Howling V: The Rebirth, a Film Review
Howling V: The Rebirth (1989) is a whodunit directed by Neal Sundstrom, starring Philip Davis, Elizabeth Shé, and William Shockley.
Howling V: The Rebirth (1989) is a supernatural whodunit directed by Neal Sundstrom. This R-rated film stars Philip Davis, Victoria Catlin, Elizabeth Shé, Ben Cole, and William Shockley. As of this review, the film is available to Amazon Prime and fuboTV subscribers.
A mysterious curse haunts an old Budapest castle, lingering in its walls since 1489. All these years later, the castle acts as a tourist attraction for a small group with varying motives. As guests start to die, it becomes clear that these strangers are brought here for a reason. Will they find the wolf within the pack, or will they fall like sheep to its hunger?
What I Like about Howling V: The Rebirth
After the surprising success of Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, the owners of the Howling IP invested in a new script and cameras that aren’t horrendous to look through. The opening scene shows these quality improvements, providing a surprisingly crisp and visually interesting introduction.
Howling V: The Rebirth delivers an engaging closed circle whodunit that keeps viewers engaged across the majority of its runtime. This shift introduces another creative revision of the property, a gamble that seems to pay off for critics who rank this as the best installment of the direct-to-video Howling films. While I can’t comment on the financial success, future entries will receive further downgrades.
This film is the first installment in the series not to claim itself as an adaptation of the original novel. Instead, it claims to adapt an original story from Clive Turner. This writer will act as the leading figure of this struggling series, soon taking complete ownership of future entries.
Compared to the last entry in the series, Howling V: The Rebirth remains a massive upgrade in quality but still falls short of the original three entries. As the original series won’t reach those heights again, it’s easy to recommend this film to those still loyal to the series and hungry for more.
Tired Tropes and Triggers
While some female characters are genuinely interesting and well-written, several fall within various tired tropes. The female cast has less to work with compared to their male counterparts, providing their talent to supplement the gaps when possible.
Loosely related to the above point, some of the scenes rise to the standard of exploitative. Most of these scenes take the time to point out the toxic behavior on display, but not to the level of actually condemning anything.
Perhaps following the Christian undertones of Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, there remains a greater influence on Christian evil and lore. I wouldn’t go as far as to say this is a Christian horror, but it’s certainly a prevalent element.
What I Dislike about Howling V: The Rebirth
As will always be the case for a series with so much promise, the massive downgrade dominates the viewing experience. While the writing remains strong and original, this film woefully underwhelms compared to some earlier entries. Regardless, the first scene inspires confidence, which I did hope it would keep. Unfortunately, Howling V doesn’t keep to that creative vision.
While Howling V: The Rebirth still earns its runtime, the downgrade feels more reminiscent of an entry in a horror chronology, like Tales of the Crypt’s later seasons. Severe limitations require creativity to overcome, but the film fails to deliver.
Final Thoughts
Howling V: The Rebirth makes an engaging episode to a chronology for its time. Instead, it’s the fifth entry of an existing and once-promising film series. Despite that disappointment, the bones remain strong. Clive Turner seems to have a vision for the series, leading to his eventual control of the series. This film remains enjoyable, holding some promise for the series if the viewer recognizes the new limitations.
(3 / 5)
House of Dragon S2E2: Coors Lite seems to have sponsored this episode. Remember, this is NOT a spoiler free review. It’s Jim watching the episode and writing random bits down without proof reading. …. much like what the show runners must have done with the season bible.
Without any further ado…our House of Dragon S2E2 Review! (Crap, that rhymes!)
That one prince dude is still dead and like so is the other one. No, not that one!
So apparently, Matt Smith didn’t mean to really have that one baby prince die or something. But you know, it’s easier to kill smaller ones than ones with eye-patches. I guess. I mean, does anyone care who killed a baby prince? It’s not like the rest of Westeros is going to see the dead kid on parade with his grieving…wait…what?
Are you shitting me? I haven’t seen this much of an obvious heart tug attempt since that one time I paid that Russian hooker to give me ‘the full trump’.
So..a populace of people who are very poor and really couldn’t give two shits who is in charge…are going to cry for you if you display a kid’s body? Sure. I guess it worked for (checks notes) Absolutely nobody before.
That other queen and the dude from Doctor Who’s conflict:
With an unforced error that one queen basically puts out the one guy who would literally kill for her. Is this a weird plot point I’m missing? So far the people who didn’t let Matt Smith’s character (man, we need a name for him. I mean one I can spell) do what he needed to do all sorta failed and died. Wonder if that’s foreshadowing or just an extra thing to go through to fill time?
And TWINS!!!:
Remember that one guy who was a twin of the other guy? And like they took opposing sides of the throne struggle? Nope? Well, me neither. Apparently Coors Lite is sponsoring this episode as the ‘you’ll go in and kill someone dressed as your twin’ trope gets used. It almost works. Sorta. Kinda. Okay, it’s not even close.
Not even a beard to tell the evil twin apart, we get rammed right into…a fight that ends in both of their deaths. That’s a missed opportunity, but I think a lot of this show might just be that: A missed opportunity.
New Hand aka OK Boomer
Looks like they tried a Boomer thing with HoD. The other other king kid (does this guy even have a name? Let’s call him Spanky Z). Spanky Z is all like I does what I want so I’ll kill every rat catcher and like hang them up and stuff. You know, things that Joffery would say was ‘a weak show’. Apparently, the populace doesn’t like being gutted and having their sons/fathers hung up dead on public display. Who knew?
The Hand knew, that’s who!!! Oh boy, is he ever going to take it to his grandson/nephew/niece (incest, amirite?)! Orr…..not. What I meant to say is, Oh boy! Won’t he ever just show how apparently weak a Hand he is and just resign after being replaced by some white cloak “definitely a virgin and not fuckin your mom’.
I think we’d care more if…we remembered anything from Season 1 about anyone here except this:
- 1. White Cloak dude fucked his mom
- 2. King dude is like not really the king but a pretender
- 3. Hand dude sold his 7 year old daughter to fuck the old king so she would be queen.
This episode was stronger than the last. I think they can still turn the ship around. I’d give this one a 4/5
I think that sums it up for our House of Dragon S2E2 Review. Now, back to that Coors Lite…
(4 / 5)
Season four of Amazon Prime’s The Boys launched on June 13th of this year. Having now watched the first episode, I believe I can safely say that this season is going to be bonkers.
Let’s discuss.
The story
When this episode begins, things aren’t going great for Homelander. He’s irritated at everyone around him for constantly agreeing with everything he says. He found a gray hair and is finally facing his own mortality. Oh, and he’s on trial for murdering a man last season.
Homelander decides he needs someone around him who will tell him the truth. Someone who can help him build a legacy. So he seeks out a sup named Sage, whose superpower is being the smartest person in the world. And what does he want with Sage? He wants her to help him destroy America.
Meanwhile, The Boys aren’t doing so well. They’ve been tasked with assassinating Neuman because she is the presumptive VP. But Neuman manages to avoid their assassination attempt by being literally bulletproof.
Unfortunately, The Boys aren’t bulletproof. And as we find out in this episode, one might not last much longer.
What worked
In fiction as in life, it is the little things that matter. It’s the small details that make the difference between a fine show and an exceptional one. This episode was full of such little details. One such detail was Homelander finding gray pubic hairs.
The reason why this distinction is important is because later in the episode we find out that his stylist has been dying his hair. She’s been intentionally hiding the fact that he’s going gray. This is important because it’s just one more person in Homelander’s life who is being dishonest with him. And I think that is what’s going to finally crack him.
The timing of this season is something I’d like to shed some light on. It is so fitting that this came out during an election year. Because of course, The Boys is mimicking the very real infighting we’re experiencing in America. We’ve all seen protests break out into violence. We’ve all seen important trials spark controversy. This is just so much like our real experience, except that in The Boys, the megalomaniac blond man baby is competent and good at things.
Finally, I was amused and impressed with the evolution of Neuman’s character. She is a politician, through and through. The way she can smile at someone while threatening them, and then make a pithy quip at their expense is fantastic. She made me laugh almost every time she was on screen.
What didn’t work
If I have one complaint about this episode, it’s that a lot happened in this episode. We have a whole bunch of plotlines going on here. Like, so many things. Butcher’s health, Homelander’s aging, Ryan’s future, Frenchie’s new boyfriend, Annie’s charity, Sage’s plotting, Butcher’s old friend, A-Train and The Deep growing discontent. And I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. This is just a lot to keep track of. And I just hope they have enough time and space to do them all justice.
Overall, I have high hopes for this season. And Amazon must too, because it appears that season five is already in the works. But for now, we’ll be back very soon to discuss episode two of The Boys.
(4 / 5)
By the way, if you like my writing you can get my short story, Man In The Woods, on Smashwords and Amazon.
Computers are all the rage. Of course, you already knew that. But did you know that scientists, those denizens of deep throaty maniacal laughter and storms brewing over dark brooding castles, are building tiny brain computers now? So apparently this is what all the zombies are being used for… They’re the lackeys getting the goods. No surprise there, though, zombies do make good lackeys.
16 Mini Brains
It’s catchy. Like a jingle. And those sixteen mini brains are getting all sorts of attention nowadays. Apparently they’re all over social media. We don’t know what truths they think they’ll find there, but it has been said they do like to play Pong, so maybe some of those other kind of mindless clicker games will have similar appeal. Anyway, we’ve caught a rare glimpse of these little items of incidental intellect, through our prompting of the NightCafe AI art generator. And they’re kinda cute. See these renditions of the tiny brain computers for yourself.
Mushrooming Mayhem
It’s not just tiny brain computers though. Those sneaky scientists have also been experimenting with mycelium, harnessing the fungal power of mushrooms to make mental machine magic. Or create computer craft as it were. So what happens when the tiny brain computers and the mushroom computers start talking? Well, we aren’t sure, but we suspect the manifesting motherboard mushroom man would know. You’ll have to ask him. We hear he’s a fun guy.
So What Do the Ethicists Think About All This?
I have to admit, I don’t know any ethicists to ask about the topic, but that career path sure beats archaeology. All we know is that the scientists are at it again, and they haven’t had the best track record for working with ethicists, though morality has been a kind of touch and go subject through the course of human history anyway.
And the whole idea has been a big influence on AI generated art, with all sorts of people prompting all kinds of crazy combinations of computer creatures crawling with creepiness into the realms of dystopian nightmare. In fact, more of these stories seem to be illustrated using AI art generation than including actual images of the real life results, perhaps because the reality is that petri dishes of cells and fungal fragments really aren’t that interesting visually, just kind of snotty looking kin to the Blob…
