VeteranLight
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
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.
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.
Spikeopath
Back in 1976 as a wee boy I committed an act of youthful vandalism and readily managed to get one of my young pals blamed for it. On the 28th March 2014 I watched Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, this was an act of such cunning punishment I believe I was being paid back for my youthful misadventure. The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways!So this one is closer to Gary Brandner's source material, but that doesn't excuse what a bad film it is. Basically it's a reworking of the original classic Joe Dante film from 1981, shifting the locale doesn't fool anyone, what follows barely registers as a Werewolf movie, let alone as a piece of entertainment. Acting is out of a Kinder Egg and the direction equally so. Justin Hayward's theme song is decent, and Godfrey A. Godar's colour toning for his photography is pleasingly appropriate, but this really only serves as punishment cinema.So, Robert, I'm sorry for 1976, you can consider your revenge well and truly enacted. Please consider the matter closed and don't summon up any more films like this for me to suffer. 2/10
trashgang
Another entry in the worst franchise ever. This is almost unwatchable due the slowness of the flick. I made sure that I had the uncut version to see all the gore. And be advised. If you are collecting the Howling franchise do please pick up the uncut version otherwise there's nothing to see. It's only the last 15 minutes that contain horror. O yes, throughout the flick a couple is killed but you don't see any werewolf, you only hear him howling, next shot, a throat being bitten. But it is in fact the transformation that makes it watchable but you have to sit almost 80 minutes in a boring flick to see it. It isn't your typical transformation. The person melts completely in gory fashion and resurrect as a werewolf. Once a werewolf it just looks cheesy. Or just see the doctor showing his real face. Camp and cheesy.Start this flick, go wash yourself, do the laundry, just do everything you have to do but set an alarm after 80 minutes, from there this flick delivers. Oh,before I forget it, yes there's a bit of small nudity.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5
