Synopsis
On the eve of his high school graduation, Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) finally looks up from his books to catch the eye of the girl he’s longed for the last four years –the mysterious Eliana Wynter (Lindsey Shaw). He’s always been the shy kid, flying under the radar, but when he discovers a dark secret from his past— that he is heir to a powerful line of werewolves — he finds he has a choice to make between succumbing to his primal nature, or turning against his own, and maintaining his humanity. In order to fight the destiny of his legacy, and save Eliana – as well as himself – he must battle not only his growing blood lust but an army of fearsome beasts bent on killing him, Eliana…and then, us all.
The film starts out well, as we’re introduced to Will’s mom and a vicious attack that happens to her from what can only be assumed is a werewolf. Soon after, we see Will, who is now grown up, (Liboiron) talking into a camera about someone killing him after he proves that werewolves are real. It’s an intriguing start… and possibly the best scenes in the film. From that point on The Howling Reborn becomes a glorified mess. The story is mostly based in the final days of Will’s high school life, and it focuses on a group of bullies led by a single bully played by Niels Schneider, who is hellbent on making sure that Will doesn’t get together with a mysterious girl named Eliana. From the get-go the stench of overacting is potent. Schneider’s alpha male character literally tells Will that he is going to kill him, and he makes a huge cut on Will’s neck — in the middle of the high school hallway. The believability of this movie dropped considerably at that moment, as no high school in America would let a death threat or the cutting of a kid’s neck go on at all. I know that this is a werewolf/horror film, so the believability of it should be low to start with, but the thing that makes horror movies ‘horror movies’ is the possible chance of that situation actually happening in life. Your audience has to believe this world exists in some way, so that they can be brought into it. When you can say ‘That would never happen’ in a film then you haven’t captured your audience, which is a bad sign at the beginning of the film.
Anyway, as the story continues, we have Will getting into some serious situations with Eliana, as he’s invited to an underground rave. Taking a chance, and living a little — because we all feel invincible when we’re coming out of high school — he goes to the rave and the film gets interesting again. The rave has all the makings of the blood rave at the beginning of Blade, where at any given moment some shit is going to go down that is going to make the situation intense. That moment never arrives. You get a fleeting glance of what might lay ahead of Will, as he gets chased by a werewolf briefly, but then as quickly as it’s started then it is over. To boot, you only see the eye of a werewolf during this and not much else. As soon as Will escapes he is soon met by Eliana, who becomes a suspect immediately, which does add some intrigue to the story. Regretfully, the story doesn’t do much with that intrigue. Eliana’s presence and werewolf possibility never really becomes a question again, rather it just fades away into the nothing.
The story continues, we have Will confronted by the alpha male the next day, and Will takes care of business with the bully; thus, he becomes the new alpha male. Of course, Will doesn’t actual dispose of Niels’ character, as it’s done by the ‘pack’ (he’s thrown over a deep railing of stairs). I mention this moment, not to ruin it, but rather it is the defining moment where I realized that this movie possibly had a very low budget to work with. You see, Niels’ character’s body was a dummy. Not intellectually, but in actuality. You can tell the body was fake. You could tell that wasn’t a stuntman. Picture any movie in the 80s (and below) that required a person to be thrown over a cliff, railing or building and you’ll get what I’m saying. Any belief about the film was dashed and replaced by pure humor. It’s so tough to bring an audience back when the situation, and horror, becomes so blatantly bad. Regretfully, this was only the beginning.
For the rest of the film, the story never truly gets back on track. You don’t have a constant flow to why Will was chosen as the alpha male. You don’t get any sort of a solid grasp on what was happening in the film. Everything seemed to go its own direction. Will was becoming a werewolf because of his family heritage. Eliana was just nothing more than a tease in the film, who brought on the love at the wrong times (I.E. If you’re getting chased then it’s probably not wise to ‘get it on’ while hiding). The big reveal was a bit of head scratcher, as it didn’t quite make sense why things were happening the way they were. The ending, while open ended, didn’t boost any desire to want to see another one of these made. On top of all this, you get 15% of the movie that actually had a werewolf in it. Again, just an absolute mess of a film.
I don’t like being too critical of horror movies, as they are tough to make ‘unique’ these days, but this one was just awful.
Shifting gears, the Blu-ray actually was pretty smooth. The transfer looks like it was done pretty well, despite some of the camera and lighting situations that change dramatically in the film. For example, when Will is in the hallway of the high school you will see a lot of white and a high contrast ratio. The movie wants to invite graininess into it, but ends up looking like it’s drowned a bit. When the scene changes to a darker environment, such as the underground rave, the yellows and reds really shine through in a very sharp, clean and crisp manner. The lighter scenes look worse than the darker, but they both are handled really well by the transfer. The audio was solid, but there wasn’t enough action to showcase it off.
As for features, you get some solid commentary from writer/director Joe Nimiziki and Lindsey Shaw. You also get a nice, more informative, ‘making of’ featurette. The only other feature is a storyboard gallery. The features are much better than the actual film and they contain more substance about the story.