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)

Season two of The Boys was released in September 2020. And if you thought the first season was too much, I have terrible news. This season is so much worse.

The story

This season doesn’t start in the best place. Hughie and the Boys are wanted felons and are in hiding. Butcher is missing entirely. And Starlight is in Vought Tower still, but in constant danger from Homelander.

At least, when Homelander is around, most of the season he is more interested in spending time with his son, Ryan. Ryan, of course, is the son of Becca Butcher.

But he can’t spend all of his time harassing the woman he brutally raped. There’s a new hero in Vought Tower, named Stormfront. At first, she seems great, spearheading a new ‘Girls Get it Done’ marketing campaign. But, of course, she isn’t what she seems. She’s a Nazi. And she wants Homelander to be the start of a group of Aryan supermen. If you need me to confirm this, Homelander is totally down with that.

What worked

The first thing I have to mention is the casting of Shawn Ashmore as Lamplighter, a sup with fire powers. This was hilarious because Ashmore played Iceman in the early 2000’s X-Men trilogy. I do not doubt that this was intentional.

The character that he plays, Lamplighter, is a terrible person. We find out in this season that it was him that killed Mallory’s grandchildren. But it’s also hard to hate him. It is, in fact, hard to hate most of the characters, even if they are not good people. A-Train is not a good person, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. The same can be said for The Deep, Ashley, Homelander, and almost everyone involved with Vought. These are broken characters who have been abused and traumatized. They have turned that pain on other people, spreading their trauma. But they were still victims.

The only characters I would say this doesn’t apply to are Stan Edgar and Stormfront. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they don’t have any trauma to blame any of this on.

Let’s talk about Stormfront for a moment. She is a glorious lesson that just because someone claims to be a feminist doesn’t mean they’re a friend.

Stormfront is a perfect example of the young Nazis found in America. Which is a sentence that I wish I didn’t have to say. She is social media savvy. She is very good at inspiring people to hatred and violence by putting together pictures and pithy quotes, and then posting them online. It is terrifying how well that works, both on the show and in real life.

More than that, though, she is a perfect example of the terrifying pipeline we see on social media. I would compare Stormfront to an Instagramer called Gubba Homestead and people like her. You start watching her because she seems funny and high energy. The next thing you know you’re talking about George Soros funding space lasers to send ‘chemtrails’ to make gay frogs.

Finally, though, I want to shine a light on Homelander and his ‘relationship’ with Ryan. More specifically, how Becca had to deal with him being around. Can you imagine being raped by a man, getting pregnant, and then having to let him have visitations with the baby? I cannot imagine how she didn’t just stab Homelander in his eye. She might not have survived it, but it would have felt so good.

What didn’t work

While this season was fantastic, I did have one issue. That issue is the gross and weird relationship Homelander has with the shapeshifting sup. I have a pretty hard stomach, but this was still too much for me. Especially the part where Homelander is fed milk by this poor person. It was just a bit too gross. A bit too cringy, and it crossed the line into being just a little too uncomfortable to watch.

That might just be me, though. Your line might be in a much different place.

While this season didn’t leave us on quite the cliffhanger as season one, fans were still left on the edge of our collective seats. And as season three didn’t come out until 2022, we had a long wait on that seat edge. But for you, that wait is going to be much shorter. We will be back here very soon to talk about season three and get ready for season four.

See you then. (5 / 5)

By the way, if you like my writing you can get my short story, Man In The Woods, on Smashwords and Amazon.

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988) is a supernatural horror film directed by John Hough and Clive Turner. This R-rated film stars Romy Walthall, Michael T. Weiss, Antony Hamilton, and Susanne Severeid. As of this review, this film is available on Amazon Prime, Crackle, TubiTV, The Roku Channel, and Vudu. This film acts as a more faithful adaptation of the original novel.

Marie (Romy Walthall) suffers nightmares and writer’s block, preventing her from continuing her novel. To overcome these issues, she visits the small town of Drago to recover. However, Drago hides a troubling history that threatens to unravel this recovery. The further she investigates, the more troubling and real these threats become.

What I Like about Howling IV: The Original Nightmare

As mentioned earlier, this film aims to create a more faithful adaptation of the novel. Because the original film remains a reasonably loyal adaptation of the first book, it follows the plot closely on a tighter budget. It’s a strong plot with a strategic delivery on what to spend that budget on. This loyalty refocuses less on werewolves, providing a more demonic evil.

That full transformation deserves respect, especially considering the lower budget and practicality dominating the film. It truly haunts the eye, with every second earning its place. While it did cave on budget in some respects, the pain feels so real and diabolical.

The “howling” element takes less from the werewolves and more from the haunting sounds that echo across the town of Drago. It’s not inherently a change, as one could make the case for the original movie, but it remains a new focus.

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare earns its place by adapting an interesting plot. While this deserves respect, I’ll further dive into criticisms later. However, it’s an unsettling film, achieving an eerie tone throughout its runtime.

Tired Tropes and Triggers

There are moments of gut-churning body horror that might leave some taken aback. While the fake skeletons and necessary budget limitations don’t raise this as a main concern, it deserves a mention.

Gaslighting and verbal and physical abuse occur within the relationship. The verbal and psychological abuse reoccur and remains straightforward. The physical abuse, however, evokes a more supernatural justification.

For those sensitive to this material, it’s hard to recommend the film.

What I Dislike and on Adaptation

This film begins a drastic quality downgrade from the previous installments, including the underwhelming third film. Howling IV: The Original Nightmare remains firmly centered in the direct-to-video category. Because of this tight budget and competent plot, however, the film earned enough to justify several sequels. While this does deserve some credit, the quality remains hard to overlook.

In some ways, the more faithful adaptation works to the disadvantage of the film. The original remains a loyal adaptation with some creative decisions, making this film feel like a repetition. At the time, this retreading confused some viewers and critics alike. Another issue with this loyal adaptation remains how it communicates some aspects of the book that rely on inner monologue.

The acting ranges from passable to bad, never living to the high standards of the first film. As this largely follows the same plot points, inferiority remains a recurring thought.

This film fails to haunt the viewer. While some scenes certainly overachieve, the film woefully lacks memorability. While it’s far from an unenjoyable experience, the first film makes this installment unnecessary and a strange step backward for the series.

Final Thoughts

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare is not the original nightmare, which remains its greatest problem. While the plot remains strong, it only creates a low-budget remake of the original film. There are times of genuine ingenuity, but it mostly poorly imitates the first. However, the direct-to-video’s success creates a proof of concept that the IP owners don’t hesitate to exploit.
(2 / 5)