Howling IV: The Original Nightmare

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?

Gives new meaning to the term "low budget movie!" Obviously someone decided, "Hey lets re-make the original HOWLING and get the series back on track?" Yeah well, you need a Director, actors and a script for that. When your budget runs to barely a week's supply of Big Macs this might be aiming a tad high!

This is one god-awful cheap-looking crappily acted mess with the most unsustainably fake and illogical werewolf transformation in history. Having the victim regress to a pile of glutinous mush then (quick reversal of film) reconstitute himself as a lycanthropic tease with major orthodontic problems? Huh???? not to mention the hour or so everyone's been yawning, wondering where the film actually is!

They even had the temerity to rip off the original's finale...herding all the K-mart inspired werewolves into a belltower for a spot of the old mass-destruction! Not that you can actually SEE anything!

For reasons of international "co-operation" shall we say, this abysmal flick was shot in South Africa with the majority of the cast being locals, needing to be dubbed into Anericanese during post-production. It shows!

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.

Of 'The Howling' franchise, the best of the films will always be the first by some considerable distance. While not perfect, it's the only one classed by me as good, still having a lot of wit and atmosphere with amazing effects. Don't consider the numerous sequels (seen as part of a franchise completest quest) completely disposable, but all of them have major problems and are nowhere near close to being as good, suffering primarily from looking cheap, poorly written and acted and either being far too silly from taking the camp to extremes or being too serious.

Didn't care at all for the previous two sequels, which suffered from all the above problems bar the being too serious one, the excessive campiness and cheapness indicating films made by people who had completely forgotten seemingly what was good about 'The Howling'. It is hard to say whether 'Howling IV' is better or worse than the previous two instalments, in my mind they are as very bad as each other in their own way. Sure 'Howling IV' is one of the more faithful 'Howling' films to the source material, as has been mentioned frequently here, and it does try to take itself more seriously compared to the previous two sequels with the daftness and campiness being nowhere near as strong.

Sadly, all of this should have made 'Howling IV' a superior film but it is an instance of being more faithful not being a good thing. Have actually found this a lot in the past, when a re-make or another version of a book etc. is made that is more faithful in some way but in translation loses what made the previous version(s) so memorable on its own terms or doesn't have the same amount of impact. That was one of 'Howling IV's' biggest issues, it completely lacks the wit and atmosphere of 'The Howling' and has the opposite problem of the previous two sequels of being completely bland and taking itself too seriously. For most of the film, there is absolutely no tension or suspense and what little there is of the story is meandering, contrived and with nothing to it. On top of the first quarter of an hour being rather rushed, on the most part 'Howling IV' takes far too long to get going with interminably sloggy pacing, often uneventful stoytelling and too much emphasis on very talky and utterly uninteresting melodrama passing for dialogue and drama.

The acting from a largely unknown cast is better not going into too much detail because there isn't really much acting going on to warrant talking about. Not one redeeming cast member and they are all as bad as each other that giving an award for who fared worst of all would be hard. 'Howling IV' on the most part looks cheap, with editing that really lacks flow and feels slapped together while the camera work is chaotic and the lighting dreary. Most of the effects are slapdash at best and they and any gore are used gratuitously, despite being present much less than in the previous two films. The werewolves are criminally underused and are not scary at all while the direction has no character, style or pace.

What does redeem 'Howling IV' a little are a few things. It does pick up a little in the last twenty minutes, where there is a little fun and well-timed genuine shocks (too far and between) that come far too late. A few of the effects are decent and a little credit is due for them not being overused or being as bad-looking as in 'Howling II' and 'III'.

Likewise with the music, which is a lot less intrusive or inappropriately cheap here with a nice enough main theme that doesn't grate.

So all in all, a mess and far from terrifying but with a few merits. 3/10 Bethany Cox

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.