Howling: New Moon Rising

This movie once held a prominent position in the Bottom 100. How it ever got off the list is one of the great mysteries of the universe. Howling: New Moon Rising single-handedly redefines bad low-budget horror movies, and has all the requirements for being the worst horror sequel ever made:

1. No werewolf.

2. Old-school barroom jokes served up as original humor.

3. Small-town inhabitants playing themselves.

4. No werewolf.

5. Hopelessly outdated, overlong, and plot-halting line dance sequences.

6. Pappy sings.

7. Still no werewolf.

8. The most ridiculous 'plot twist' in the history of cinema.

9. Police chief: "Can we continue this tomorrow? This is all just too much information for me to take in all at once."

10. Red-tinted POV shots that's supposed to be a werewolf.

11. Written by, directed by, produced by, and starring Clive Turner.

12. "Hey Pappy - there's dirt in your chili!"

13. A two-line program command that produces the final CGI 'transformation' into the fakest-looking werewolf I've ever seen.

This movie was so painful to watch. No wonder they didn't make any more Howling sequels after this one. 1/10

I don't understand why they even made this film. There is no story, no scares, and nothing new to the series. The only part of this film of any value is the variety of clips they used from the previous Howling films. Why on earth they thought they could get away with using a steady-cam with a red filter to portray a werewolf is beyond me.

Only the very well rendered cover/poster art for this film gives it a reason to exist.

If you are a fan of the Howling series or werewolf movies in general, then the first four films are as far as I advise you go. The werewolf film as a genre has little to pick from as far as gems, but New Moon Rising is perhaps the worst ever conceived.

When movie fans discuss the most influential directors of all time, the name Clive Turner is usually at the top of the list. Like some sort of bizarre love child of Lynch and Tarantino, Turner exploded onto the scene with his masterpiece, Howling VII, and with that one film, defined post-modern primativism. In the limited space I have available, I will discuss my interpertation and views of Mr. Turner's awe-inspiring vision.

First, the character of the inspector. Just as Eastwood destroyed the myth of the remorseless gunfighter in Unforgiven, Turner destroys the myth of the police investigator. Turner's inspector isn't glamourous, he doesn't drive an expensive car, he doesn't solve crimes with only a few clues he carefully pieces together. Turner's inspector is so world-weary, so jaded, that he cannot even listen to a simple werewolf-on-the-loose story without taking a break to absorb all the information, because his mind is so haunted by his past cases, he simply cannot stop thinking about all the pain he has witnessed.

Turner even manages to reduce the werewolf, probably the most primative of monsters, into a simpler form. No CGI effects here, no elaborate camera tricks,. Just a very simplistic, very primative revealing of the monster hiding inside all of us.

One of the biggest complaints I have read about this film is Turner's use of "ordinary townpeople" rather that real "actors" in his film (this in a time when reality TV is considered the height of human achievement) This unique casting decision again shows Turner's devotion to post-modern primativism. No other director would dare to take a chance like this. "Real" actors could never have delivered the raw, primal emotions the performers in this movie demonstrate. I know I am not the only audience member to "Stand Up and Testify!" when Pappy (Turner's brilliant play on the authority-figure archtype) commands, nor am I the only one to recoil in horror at the sad, brutal reality of alcoholism and drug abuse as demonstrated in the song "Sit here and drink my good Christian beer."

The final point I would like to discuss is the line dancing, probably Turner's most powerful statement about our sad modern world. Notice how unhappy and robotic all the line dancers look. Turner is forcing us to confront our MTV controlled culture. No matter how unhappy or robotic we feel, we must follow and worship whatever MTV tells us is "cool." Don't like rap? Don't like boy-bands? Too bad, MTV says you must like it, and it is your duty as a good consumer to roboticly follow.

Howling VII, much like Rebel Without a Cause, Saturday Night Fever, and Pulp Fiction is a movie that defines a generation and causes us to re-examine the world we live in. Mr. Turner is trying to warn us: Stand up, testify, absorb the world around you, before you wake up one morning and discover there is dirt in YOUR chili.

There have been many really bad films made and this one is in the top ten of all time. Lame dialog between an older detective and Father John. Most of the film we only see the werewolf on the prowl because the camera lens is red. Not until the end do we see a werewolf woman and the wolf mask, yes, it actually looks like a mask. The worst part of this film, if you can believe it, was the country music that was constantly playing. At one point, the crowd was asked if they wanted to hear "Pappy sing" and I felt like shouting "NO." This film probably should have been called "Pappy One," instead of anything to do with the Howling series. One second thought, Pappy was so bad, "Pappy Loses His Voice" would have been better.

I watched this movie on Monstervision on TNT, and I gave it a chance, but it was just horrible! I have been trying to find the worst movie of all time, and I think I have found it. The Howling 6 was Casablanca compared to this Turkey!!!!