Was it as bad as I was expecting? No, but again, I was expecting pretty bad so that is faint praise delivered with a backhand. The Howling: Reborn is an obvious cash grab based on market research and a desire to get in on the Twilight craze. This is not a horror movie, it is not a werewolf movie. It is a mopey teen romance wearing the guise of what someone deemed hip and cool. If you are part of the Twilight crowd, you would be better served revisiting one of your beloved movies, or for something different go watch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. If you are looking for a werewolf movie, check out Dog Soldiers or Ginger Snaps, or revisit the original The Howling.
As I reflect on the movie and think about where to go when writing about it, I feel as if I might have started with the end of the review than the start. The title can only be explained as some producer still had his hands on the rights to the The Howling name and was looking to make some cash off of it. Not unlike some of those later Hellraiser sequels which began life as unrelated horror scripts that had the Pinhead stuff squeezed in late in the process.
Watching The Howling: Reborn, one thing is abundantly clear, thus has nothing to do with the very good Joe Dante directed original film from back in 1981. Despite both films, and many of the intervening sequels (bearing such delightful subtitles as Your Sister is a Werewolf, The Marsupials, and Freaks), being based on novels by Gary Brandner bear little resemblance in tone or execution.
The story centers on Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron), a meek and nerdy high school senior with a crush on the school bad girl, Elliana (Lindsey Shaw). The problem is that he lacks the guts to do anything about it. Of course, considering we know this is a werewolf movie, finds the inner power needed to finally step up and do something about it. This does not bode well with the school toughs and then the wolf pack shows up (no, not the Hangover gang, although that probably would make for a better movie) and the pace begins to pick up.
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