Hurlements IV

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!

Okay here's a great premise -- what would The Howling have been like if it was made by somebody without the talent or good sense of Joe Dante? Well, thanks to the fourth of the dire sequels, now we know. It would have sucked.

There are two good things I can say about this movie. First, it serves as a lesson about how not to adapt a book to the screen. Second, it shows how much of a great film The Howling is, simply by comparison. As it's another version of the same novel, you already pretty much know the plot ... a disturbed woman goes to a retreat of some kind in order to set her mind straight, and decides to investigate a mysterious howling in the woods. The only positive thing I'll say about the adaptation is that it retains the strong religious element from the book, which was neglected in the Joe Dante version. This movie is apparently a lot closer to Gary Brandner's novel, but it lacks any of the flavour, metaphor or subtext.

First off, you don't care about the characters. Secondly, it just isn't scary. Director John Hough may manage to stay faithful to the book like some kind of a literary parrot, but apparently he hasn't heard of those things we call mood or pace or style ... in no way does this feel like a horror movie (it features the most un-frightening ghosts I've ever seen in a film). It's not even a particularly well-made film, and I noticed several errors in continuity. The acting isn't great, as all of the cast seem to belong on a soap opera, but by no means is that the worst thing about the movie. Also, for some odd reason all the dialogue is dubbed. Badly. And there's no excuse for it ... it just distracts you from the rest of the scene (or perhaps that was the intention). The special effects are actually very good, but unfortunately you don't see any of them until the last ten minutes of the movie when they're all thrown together in a hectic mish-mash.

Why do we need this movie? It sure beats me. There's absolutely no reason to watch it, unless you're curious about the original novel but can't be bothered to read it. Joe Dante's The Howling is superior in every single way.

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.

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.

Gary Brandner wrote The Howling trilogy. Seven The Howling

movies were made from these books. Even though this movie

may seem like a remake of the original, it is actually the one movie

closest to the first book. When seen from this perspective it's a

pretty good movie. Plus you get to see Michael T. Weiss (of TV's

Pretender fame) with a mullet! What more can you ask for from a horror movie with the number 4

after it?