The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)

If you've seen the original Howling, then you probably already noticed a couple of similarities between this movie and its prequel. There's more: the faithless husband who ends up falling for a werewolf and becomes one himself; the concept of a small, rural community exclusively for werewolves; the death of said werewolves via a massive fire, and a few others. Only with Howling IV the plot has been greatly simplified and stupified. Suprisingly (or maybe not), this film's plot is supposed to be much more true to the original "Howling" novel by Gary Brandner. Did it occur to anyone that maybe The Howling's lack of faithfulness to the source material was conceivably a good thing?

Now, I haven't read the book, but if it's just like this dreck I think I'd rather take a hammer to the skull. Whatever liberties the original film version of The Howling took helped make it a fresh, modernized look at the werewolf mythos. Apparently, by not being so free with the novel, Howling IV becomes a pretty boring, standard werewolf flick without even the slightest hint of originality. I guess this means we can throw "The Howling" novel in with "Jaws" under the category of novels that are actually worse than the movies spawned by them.

The film kicks right off with poor Marie having a weird vision about a nun (this already leads to a huge plot problem, which I'll get to later) while at lunch with her editor. For some reason, this causes her to have a breakdown of some kind, and, a scene later, we find her at the psychiatrist's. In The Howling, the psychiatrist is a fairly major character and one that contributes both to the plot and the film's theme concerning modern civilization's possibly futile attempts to subdue everybody's 'inner beast.' Here, though, he's just a plot device: get Marie to Draco, that happy little town populated exclusively by Satanic werewolves (oops, hope I didn't give anything away there).

With their poodle Pierre (!) in tow and in a nice red convertible that proudly says "We're not just yuppie scum, but 80's yuppie scum," Marie and her husband Richard, who bears an eerie resemblence (in my opinion) to the Miami Vice-era Don Johnson, make their way to Draco. On the way, they're stopped by Draco's Sheriff. In a chilling confrontation, the Sheriff asks our protagonists where they're headed. Our protagonists mention their cabin. The Sheriff gives them prompt directions and drives off. Oh the suspense! From here on the film puts some effort into suggesting that the Sheriff is some sort of evil badass that would make Dirty Harry piss himself. Yet, in the long run, besides having him turn into a werewolf and briefly running around threatening people (and maybe killing off a certain character so minor and extraneous to the plot he's not even worth the effort I'll have to put in to remember his name), nothing is done with him, even despite the vague suggestions that he's in charge of the town's werewolves. But this sort of thing's really not out of character for this flick.

It's not hard to guess what happens next. In fact, a lot of the stuff that occurs in the next part of the film seems to have been generated from some kind of Script-o-Matic. Pierre goes mysteriously missing (Marie is shocked and worried by this; as if bringing a small toy breed accustomed to urban life out to the wilderness and letting him run around unhindered is a perfectly reasonable idea); she begins noticing strange things (claw marks at the door, howling at night, etc.); a couple of hikers get killed, etc. The one possibly interesting thing that happens is that she befriends a couple of the locals, who are painted with shades of Mayberry. In a good movie, some dark humor and contemporary social commentary would have been made from the fact that these people act like sitcom-perfect townsfolk by day, yet the audience ought to know that they are also werewolves by night. Scenes showing how the town is run, what these rural American werewolves think of themselves, and giving a spin on "hometown" values as depicted in "The Andy Griffeth Show" could have also been thrown in for enjoyment. Unfortunately for us, though, this isn't a good movie. Rather than seeing a werewolf Opie chow down on some freshly killed human flesh, the town folk just act "suspicious," as if the very title of the movie wasn't a big enough giveaway as to what their dark, mysterious secret is. Even when in the last twenty or so moments of the film they're given a moment to shine, it's completely botched. Mostly you just see them posing and leering around, as frightening (and as realistic) as some kids on Holloween.

Richard eventually loses his patience with his wife's visions and growing paranoia, and becomes interested in a voluptous local. In The Howling, the husband's change in attitude toward his wife and his adultery are both the result of his becoming a werewolf, a transformation that brings out his baser instincts even when he's in human form. Here, it's simply because The Script Says So. Oh, Richard does become a werewolf eventually, in a scene that might actually have been fun and gruesome (in Howling IV, the metamorphosis into a werewolf causes a person's entire body to literally melt down, and then slowly reform), had it not also been accompanied by various townsfolk standing around in bad makeup chanting "Satan welcomes you!" or some such. Once Richard does become a werewolf, though, pretty much nothing is done with him and he just ends up getting killed not long after.

Around this point Marie teams up with Janice, an ex-nun who's investigating Draco and the cabin herself because one of her fellow sisters, Sister Ruth, lived there and was driven insane by something "evil" in the town. The mystery apparently has something to do with an old bell tower in the town square, which contains a bell brought over from Eastern Europe. Marie and Janice discover in their sleuthing that the town was believed to have been populated by werewolves and some people from a nearby village came by, lured all the werewolves into the tower by ringing the bell, and burned the tower down with the werewolves still inside. Only a couple of werewolves survived, and they came over to the States to establish the new town of Draco. During their lengthy investigation to discover what the audience has already mostly figured out, there's a few vague suggestions-the strongest being a throwaway line from Marie's frustrated husband-that Janice's interest in Marie may be a bit more than just 'friendly.' But then, let's say it all together now, nothing is done with it.

As her visions of Sister Ruth and the other unlucky former inhabitants of the cabin reach a climax, Marie finally figures out what's going on. After being chased around a bit by the once-friendly populace, Janice climbs to the top of the tower and rings the bell. The wolves come a-running into the tower, ready to tear Janice to shreds, while Marie burns sets the tower ablaze (and leading to one of the dumbest endings ever put on film, but I'll leave that for you to see.) Now, for one thing, is Draco a living community for mentally challenged werewolves? Even if we can accept the fact that the bell had some sort of supernatural influence over them (and the movie offers no suggestion of that whatsoever), why the hell would they have brought it all the way from Europe and even have built another nice, flammable tower for it?! Does Superman keep a rifle loaded with bullets made out of kryptonite on his dresser?

The mind-numbing defects in the plot stretch even further back, all the way to the beginning. It's clear that the vision Marie had was one of Sister Ruth, but no explanation is given why Marie would have visions of Ruth long before she ever became involved with Draco or in fact even knew there was a Sister Ruth. The script seems to want to inform the audience that the ghost of Sister Ruth is triggering the visions, trying to goad Marie into helping destroy the werewolves of Draco. If that's the case, then why pick Marie, a completely random person who isn't even close in any sense of the word to Draco? Why not Janice, or the priest from outside of town that Janice and Marie interview? There's nothing wrong with a couple of plot holes here and there, unless they're large enough to swallow planets. Howling IV wouldn't bother me this much if it weren't a horrible remake of a much better movie. Don't bother with this one at all; watch The Howling instead. Maybe if everyone just forgets about this one it will go away.