The Howling: New Moon Rising (1995) · 9:09am Sep 26th, 2015
Princess Celestia recently got the royal treatment in an op ed piece declaring that she was not a boring character. Well, I for one think that this notion is hilarious. Of course, she's not a boring character! The truth is, any character can be exciting, engaging or even interesting if handled properly. The problem with Princess Celestia is that she, for the most part, has been handled in a boring way.
In the first couple of seasons she might as well have been Charlie from Charlie's Angels. She was the equivalent of a voice in a box who occasionally gave direction but, mostly just got paperwork. She would on occasion show up for some event or a gag. We learn she has an impish sense of humor, that she's very kind, wise, fairly old and can be defeated (most of it we're told). That's about it. In season three we learn that she can magically make you an alicorn like she is and that she is very much about the delegating of responsibility. In season four we get a flashback and are basically told that putting her sister in moon jail was tough, alicorns are sort of psychic and she really likes to delegate that responsibility.
The real problem that the character of Princess Celestia has is that she hasn't had an episode (or two or three) devoted to her. She hasn't taken a truly on screen, active role in anything in the show that is of any real importance. With Princess Luna we have her being evil in multiple episodes. We have episodes of her dealing with themes of guilt, social awkwardness, fear, lying, and growing up. With Princess Cadence we've seen she very nice and that honestly she (along with Shining Armor) can kick a little butt. She and Shining Armor have defeated half of the main villains in this show. She's also been shown to have a lot of similar traits as Princess Celestia and is quite mature. Finally, Twilight Sparkle IS more or less the main character of the show and we've seen her growth from the start.
What Celestia needs is screen time. She needs a legitimate character arc. She needs to not have her history told to us in summary or via flashback. She has to overcome something. She has to fight something. She has to be the penultimate princess and not just cannon (or canon ha ha) fodder for Twilight Sparkle's eventual ascent. Flashback and an occasional walk on do not make for worthwhile character development.
Princess Celestia and the werewolf (werewolves) of The Howling: New Moon Rising share the same traits. They don't really do anything, are spoken of mostly in flashback, and when we finally do see one show up it's for about four seconds and by that point you're out of beer and have moved on to other things.
The Howling: New Moon Rising is the magnum opus of Clive Turner who wrote, directed, edited, produced and starred in this little gem (He also produced Lawnmower Man 2 but that's not important right now). The majority of his cast are the residents of Pioneer Town, California who play characters with the same names as them. Aside from Turner the only two people at that point in time that had any acting credits were Romy Windsor ( Surf Ninjas) and John Huff who was in some silent movie apparently. With that in mind I think you know what to expect as far as performances go.
So as far as this movie goes, there have been murders in the desert and an Australian cowboy biker (Turner) who has a love of George Jones and can unzip and zip his fly real fast to the song Deep in the Heart of Texas becomes the main suspect by the locals (eventually). Meanwhile a local detective is questioning a local priest and they think that maybe, possibly there's the chance that these murders might be caused by werewolves, if the flashbacks are any indication. Of course, it could also be the choreographed bar cleaning, drinking and line dancing too, or the dirt that gets in Pappy's chili. I dunno anymore.
Stats:
23 dead bodies (Thanks flashbacks)
4 dead werewolves
Throat Ripping
Head Rolls
Melting Husband
Tourist Chopping
Dirt Ravaged Chili
Gratuitous Satanic Line Dancing
Gratuitous Sing-a-long
Billy Club Fu
Werewolf Vision Fu
Choreographed Everything Fu
Shout Outs:
John Ramsden as The Detective for interrupting the flashbacks because he needs to get some air or needs a drink or something.
Romy Windsor for showing up for the day or so it took to do her roll.
The people of Pioneer Town, California for giving it there all.
Clive Turner for making a movie that once you see it you won't forget it.
There are no previews but, the movie is posted up in a few places.
I've been semi-out-of-commission for a few days. I was wondering if another howler might have emerged in my pseudo-absence.
I see one did.
One of these days I need to start doing "bad movie nights" with people again. I was worried I'd run out of grist for the mill. But you keep feeding me more...
3433737 Well, I hope that whatever it was that had you semi-out-of-commission has been taken care of and that now you are right as rain!
Yeah this one came to mind because it was late (early?) and I figured sometimes you have to just share, you have to care... okay I'm done pseudo singing
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Don't worry about me running out of material though. I have a long list of movies I can work from. My one rule is that at some point I have to tie it in to something pony related because (even if it is a stretch), ya know, the website.