The Werewolf Reborn!

I'm stumped.  What remarks can I make when a film is so...unremarkable?  In the late 90's, Charles Band created a subdivision of Full Moon features called Pulsepounders.  These were silly, comestible genre dishes custom-built for prepubescent geeks.  Filmonsters! (that has to be the most superfluous exclamation point in the history of mankind) was a quasi-division of Pulsepounders developed as an homage to Universal classics.  Only two projects came to fruition, both written by Benjamin Carr.  As you can imagine, The Werewolf Reborn! (that has to be the second most superfluous exclamation point in the history of mankind) is a housetrained, attenuated update of 1941's The Wolf Man.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating.  It's incredibly hard to review a mediocre subject.  And boy howdy, The Werewolf Reborn! is mediocre.  It's so mediocre, that it barely exists.  Conversely, I don't regret watching it.  Certain aspects of the production appealed to my folksy, jejune sensibilities.  I am a horror junkie divided.  This calls for a list of pros and a list of cons...yay?  Congratulations, Mr. Band.  You have produced a werewolf flick too tempestuously prosaic to be described by coherent paragraphs.  In consequence, you have broken journalism.  Do you have any idea how many filmmakers would love to silence critics?  I'm not giving you the silent treatment, though.  No, that would be the mature thing to do.

PROS

~ If you'll notice, I have yet to blame director Jeff Burr for The Werewolf Reborn!'s general drabness.  There was only so much he could do to salvage the script.  I've always championed his efforts behind the camera (check out 1990's The Stepfather II or 1995's Night of the Scarecrow), and he manages to pepsinate this cheapie with eye-catching visuals.  The beautiful scenery doesn't hurt.

~ I'm not naive.  I understand that the ground-level budget probably played a hand in the decision to opt for "old school" make-up effects, but I don't care.  Whatever the impetus, I dug the basic look of the werewolf.  The year was 1999, so CGI was definitely available.  You have to applaud traditional tricks of the trade.

~ Surprisingly, the acting is focused.  The trailer stresses the fact that our heroine (Ashley Lyn Cafagna) was a principal player on Saved by the Bell: The New Class.  Alright.  Fucking Uncle Leo from Seinfeld plays a hard-boiled detective, and he actually kicks ass.  The rest of the cast is practically faceless.  Man, Uncle Leo should have played the werewolf.

CONS

~ The promotional material for the Filmonsters! series compares each bloodcurdling convoy to an episode of Goosebumps.  That's accurate, mainly because The Werewolf Reborn! runs for 45 minutes.  You read that right.  This fucker ends quicker than a lubricious romp with...well, Uncle Leo.  I didn't have enough time to become emotionally invested in the characters or the storyline.  Speaking of which, the "plot" follows a teenaged girl sent to live with her uncle.  Her uncle is a werewolf.  The end.

~ This con is fairly obvious.  I almost feel redundant typing it, but we don't get to see an ounce of violence.  Yeah, it's targeted at fledgling sprouts.  I wasn't expecting wall-to-wall gore, but c'mon!  Do we raise our children under the assumption that monsters are content to leave tiny, inconspicuous scars?  I know I won't, provided that I multiply.  My kid will be scared shitless on a daily basis.  "Clean your room, son.  Remember, werewolves are real, and they will fucking mangle you."

Wow.  I'm honestly impressed that I was able to write more than three sentences about The Werewolf Reborn!.  Oh, the pros/cons portion of today's program is officially over.  I was going to italicize it to avoid confusion.  Maybe I should.  Eh, fuck it.