Would I need to watch the other Underworld movies first?

The whole franchise is a bliss to watch.

Being familiar with previous instalments will surely immerse you in the mythology of Underworld, and get you excited for the latest movie.

However, you can still understand the story without knowing the backstories. But it might lower the enjoyment level.

I invited a few friends to join me in going to the cinema, and those who were complete Underworld novices considered the movie too fast-paced for them, and those who were already fans like me loved the movie very much.

Effective trolling is art.

it would help, but don't watch them all in one go, give it intervals. They are very similar in tone and colour, and 8 hours of dulled out night scenes would do your head in eventually (not to mention the quality degradation after the first movie).

And that would destract from your experience of the final one.

I would suggest a gap of a day or 2 between each.

I don't know your reasons for watching it, but I only watched the first one for the first time a few days before I saw this one. I understood most of it just fine. There were things here and there that I didn't know, but there was nothing that ruined it for me completely. I don't think you really have to watch all of them.

Go with your heart, buddy. Our brains only screw things up.

You'll probably be able to follow the film well enough without seeing any of the previous films. In particular, you can skip Rise of the Lycans without missing out on too much. It's a prequel that doesn't tie in a whole lot to the story in the rest of the films.

there's a little "recap" at the beginning which does a decent job of hitting the major marks. i went with 2 "newbies" and heard no complaints about being lost or confused, they enjoyed it despite not having seen or even knowing the other movies existed.

Yes-ish. The movie's plot is fairly contained and there's lots of flashbacks. But they serve more to "refresh" rather than "catch up to speed." However, the ties to the previous films are more emotional and character development based, rather than story. I'm not sure the cracked out werewolf makes sense unless you've seen the previous films though.

<Goodbye friends. This community was the best thing ever.>

Yes

No. They literally start every single movie with a recap of everything. The first five minutes or so are narration and clips from the movies before it. Seriously, you don't need to start from the beginning.