Meadhall of the Comitatus

Furor rates this Premise: 1/5

The premise consists of the fact that there is a werewolf-movie franchise by the name of The Howling, and that this movie has the template “Howling,” making it a member of a werewolf-movie franchise. There’s, ah, no premise.

Oz rates the Premise: 2/5

Howling: New Moon Rising—oddly, it seems as if the creators of this film about Texan-style alcoholism didn’t want to mention the fact that this is their seventh attempt to get a werewolf movie right. Ostensibly, the movie’s about a werewolf, but really, let’s face facts: it’s about getting drunk in a small-town country bar. To that end, I think the director and his crew must’ve known quite a lot about that subject, but had possibly killed off too many brain cells in such a place to remember that the movie needs a werewolf. Or at least the tiniest trace of suspense, both of which are sorely lacking in this flick.

These are our heroes in an ill-conceived sight gag about synchronized drinking. Clive—I mean, Ted, is the one in the center. Blame him for everything you're about to see and hear.

Oz rates this Cast: 2/5

Welcome to the wide world of Howling movies. Acting not required! I’m actually not going to complete trash the cast, because there were a couple people who did try, and some that were even kind of likeable (that’s you, Ted, wear the badge proudly). Now, if you look at this movie as more about drinking in Texan bars and less about werewolves (obviously its creators did!), then I’d have to say it wasn’t too far off base. I’ve been to a couple bars like that, so I think I can say it was a fair enough representation, as long as you’re one of the good ol’ boys and don’t tell people you’re from the college town ten miles away.

Furor gives the Cast: 2/5

I would like to give this flick 1′s all round, but it’s true that the main character, Ted, has a certain charm about him. This charm’s magical Celtic craftsmanship has somehow kept me from marring my first bullet with his Christian name, “Clive Turner.” Everyone knows that etching the target’s name on a bullet greatly improves accuracy, so our thick-accented, fly-zippering friend can rest easy. Everyone else you’re gonna see in matriarchal Barstow is scraping the bottom of the barrel from its underside. Sorry, Sybil.

The whole populace of "Pioneertown" (not a Disney theme park!) playing themselves. Unfortunately, they don't do a very good job of it.

Furor rates the Cinematography & Design: 1/5

We’re talking hand-held quality throughout, and of course there is the positively stumping WerewolfCam. Its red filter will alert you to the entrance of either the town’s werewolf marsupial (sic) or a stray giant mutant mosquito from another movie entirely. We’re also granted the convenience of a night filter to integrate those annoying noonday shoots into the suspense and stark animal horror of a night of the full moon. As for design, imagine creating an ouvre using only your Lite-Brite, twenty glass pegs, and a lapsed electric bill.

Oz follows suit and rates Cinematography & Design: 1/5

I hope you like the way that bar looks, because you’re going to be there for a very, very long time. Occasionally, you might see what’s outside, and then you’ll meet their other set: the motel-like string of apartments, or, quite possibly, the set that the cop and priest seem to be trapped in as they blather about whatever crime is supposed to be the setup for the dramatic tension in this film (and I use those words very ironically). I hope you like country folk music, too, because that’s the entire soundtrack. In fact, with just one or maybe two more songs in it, I think this movie could qualify as a musical.

That's right, our protagonist, Ted, is playing "Deep in the Heart of Texas" on his zipper. Need we say more?

Oz hates the Special Effects: 1/5

I guess that there are special effects, but it’s not like you really see them used except in maybe fifteen minutes of the movie. Werewolf vision=spilling red kool-aid on the camera lens. Werewolf mask and fake blood courtesy of Spencer’s Gifts. And, uh, that’s pretty much it.

Furor doesn’t think any higher of the Special Effects: 1/5

Okay, okay, you also get to use that red food coloring you’ve been eyeing all your childhood! Special effects honestly don’t feature in this one. Rather, a handful of effects inform the audience when two people die and when the pretty girl becomes the ugly were-girl marsupial flavo-door. This process of Being and Becoming is economically accomplished by digitially grabbing both cheeks and stretching them into something with bigger cheeks. “Hardly McNificent!!” raves the dead John Wayne.

In a bold decision, Clive Turner decides that a scene in which Ted makes fun of the fat guy's penis size when he misunderstands a statement about URINAL size would be far superior to another werewolf scene.

Furor gives the Popcorn Factor: 1/5

I wore the bowl and charged the screen. Unfazed, Howling 7 impassively performed Claude “Pappy” Allen’s “Testify.” Definitely, I should have come out of the booth with Kettle Corn, whose sugary deposits would have given me the traction I just wasn’t feeling. Of course, when you’ve finished with Howling 7, all your other movies gain two Popcorn Factors, so I got that going for me.

Oz agrees about the Popcorn Factor: 1/5

Do they sell popcorn at Texan bars, are there country songs about popcorn? Seriously, if I wasn’t drinking while watching this flick, I doubt it would have been any fun at all.

Here's a picture from another ill-conceived joke, this time about chili, in Howling 7. Do I need to make the obvious comparison here?

After the final credits rolled, we were left with many unanswered questions. Questions such as, “So have you ever, EVER seen a movie that wasted that much of its own time?” and, “How can a whole town be drafted to play themselves yet still fail so miserably?”

More questions surfaced the longer we thought about this pile of werewolf feces. What albino Ozark quasi-culture considers the zipper a musical instrument? Who hit the cop wi
th Rollo’s biggest frozen fish? And who thought a Scooby Doo ending would make the movie interesting when you didn’t give a damn about ANYONE?

Questions about characterization also proliferated, bursting open a veritable dam when Furor asked, “If you’re gonna break the ice and go for the good first impression, why tell people you’ve got Dicktheria?” Is Pappy secretly envious of becoming a werewolf so he can systematically kill every woman in Barstow? Or is Bonnie (the man-hating woman) secretly envious of becoming a werewolf so she can systematically kill every man in Barstow? No answers writ in the heavens were forthcoming, and I felt I still needed to know more about Sybil, and what Jaro’s accent was supposed to be. Alas, these important character questions go unanswered, perhaps until Howling 8: We Still Suck.

And bigger mysteries remain. Perhaps we will never know what the joyless line dancing in the dark meant, though Furor has postulated that the dancers were scrawling cosmic ley lines of suck into that hard hard stage. Perhaps we will never know at what awful cost a director puts everyone he knows into his movie—the cost of Howling 7? I think there are no easy answers to the question “Who is George Jones, anyway?”

And finally, who’s the REAL Clive Turner? The clean-shaven sole survivor of horror in a Slavic castle? The long-suffering longhair of Barstow? Or the man now known to horror buffs everywhere as Satan’s first and greatest supplicant? Always wonder… And testify.