spencergrande6 Imagine you have to make a fourth Howling movie. Imagine that werewolves, their sisters and marsupials are all off limits. What do you do? If your answer is to go back to the novels, and make the first movie again but much more authentically, then I would say this is some kind of shitty internet ready remake that would suck all the life out of the film. Instead it's that but without the internet component and icky fan service. What you get instead is an incredibly boring movie. It's so slow. Nothing happens. There's no budget, fine, but why also must there be no fun? Lackadaisical la-de-da storytelling. My lord. At least the last two went for it. It's not terrible, but man have some imagination here. It's The Howling 4 for crying out loud.

Wuchak Released in 1988, "Howling IV: The Original Nightmare" chronicles events in the Southern Cal desert town of Drago, where a writer (Romy Windsor) goes to heal after a mental breakdown, which is hard to do when she gets caught up in a mystery about demons and werewolves. Michael T. Weiss plays her husband while Antony Hamilton plays her hunky friend from Los Angeles. Susanne Severeid appears as a fan of the writer who becomes her assistant sleuth while Norman Anstey in on hand as the aloof sheriff. Lamya Derval plays a shop-owner with cat-like eyes and torpedo breasts (sorry). The movie's subtitled "The Original Nightmare" because it's more faithful to Gary Brandner's original novel, which doesn't mean it's better, not even close. The low-budget prevents it from being anything more than a decent sequel with a rushed, awkward ending. Unlike the classic "The Howling" (1981), werewolves are scarce, but it's superior to "Howling II" (1985) and "Howling III" (1987) in that it throws out Phillippe Mora's goofy camp and general eccentricities. I like the slow-build mystery and the cast. There's some quality full moon ambiance as well and Windsor & Severeid make for an effective female team. Moreover, Weiss is one of the few actors who could get away with a mullet. While the bulk of the movie was shot in the sticks of South Africa, and you can tell, it's not THAT bad of a substitute for the desert wilderness of Southern Cal. Actually, it makes for an interesting change of pace for the barely-connected series of stand-alone werewolf flicks. The film runs 94 minutes and was shot in South Africa with some parts in Fresno & Los Angeles, California. It was directed by John Hough from a script by Clive Turner and Freddie Rowe. Clive would continue serious work with the franchise on 1989's "Howling V: The Rebirth" and 1995's "Howling: New Moon Rising." GRADE: C+

capkronos Joe Dante's THE HOWLING (1981) was one of the great cult horror hits of the 80s and a lot of that had to do with the director's ability to infuse a good sense of humor into the proceedings without sacrificing the scares in the process. However, it also took major liberties with the source novel of the same name by Gary Brandner, which displeased some fans. This third sequel attempts to right that wrong by presenting a more faithful version of the first book in Brandner's series. The basic plots of the two films are nearly identical, but the approach to the material is not. Gone from this one are the production values, the sense of humor, the scares, the trend-setting special effects and the great cast. This lower-budgeted film simply comes off by-the-numbers, humorless, dull and actually surprisingly amateurish considering the fact the director is very experienced in the horror genre.Bestselling author Marie Adams (Romy Windsor) is haunted by visions of a nun and wolf faces and ends up spending time in an asylum as a result. After she's released, her husband Richard (Michael T. Weiss) takes her to a remote cabin located deep in the woods so she can have some quiet, peaceful time to recuperate. It isn't long before our troubled heroine begins doubting her sanity once again. Every night she hears wolves howling in the woods, despite the fact the sheriff (Norman Anstey) keeps insisting there are no large animals in the area. She's haunted by more visions of the nun as well as the home's former occupants, her poodle Pierre disappears and is later found with its head cut off and a pair of hikers vanish without a trace. To make matters even more stressful and sinister, all of the people living in the small neighboring town of Drago behave strangely and secretively.Loose ends start to finally come together once Marie meets Janice Hatch (Susanne Severeid). A former nun herself, Janice is there looking for answers as to why another nun from her convent, Sister Ruth (Megan Kruskal), spent some time in the area and later went crazy and died. It's rather personal for Janice because Ruth was her lover and it also becomes personal for Marie seeing how her hubby has been spending a little too much time making special trips into town to visit an exotic, seductive shop owner named Eleanor (Lamya Derval). It should come as no surprise to anyone reading that the entire town is actually a haven for werewolves.There are three major problems that completely sink this film early on. The first is atrocious monotone acting from nearly everyone in the cast. It seems like many have been dubbed over and the audio recording is terrible to start with, so that may play some part is the thoroughly inept performances seen from nearly everyone in this film. The second major issue is the location. This is supposed to be taking place in Northern California but it was filmed in dusty, dry South Africa, which looks absolutely nothing like Northern California. The final major problem with this one is the pacing. It plays out like a boring made-for-TV "thriller" with endlessly talky scenes that don't contribute a thing of interest to an already utterly predictable plot. Even worse, this film wastes so much time on nothing for the first hour that it must then quickly rush through a choppily-edited finale in just a few minutes.The only positives in this one happen during the final few minutes and those are some Steve Johnson special effects, including a gory human meltdown and a guy ripping his face apart. Still, this is far from Johnson's best work. Aside from one brief flash of an actual werewolf (which seems to have been taken from another film altogether), the beasts are shown only as hairy-faced people and then as dogs in their full "transformation" stage later on. Very lame. The only other point of interest is that the opening 80s cheese-rock song ("Something Evil, Something Dangerous") was sung by Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues.

utgard14 Writer Marie Adams (Romy Windsor) is having strange visions. Marie's husband Richard (Michael T. Weiss) takes her to a cottage in the small town of Drago to relax and rest. The visions continue, however, and Marie eventually finds that the town of Drago is full of werewolves. The plot to this film is a reworking of the original Howling. Actually, it's a more faithful adaptation of the original novel in many respects. It also sucks big time. It's all very drab and tedious. Obviously the movie has fans. My sister is one of them. Growing up she actually preferred this film to the original Howling! Windsor and Weiss are fine, I guess, but it's all so dull. See the original or even the hilarious part 2 instead.