Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)

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.

This film is terrible. I got more entertainment out of parts 2 and 3 - at least they were comical - this one is just flat out boring. I give them credit for trying to create a serious, non campy, werewolf flick but why so boring, so drab? I saw this one years ago and I couldn't recall anything about it, tried watching it again recently and now I know why the film didn't stand out in my mind - it's just bad.The lead male looks like David Copperfield's long lost illegitimate son. The lead female is rather bland - but then again so is the rest of the cast.I think I'll just leave this one in the past where it belongs. Not worth finishing the movie - leave it as a distant, fading memory.2/10

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+

After undergoing a psychological breakdown, a writer staying at a secluded cabin and a friend try to convince her skeptical husband that the ghostly visions of werewolves she sees are real and sets out to solve the mystery of their appearance.This here is a really entertaining and enjoyable werewolf entry, and a rather underrated horror effort in any regard. One of the main selling points in this one, and one of the better aspects of the whole series, is the fact that this one manages to come up with a grossly entertaining and engaging mystery set-up with the werewolf history in the town, the appearance of the two girls and the town itself, mixed well together and made it incredibly entertaining and interesting, since it's a well-designed storyline that moves into greater, more threatening detail as more is discovered later on in the film. As this is accomplished with the mixing of a great sense of reality-or-dreams, creepy locals in a creepy locale as the night-time scenes are pretty tense and a fair degree of werewolf action and it turns into a rather entertaining affair before all the graphic violence and enjoyable werewolf-makeup are utilized, which here are all done incredibly well and features enough to appease gore-hounds and those looking for the more traditional werewolf style. It even manages a few good scare scenes, mainly the transformation after a sex scene but a couple others get spread out in the film as well, making it all the better. The main complaint about this one, beyond the low-budget nature, is the sense of déjà-vu that permeates this one due to its storyline and plot origins, but that really isn't as noticeable as it should be, and overall, this one is pretty fun.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Sexual Situations and Adult Language