Which could've worked if Ian (Play by Brendan Hughes) was worth caring for. He very quickly got overshadowed by Bruce Payne's Harker, the main villain. The leader of the freaks if you will. But what made Harker so much better than Ian was just his personality on its own. Harker's an egotistical piece of shit who believed in what he was doing. While Ian was just some British guy in a rural US town. You can give a tragic, abused backstory to anyone. But that doesn't make them endearing. It just makes them Winston (Played by Sean Gregory Sullivan). An actual endearing and abused character that got way better emotional beats than the main character. It's kind of maddening.

But really there's not much to say about Howling VI. It's dull and it doesn't have a compelling look for the Werewolf design itself. He doesn't look like a wolf at all. He just looks like a hairy man. No snout or anything discernible aside from the claws and feet. Like, I could show a picture of the Werewolf form, and many people would not think of any Lycanthrope. I would accept Dog-Man, but instead I just get Man.

And Man was what would be rolled in Howling: New Moon Rising. A connecting sequel to Howling IV and Howling V. Why you ask? I think the guy who played Ted, Clive Turner, wanted to be in another one. Yup, a character who had been killed off would come back and assume the role of the lead in the seventh film. Formerly known as Ray, or Tow Truck Driver, Ted turned out to be a secret agent investigating the Werewolf from the fifth film. The movie itself already started out as not making sense because the Ray character dies pretty clearly in Howling V. Not by mutilation, but through freezing to death in a blizzard. I think he said he walked through the storm, but over the course of that film, his body never left the snow. So, it's all just nonsense. Plus, I don't think he even said the old name when recounting the previous events.

So, you get this sequel that rewrote the movies it's supposed to be a sequel to and they also wound up removing Janice from the Howling IV recap. It felt like they didn't remember the material, or even bothered to look at it. But what made this movie flop so hard wasn't the rewriting, it was the nothing. It worked more as an advertisement for life in Pioneertown, California. As the whole cast outside of Clive Turner was a resident. A cool detail, but sadly that doesn't really do much when the whole movie's presence relied on being a sequel, and investigation story. Like, anyone could've been the Werewolf and it would've been the same film. However, I did not hate this movie, I was just baffled as to why it existed in the first place.

Overall, The Howling series has one damn good movie, an ok film, and a slew of terrible ones. To me, the best part of the Werewolf formula was the deception. Do they have to be inherently evil? No. Yet, that was where The Howling shined. Making the Werewolves predators that wanted to enforce desires upon others made for a compelling watch. The success came from the Werewolves still being able to do Werewolf things. The justifications or arguments for them can come afterwards. It's all in the set-up.

 And remember to Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, Free Venezuela and to Free Lebanon from the onslaught of their oppressors. Never stop talking about them. They think that we don't care, but we see everything. Never forget that. They are trying to suppress our voices because they matter, remember that. There may have been a ceasefire in Gaza, but Palestine still needs to be completely free.