Howling: New Moon Rising or How to Make a Bad Movie
Ryan Tutolo
Let's talk a little bit about bad movies. Many people do their best to avoid movies that are considered “bad”. They think it's best to only try to watch good movies, but if you don't watch at least some bad movies then your perception of what constitutes “good” or “bad” gets narrowed. For this reason, as someone who loves movies I find that it is a necessity to watch everything from great movies to terrible ones. It's a method of calibrating your rating scale. After all, how can you call a movie a “1/10” if you've never actually seen something deserving of a such a low score. Even still, not all bad movies are equal.
This brings me to my next point. Movies are terrible for different reasons. Easy things to point to are the technical aspects of a film. Was the acting convincing? Did the plot make sense? Was the dialog appropriate for the situation and style of film? Was the camerawork, cinematography, set design, sound, lighting, etc all done with purpose and talent? These are some of the easy surface level things to notice in a bad film. Still, some people think a movie is bad only if it fails to accomplish the creator's intentions. One fault I find in this line of thinking is what if the creator had bad intentions? If a sleazy cheap garbage movie like Santa Claws (see my review) is exactly what the director set out to make, does that make it any less terrible? This is where subjectivity starts to show up. Each viewer can decide if the movie is a success or not in their own heads.
Finally we have one of my favorite topics, movies so bad, that they are great. This brings the subject of “fun”. Lots of good movies are fun to watch. But at the same time bad movies can be fun as well. We as audience members can sit there and laugh at the bad acting, poke fun at what the creator's were intending to accomplish but fell short for whatever reason (lack of budget, lack of talent, lack of time, etc). While this sounds mean spirited on paper, entire shows have been dedicated to this very idea. (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Talk Soup, or even James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd). In that same way, many of these horrible projects are given new life as folks can watch them for another type of entertainment than originally intended.
With that being said I'd like to introduce one of my absolute favorite, horrible movies, The Howling: New Moon Rising. We’ll begin with a little necessary background into the Howling series. The first installment is a pretty straightforward werewolf movie. It’s based on a book and consists of a reporter investigating some murders that turn out to be related to a community of werewolves. It’s a solid film from the 80s and features amazing werewolf effects. Part II (subtitled Your Sister is a Werewolf) picks up immediately after the first and is completely off the wall...like Christopher Lee in dance clubs and Sybil Danning getting naked kind of crazy.
Part 3 takes the franchise to Australia for a semi-spoof werewolf movie with family ties...it’s strange and not my cup of tea. Part 4 is essentially a retelling with some slight changes, interesting (but worse) werewolf effects, and a nonsense plot. Part 5 tells a unique story about an abandoned castle and people being picked off one by one, it ends up being a who-done-it along the lines of The Beast Must Die (though sadly no “werewolf break”). Part 6 is a garbage movie with shit special effects about a traveling freak show and a vampire. That brings us to the crown jewel, Part 7: New Moon Rising.
The behind the scenes of New Moon Rising is probably more interesting than the actual plot. Clive Turner wrote, produced, directed, and starred in NMR. The series was already in the toilet and subjected to direct to video releases for years, so I imagine the rights holders thought “What the hell?” and let Mr. Turner have his way with the series. The result is a catastrophe the likes of which is only seen every few decades. The bulk of the movie consists of random goofball hijinx, bad dad-jokes, and scenes from The Howling IV through VI.
The “plot” goes as such: A series of murders have happened in a small back-water country town, and a new arrival shows up on Harley with a case of country music on audio cassettes. Our main man Ted (Clive Turner) is a long haired Aussie that speaks only in puns and shitty jokes fits right in with a town of weirdos. Over the course of a few days/weeks, Ted befriends the whole town. Meanwhile, a priest tells the plot of The Howling 5 to a cop. Trying to figure out the timeline here is impossible, the editing suggests that it takes days to explaining what happened in the movie to this investigator.
Back in town, a shit load of country and western music is played, people line dance, and Ted tells bad jokes in between cleaning montages. Now a woman explains the plot to Howling IV to the priest (we assume he relays this info to the investigator over the course of a month or so). A few town folk are touched by a camera with a red filter on it and fall over, it’s later explained that their deaths resemble animal attacks. Oh Howling VI was mentioned earlier and I forgot about it...you will too, don’t worry.
A shit-load more country music is played, a bunch more bad jokes, and more dancing. There’s a few running gags about a country-western singer George Jones and dirt in a pot of chili. Finally, this whirlwind exciting plot comes to a head and the true werewolf is revealed. (Is my sarcasm too subtle?) Luckily the townsfolk are ready for it and gun the beast down the celebrate with another country song back at the bar.
Hell of a story, I know. So let’s go over the easy part of discussing a bad movie. The “acting” is atrocious. The entire town consists of residents of the town they filmed in. In fact, these people couldn’t be trusted with actual character names so they are portraying themselves. THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY EXIST?! Mullet Lady, bug-eyed guy, slow man, drunken old man, and semi-attractive girl all actually live in this shit hole of a town in real life. I’d like to imagine they all get together and watch this once a year, but they’re probably all dead by now.
As I mentioned before, the editing is a mess. The timeline makes no sense and the pace of the movie is a dull crawl through cold molasses the entire time. Directing-wise I suppose that it has the characters on screen and words come out of their mouths. Unfortunately, the words are written by Clive Turner, and he sees himself as a bit of a comedian. He comes off as the kind of guy you’d meet at an airport bar while your flight is delayed, you think he’s charming at first, but after the 4th pun he dishes out you’re headed for the next open terminal for a flight to anywhere but there.
Ok let’s talk about the music. I’m not a country fan, however it can be used to build up a scene or set a tone for a setting. What it can’t be used for is to pad the running time of your movie by randomly inserting a half dozen or so FULL SONGS into your film. What’s worse is when the people performing these songs are your “actors” that actually sing them. Just to remind you, these aren’t professional actors, nor are they professional singers. These are the bumpkins at the local karaoke bar who think themselves talented.
So a large portion of your running time is devoted to music performances, another large section is made up of clips from previous werewolf movies, and the rest is padded with boring setups for terrible jokes and montages of drinking and cleaning a bar. Of the 90 minutes there’s probably a good 4 minutes devoted to actual story and character development. What the fuck is this movie?! I’ll tell you what it is, it’s one of the most hilariously bad films ever to make it to your eyeballs. So set any expectations of traditional film making aside and enjoy the insane terribly acted joke filled ride. Sure the movie is only a 1 out of 10 but it earned that 1.
Bad movies are all around us, but only the truly terrible ones cross the line into enjoyment and The Howling: New Moon Rising is one of the worst movies ever made, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.
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Let's talk a little bit about bad movies. Many people do their best to avoid movies that are considered “bad”. They think it's best to only try to watch good movies, but if you don't watch at least some bad movies then your perception of what constitutes “good” or “bad” gets narrowed. For this reason, as someone who loves movies I find that it is a necessity to watch everything from great movies to terrible ones. It's a method of calibrating your rating scale. After all, how can you call a movie a “1/10” if you've never actually seen something deserving of a such a low score. Even still, not all bad movies are equal.
This brings me to my next point. Movies are terrible for different reasons. Easy things to point to are the technical aspects of a film. Was the acting convincing? Did the plot make sense? Was the dialog appropriate for the situation and style of film? Was the camerawork, cinematography, set design, sound, lighting, etc all done with purpose and talent? These are some of the easy surface level things to notice in a bad film. Still, some people think a movie is bad only if it fails to accomplish the creator's intentions. One fault I find in this line of thinking is what if the creator had bad intentions? If a sleazy cheap garbage movie like Santa Claws (see my review) is exactly what the director set out to make, does that make it any less terrible? This is where subjectivity starts to show up. Each viewer can decide if the movie is a success or not in their own heads.
Finally we have one of my favorite topics, movies so bad, that they are great. This brings the subject of “fun”. Lots of good movies are fun to watch. But at the same time bad movies can be fun as well. We as audience members can sit there and laugh at the bad acting, poke fun at what the creator's were intending to accomplish but fell short for whatever reason (lack of budget, lack of talent, lack of time, etc). While this sounds mean spirited on paper, entire shows have been dedicated to this very idea. (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Talk Soup, or even James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd). In that same way, many of these horrible projects are given new life as folks can watch them for another type of entertainment than originally intended.
With that being said I'd like to introduce one of my absolute favorite, horrible movies, The Howling: New Moon Rising. We’ll begin with a little necessary background into the Howling series. The first installment is a pretty straightforward werewolf movie. It’s based on a book and consists of a reporter investigating some murders that turn out to be related to a community of werewolves. It’s a solid film from the 80s and features amazing werewolf effects. Part II (subtitled Your Sister is a Werewolf) picks up immediately after the first and is completely off the wall...like Christopher Lee in dance clubs and Sybil Danning getting naked kind of crazy.
Part 3 takes the franchise to Australia for a semi-spoof werewolf movie with family ties...it’s strange and not my cup of tea. Part 4 is essentially a retelling with some slight changes, interesting (but worse) werewolf effects, and a nonsense plot. Part 5 tells a unique story about an abandoned castle and people being picked off one by one, it ends up being a who-done-it along the lines of The Beast Must Die (though sadly no “werewolf break”). Part 6 is a garbage movie with shit special effects about a traveling freak show and a vampire. That brings us to the crown jewel, Part 7: New Moon Rising.
The Howling: New Moon Rising (1995)
Rating: 1/10
Director: Clive Turner
Runtime: 90 minutes
Cast: John Ramsden, Ernest Kester, Clive Turner
The behind the scenes of New Moon Rising is probably more interesting than the actual plot. Clive Turner wrote, produced, directed, and starred in NMR. The series was already in the toilet and subjected to direct to video releases for years, so I imagine the rights holders thought “What the hell?” and let Mr. Turner have his way with the series. The result is a catastrophe the likes of which is only seen every few decades. The bulk of the movie consists of random goofball hijinx, bad dad-jokes, and scenes from The Howling IV through VI.
The “plot” goes as such: A series of murders have happened in a small back-water country town, and a new arrival shows up on Harley with a case of country music on audio cassettes. Our main man Ted (Clive Turner) is a long haired Aussie that speaks only in puns and shitty jokes fits right in with a town of weirdos. Over the course of a few days/weeks, Ted befriends the whole town. Meanwhile, a priest tells the plot of The Howling 5 to a cop. Trying to figure out the timeline here is impossible, the editing suggests that it takes days to explaining what happened in the movie to this investigator.
Back in town, a shit load of country and western music is played, people line dance, and Ted tells bad jokes in between cleaning montages. Now a woman explains the plot to Howling IV to the priest (we assume he relays this info to the investigator over the course of a month or so). A few town folk are touched by a camera with a red filter on it and fall over, it’s later explained that their deaths resemble animal attacks. Oh Howling VI was mentioned earlier and I forgot about it...you will too, don’t worry.
A shit-load more country music is played, a bunch more bad jokes, and more dancing. There’s a few running gags about a country-western singer George Jones and dirt in a pot of chili. Finally, this whirlwind exciting plot comes to a head and the true werewolf is revealed. (Is my sarcasm too subtle?) Luckily the townsfolk are ready for it and gun the beast down the celebrate with another country song back at the bar.
Hell of a story, I know. So let’s go over the easy part of discussing a bad movie. The “acting” is atrocious. The entire town consists of residents of the town they filmed in. In fact, these people couldn’t be trusted with actual character names so they are portraying themselves. THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY EXIST?! Mullet Lady, bug-eyed guy, slow man, drunken old man, and semi-attractive girl all actually live in this shit hole of a town in real life. I’d like to imagine they all get together and watch this once a year, but they’re probably all dead by now.
As I mentioned before, the editing is a mess. The timeline makes no sense and the pace of the movie is a dull crawl through cold molasses the entire time. Directing-wise I suppose that it has the characters on screen and words come out of their mouths. Unfortunately, the words are written by Clive Turner, and he sees himself as a bit of a comedian. He comes off as the kind of guy you’d meet at an airport bar while your flight is delayed, you think he’s charming at first, but after the 4th pun he dishes out you’re headed for the next open terminal for a flight to anywhere but there.
Ok let’s talk about the music. I’m not a country fan, however it can be used to build up a scene or set a tone for a setting. What it can’t be used for is to pad the running time of your movie by randomly inserting a half dozen or so FULL SONGS into your film. What’s worse is when the people performing these songs are your “actors” that actually sing them. Just to remind you, these aren’t professional actors, nor are they professional singers. These are the bumpkins at the local karaoke bar who think themselves talented.
So a large portion of your running time is devoted to music performances, another large section is made up of clips from previous werewolf movies, and the rest is padded with boring setups for terrible jokes and montages of drinking and cleaning a bar. Of the 90 minutes there’s probably a good 4 minutes devoted to actual story and character development. What the fuck is this movie?! I’ll tell you what it is, it’s one of the most hilariously bad films ever to make it to your eyeballs. So set any expectations of traditional film making aside and enjoy the insane terribly acted joke filled ride. Sure the movie is only a 1 out of 10 but it earned that 1.
Bad movies are all around us, but only the truly terrible ones cross the line into enjoyment and The Howling: New Moon Rising is one of the worst movies ever made, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.