A Howling Rundown

One of the better known series of films (since I have grown very disdainful of the term "franchise") in the werewolf genre is the Howling movies. I had seen at least one of them when I was a kid, then rewatched it maybe a couple years ago. I recently re-rewatched it, and for good measure watched some of its sequels. The original is a decent movie with some fine special effects and tolerable performances. The story is also reasonable. I would say the film is at its best in the opening and at the movie's conclusion.

From there the drop-off is... severe. "Howling 2: Your Sister Is A Werewolf" has a clunky title and nothing better behind it. It stars Christopher Lee, Reb Brown and Sybill Danning. Reb is the brother of a journalist who became a werewolf and died in the previous film, so naturally he has to go to Transylvania (!) and seek vengeance against Danning with the help of Lee. None of them exactly puts their best foot forward, although Danning puts something else forward pretty much all the time. It's hard to say whether there's more gratuitous nudity or bad acting. I guess there wouldn't be the need for one without the other. Let's just say that if you need a movie with a werewolf menage a trois, you know where to look.

The third in the series actually was not made as a Howling movie, or so I understand. Instead it was shanghaied and renamed, which is a novel approach. It also takes the rather new approach of having the werewolves actually be kangaroos. That's what you get from "Howling 3: The Marsupials". An assistant director from a horror film spies an exotic beauty who turns out to be a were-marsupial. He fathers her child, and a lot of shenanigans ensue involving doctors, military guys and the rest of her brood. It's pretty good.

The first three all have some appeal. That ends with number 4, which has less than none. It is really bad. I won't say it's unwatchable, but watching it is undesirable. I'm led to believe that "Howling 4" is more faithful to the original novel than Joe Dante's take in the original film, so the books must not be very good. In any case, the story is a lot like the original. A writer is apparently stressed out for some reason, so she goes to a small town to rest and relax. Unfortunately, they're all vampires. Even worse, the town isn't that pretty and there's nothing to do there. The amount of werewolf action in this one is about the same as the amount of chicken in the absolutely cheapest chicken noodle soup on the market. It is bad.

Now, there are four more films in the series, counting what may be a remake (and an attempt to 'reboot' the 'franchise'). I'm committed to watching at least the next three, come what may. It very likely gets even worse than it has already, but that's just some bad medicine I'm going to have to take. God willing, the remaining ones at least have a little something to cling to. I'll be pretty sorry if they're unwatchable. That gets tough even with friends around. Anyway, it anything interesting comes of it, I'll say so.