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Howling: New Moon Rising AKA Howling VII: Mystery Woman
R2 - United Kingdom - Prism Direct/Leisure Review written by and copyright: Samuel Scott (10th May 2013). |
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The Film
 ***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A must for all "Howling" fans, the latest in one of the biggest horror franchises in history. Shortly after an Australian journalist, Ted, arrives in a small peaceful town in California the town is rocked by a series of vicious murders. The town folk are keen to lay blame at the feet of the stranger and he has to battle to show not only his own innocence, but to prove his suspicions that a malevolent force is at work. When each of the murders coincides with a full moon Ted realises that this could only be the work of a werewolf, and with each new moon another victim is doomed to become a  werewolf...suddenly survival has become a race against time!
Video
Prism Leisure released "Howling VII: Mystery Woman" to dvd way back in 2005 in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Unfortunately for the very few fans this movie actually has, the original aspect ratio is the only thing that Prism have managed to do right in this awfully lazy release. First of all, let's just say the picture quality is among the worst I've seen - and that includes some of the horrendous public domain prints that are knocking about. In fact, it's so bad, I've seen plenty of better VHS releases from budget companies of the 80s/90s. This looks as though it has been sourced from a fifth generation video tape it's that bad. Now I'm not the type of person who is overly critical on the picture quality of low budget horror movies - in fact I tend to give them a wide berth and enter with low expectations, but there is no need for any movie to be released like this. There is no detail in the print at all, with objects fuzzy and no sharpness. You can't even make out what some of the items on the bar or on tables are, despite the items being close to where the 'action' is. Colours are very soft and washed out, not to mention muted. Scratches dominate and there isn't a single moment which manages to look even remotely good. You got the picture yet? This is poor. Very poor.
Audio
There is a single audio track available here: - English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo For the amount of seperation it has, I'm more inclined to think this is actually dual mono, however my equipment and a couple of information tools flag it as stereo. The audio fares only slightly better picture quality. During the first few scenes there are a number of very noticeable audio dropouts and scratches that make a bit of a popping noise. Dialogue is often mumbled, sound effects and the score have absolutely no depth, and there are multiple problems with volume consistency. If all that wasn't enough, there are no subtitles included so you can't even read the mumbled dialogue that way.
Extras
Extras? You're joking right?
Overall
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