Dorathen Better Late Then Never

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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.

b_kite An author (Romy Winsor) who was sent to the small town Drago, because of a nervous breakdown, gets wound up in a mysterious mystery about demons and werewolves. She starts seeing ghosts and dismisses them as her own imagination, but when they turn out to be real, she starts to get suspicious of the odd town and of its past. This one has some talent behind it, directed by John Hough who also directed such horror films as Twins of Evil (1971) and The Legend of Hell House (1973), one has to say that Howling IV: The Original Nightmare has to be one of the weaker films in the series, for starters it was the first in the series to get the direct-to-video treatment which is what the rest of the series would all be subject to, and second you can see they where operating on a shoe string budget as the sets are limited as are the variety of actors. It is a so so remake of Joe Dante's original film, and declares that it is closer to the source material to Gary Brandtner's novels, but, what this film tries to do is develop a slow burn concept just like in the original film, in that film you really didn't know you were dealing with werewolves until the middle of the story here you don't even here the word "werewolf" until about 1 hour into the film and then its just a passing occurrence, that would be fine but it doesn't help that this film is the fourth entry in a line of werewolf films, and doesn't help that you have a picture of one on your cover, so by this time the secret is up and there's no way in hell the slow burn concept is going to work and it winds up just killing the film and making it boring as everyone knows whats going on and what the main monster is in the film. That was one thing about the second and third sequels director Phillipe Mora never developed a slow burn effect nor was afraid to come out and say his films were about werewolves, that's the problem here. But, still when released this film won Fangoria's Golden Chainsaw award for best direct-to-video release of 1988, so I guess that's something.As for the acting its once again nothing to brag about, since it was filmed in South Africa to probably save costs most of the characters dialogue seems dubbed and i think it is, are main lead Romy Windsor is rather wooden in her performance as are main heroin, and her husband played by future "Pretender" star Michael T. Weiss isn't much better. The special effects are pretty good tho as we have a great creepy melt scene were a man melts and comes back to life as a werewolf which doesn't make any since but is cool as hell anyways, it looks to be what most of the films budget was probably used for, most of the wolves are obviously played by dogs, which isn't that bad and we have a werewolf costume which looks creepy as all hell and the townspeople all make partial transformations which once again goes back to the budget. As for violence and nudity, the melt scene is probably the worst and a man pulls his face off in one scene and a man is scratched by a werewolf, Lamya Derval shows off her breasts, in one scene, and also her very bad acting in several scenes, a Elisabeth Brooks she is not.All in all, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare winds up being a boring film mostly because of the fact that it tries to keep the fact its a werewolf movie a secret which by the fourth time is just plain stupid, other issues include bad acting, horrible dialogue , and very bad choppy editing, it could have been one of the better entries in the series, I manage to sit throw it mostly due to my liking and tolerance for b grade movies, but, I try to be straight about these types of films and other horror fans probably wont be as patient as me, so its worth the watch if you have the patients for it.

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

GL84 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