Howling IV: The Original Nightmare

The writing makes it painfully obvious what characters are good, evil, or just naive. You would have to be pretty thick to be surprised by any of the plot twists thrown your way. All the canned dialogue comes from the worst movies we've groaned at in the past. Special FX kick in towards the end, but end all too abruptly as does the film.

If we've got to have a Howling movie so similar (plot-wise) to the first one, could we at least have it improve on the original in just one way? Apparently not.

Marie Adams (Romy Windsor) is a successful author who suffers what appears to be a nervous breakdown after seeing visions of a nun and a wolf like creature. Told by her doctor it may be stressed related, Marie and her husband Richard (Michael T. Weiss) travel from the din of L. A. to the isolated town of Drago where Richard has secured a cottage. While initially the secluded hideaway seems perfect for some rest and relaxation, repeated nights of a mysterious howling coupled with strange events lead Marie to believe her visions may not be the product of an overactive imagination.

After the success of the Howling III, rights holder and producer Steven Lane was approached by producer Harry Alan Towers (best known for his hand in various Fu Manchu films) about producing a Howling sequel in Africa as part of a tax shelter. Unlike the smooth production of Howling III, Howling IV experienced issues from the very beginning with Towers allegedly disappearing upon the crew's arrival, providing only part of what he had promised, and the crew were shocked to learn they were to produce the film in South Africa rather than a neighboring country. Despite a bevy of production issues (many of which Lane and effects artist Steve Johnson laid at the feet of director John Hough), Howling IV: The Original Nightmare continued the success of Howling III ensuring that additional sequels would be produced. Unlike the fascinating trainwreck of Howling II or the swing for the fences insanity of Howling III, Howling IV looks and feels like a stereotypical direct-to-video film with a paper thin plot stretched to the nth degree past tolerance.

I'll start off by saying the best things in this movie are the Justin Hayward performed theme song "Something Evil, Something Dangerous" and Steve Johnson's effects work in the climax of the movie. While the movie past the opening credits with that song are a tedious bore before the outlandish display of effects work at the last 10 minutes, at least the movie begins and ends on a good (sometimes literal) note. Unfortunately for us there's an entire movie sandwiched between those two highpoints, and it's filled with the most tedious running in circles narrative one can have. While having a married couple come to a secluded community only to slowly find out something's wrong as tension builds between them is a rich setup (it's basically a copy of the first Howling film with The Colony), Romy Windsor and Michael T. Weiss don't come off as compelling leads and fail to replicate the chemistry The Howling gave us. Both actors come off as overly reserved and stiff and with John Hough's slack direction with a story that's not that interesting, it only serves to remind you of how little actually happens in the movie. By my most generous memory, I don't believe we actually see a werewolf until about the 70 minute mark as the hour leading up to the reveal is just a bunch of would be scare sequences built around Marie's waking dreams that only become annoying because they have no consequences and the audiences know there's no consequences. We eventually get to a decent climax involving the wolves (and several dogs standing in for wolves) that has some decent transformation work (like a "melting" man animatronic) and a decent sequence involving a bell tower, but the movie leading up to it has been such a "nothing" experience you really don't care like you should.

I'm not naive when it comes to watching a movie like Howling IV, I know this movie doesn't have the means or resources to compete with its iconic original or bigger studio werewolf movies but it should at least play to some level of trashy, exploitative, or ironic level of enjoyment and it doesn't. It doesn't have the weird disjointed feel of Howling II that made that film's failures so fascinating, it doesn't have the far out insanity of Howling III done with its surprising level of earnestness, and instead it's just a dull retread of the setup of the first film only without the good performances or passion.

Howling IV starts out decent enough, but by the end of the film it degrades to something less than average. The main problem with this movie is its very slow pace. Those looking for action-packed werewolf sequences will not find it here. In fact, you don't even see a werewolf until almost the end of the movie. This could have been excusable, if there was enough suspense to make the viewer want to keep watching until the end. Unfortunately, the audience's suspense is replaced with impatience. I kept looking at the clock, wondering when a werewolf would actually show up. When the werewolves finally do make their grand entrance, it is disappointing. They consist of: A) dogs with red eyes and B) actors in cheesy masks. And the transformation sequence of a human into a werewolf - something the original Howling was famous for - is bizarre and goofy in this movie. Recommendation: see it for free on TV if nothing else is on, but don't bother renting.

It is called the original nightmare because this is an update remake of the first Howling movie. In both movies, a husband and wife retreat to a small town that turns out to be full of werewolves. I like this update, this is definitely a breath of fresh air to the series. Special effects weren't terrible and I loved the the different ideas of how people change into a werewolf. One melts into a puddle of goo in a gruesome scene when he is walking in the woods and drops to the ground and begins to literally melt and then comes back together as a werewolf. Well done scene Tom Savini worthy. There is another man that rips the skin off of his jaw and it grows and he turns into a werewolf. Alot of memorable scenes in this movie makes this a standout movie in the werewolf horror genre and is definitely one of the best movies out of the series.

A well known female journalist takes a needed break out in the Californian countryside along with her husband(?) but there are mysterious things going on, the locals aren't very friendly and at night she can hear howling! More of a remake than a sequel. We don't get to see a werewolf proper until after an hour into the film, but prior to that there is horror in the form of psychological tension & ghostly happenings. Now I can understand many viewers feeling cheated by this but for me personally I felt that it worked fine. However, last half hour provides enough werewolf action to make the wait worthwhile. The best transformation scene sees a man literally MELT into a werewolf. There's a fair smattering of gore plus one inevitable sex scene. I'm not sure if the film was dubbed but sometimes the speech & mouth actions don't match, but just a minor moan. Obviously I'm in the minority here but like I said I found it reasonably entertaining & trust me, there are far worse werewolf movies out there!