spencergrande6
Finally someone has the cajones to put werewolves in a castle and initiate murder mystery slasher mode. My god, how did it take till 1989 to kick this into gear? And what fun we have here!At least in terms of a C-movie eclectic character cast and some cool castle cinematography. This is a murder mystery where you don't really care about the reveal, and you know it's a werewolf anyway so the why isn't important. It's also a slasher where there's not much bloodletting or fun. It lies somewhere flatly in-between these two genres that share so much in common and yet can't meet a happy middle ground.
b_kite
A Count (Phil Davis) assembles a group of people from different walks of life to tour a Hungarian castle situated in Budapest which has been sealed off for 500 years, they bring with them a werewolf which slowly begins to cut their numbers down. This one which was filmed in Budapest and directed by Neal Sundstrom, whose largest directing credit was that he co-directed 1988's Space Mutiny with Reb Brown. This one contains the same writing team as the boring fourth entry and its nice to see that they stepped it up by giving it a cool as hell castle in Europe with lots of snow going on, it takes on a Agatha Christie feel and ultimately is pretty much a variation of "Ten Little Indians", in parts you almost fill like your drawn into the castle at some points, so the plot is good and unique and fits well. As for the characters they are mostly a little flat but some are likable my three favorites were Ray Price played by co-writer, screenplay writer, and producer Clive Turner (whose name will return again in this franchise!), David Gillespie who was played by Ben Cole and Jonathan Lane who was played by Mark Sivertsen. One thing however I didn't like and I guess its all about the budget, which Wikipedia says was about $2 million, but, I don't think the film used much of the castle, characters stumble into the same places and venture into the same areas several times, but, still its nothing to rant about. The special effects are decent I think they used the wolf costume from the previous installment here and you really don't see any of it nor the werewolf itself, in one scene it looks to be a man in a waist high costume and its in the shadows so you don't see nothing, a better shot of the werewolf's face is later seen towards the end, but, still its not really shown at all, also take note that this is the only film in the entire series to not feature a werewolf transformation so that sucks, what also sucks is that in the very beginning of the film a group of Hungarian people living in the castle commit suicide, I want say why! but, the movie then tries to convince use towards the end SPOILERS! that the group are actually decedents of these people even tho most of them are American and one is Australian so that's kinda hard to believe. Also the film towards the third act kinda gives up who the werewolf is if you pay attention, and I was right! The acting here is decent I got more out of the male characters then the female characters, but, other then the performance by Elizabeth She as Mary Lou Summers and I don't know if she was putting on the whole airhead girl character or if she was acting it out but either way it wasn't that good, everyone else is decent and does a OK job (Davis and Catlin being the two best here), the dialogue however gets pretty stupid in some scenes, but, isn't all bad. The only person here that really went on to do anything else was William Shockley who is mostly known for playing bartender Hank Lawson on "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" and he serves as the only really familiar face, and Victoria Catlin who also played on "Twin Peaks". As for violence and nudity, there's some bloody throat ripping's, but, thats about it, and as for nudity Mary Stavin shows off her breasts in one scene while Elizabeth She despite her acting shows off her beautiful rump and body in another scene. If it wasn't for these two things the film could have probably past for a PG-13 rating. All in all I have to say "Howling V: The Rebirth" is the best of the sequels i have seen so far, its no masterpiece, it suffers from the usual problems here, bad acting, bad occasional dialogue, and also lacks a good soundtrack song like the previous three sequels had even tho the theme here is still good, but, to me it doesn't have to be great, it entertained me that's all that matters.
utility_infielder
I have to be honest, I did not enjoy this movie AT ALL until the final moments. Despite hearing that this was one of the more solid entries in 'The Howling' franchise, it didn't live up to my expectations on practically ANY level. The acting was not good, the music was painfully cheesy and melodramatic, and the pacing was beyond slow. The sets were nice, but looked like nothing more than what you'd see in a typical Full Moon title of the era.I had my cursor hovering over "3 stars" as the movie was reaching its end, however, the final moments saved it from being a complete waste of time and turned it into something relatively enjoyable. The film's conclusion was smart, surprising, and not something most writers of this "genre" gave much care to at the time.As long as you're able to tolerate an incredibly slow second act, I'd say give it a look.
gavin6942
When a group of people from different walks of life converge in a Hungarian castle situated in Budapest which has been sealed for 500 years, they bring with them a werewolf which slowly begins to cut their numbers down.As I like to say, I would rather watch a bad 1980s horror film than a bad 2010s horror film. This is a prime example of that. While it has very little redeeming about it (trying to latch on the disreputable "Howling" franchise is its first mistake), I still like the general 1980s style of horror film better than many of the failures made today.Some have compared this to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", which is probably fair. But if you are going to do that, you may as well compare it to "The Beast Must Die", which was a werewolf film that followed a similar concept. And heck, "Beast" is a great film... much better than this one.
