Direct to Video: Following the third film, all the movies were released direct-to-video.
Follow the Leader: It's pretty obvious that Reborn was made to cash-in on the Twilight craze, such as making the main protagonists teenagers and featuring a prominent romantic plotline and lots of teen drama.
Franchise Killer: Howling: New Moon Rising effectively killed the franchise for sixteen years until 2011 when the series was rebooted. While The Howling: Reborn got a better reception than New Moon Rising, it still didn't do much to revitalise the franchise; the 2017 comic book series Revenge of the Werewolf Queen (which completely ignores all the film sequels) did more to get people interested in The Howling again, with it being announced in 2020 that a remake is in the works.
No Budget: Though the exact budget of New Moon Rising isn't known, clues to just how minimal it was are the fact that it was shot on video, and only had four actual actors (one of whom was also the writer-producer-director-editor-accountant, and another of whom was returning from IV) with all the other actors being just random townsfolk playing themselves. In addition, about a quarter of the film is stock footage from IV and V, and another big chunk is Padding consisting of line dancing and people sitting around drinking. Then there's the copious level of Special Effect Failure in the roughly thirty seconds that we see the film's werewolf...
The Howling: Reborn (2011) came out 16 years after New Moon Rising (1995); the poor reception of New Moon Rising likely contributed in this case, with Reborn notably being a reboot that ignores the events of New Moon Rising.
The comic Revenge of the Werewolf Queen is a direct continuation of the first film, ignoring the other seven films, and came out in 2017, 36 years after the 1981 movie.
