When I embarked on this great adventure, I really thought I’d seen this thing. In ’88 I still lived with my mom and while I did have my own room I slept out on the couch where I could watch TV all night because those were the days and the one I had in my room was black and white and maybe a six incher. We had Showtime there and late at night before Cinemax came around (I think) they’d show some nicely R Rated things super late so – there. I thought I remembered his thing started off with some sort of nice looking period piece back in some sort of French debauchery days and everyone started screwing and howling and they all turned into werewolves. But, guess what? I was absolutely wrong and this had nothing to do with that at all. I wonder what that was – does anyone know? Such as it is – here today is Howling 4 and – let’s be honest – this is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very poorly executed piece of filmmaking.

Since I am what I am and we do what we must and None But The Righteous Are Called To Live In The Principle (should I change my site’s tagline to that?), I am obligated to talk about the displeasing quality of this thing that I would be really surprised to discover that anyone was proud of being a part of this.

For the first 30 minutes or so of this, I kept talking to myself and asking, ‘what the fuck is with these voices?” I quick scan of the IMDB shows that someone at some point in their life bothered to put a piece of trivia on there that this entire movie was dubbed due to lack of budget. I’m guessing that means they couldn’t afford a boom mic back in the late 80s and – it seems – they couldn’t afford to get this group of acting people back in the studio to record their lines because the voices don’t match for fuckshit and all of the dialogue sucked. Because they certainly didn’t use their money on good special effects, lighting, casting, a solid script, costumes, wolf prosthetics, reasonable sets or nicely upholstered furniture. From the looks of things, I’m guessing most of their money went to hairspray, mousse, the fog machine or that random English guy who plays the town doctor with a cabinet full of valium in a town of maybe seven people. I suppose our leading lady (above) was nice enough with her super soft voice and ability to scream a few times but I think her most memorable scenes were running through the mist in the woods in slow motion. That’s we all did in the 80s, after all.

I was also 100% certain I’d seen the male lead dude before with this hair and his Top Gun shades and his bomber jacket with rolled up sleeves but looking at his creds, that doesn’t appear to be the case either unless, maybe, I was over at some girl’s house watching her watch Days of Our Lives because I’d been up all night watching Showtime instead of sleeping and I figured something might happen because of my sweet disposition. I promise you that never did either but here’s your man anyway, sans bomber jacket:

If I had to p[ick one thing that I kind of liked about this, which was very minimal, it would be this lady who had a small part and never really did much:

I was also sure I’d seen her elsewhere but, even though I watched these shows, those roles don’t really ring a bell:

So, if we look at our tracker or our tic sheet, it seems I’m losing on everything this movie had going on so far and then it just got worse.

The chick with the soft voice is an author who is in a meeting on some L.A. skyscraper and sees a nun so she has a mental breakdown. She and her bomber jacket wearing husband go to this place in California that has a grocery store, a bar, an artist’s shoppe and a doctor’s office. Oh – and a cabin. At the cabin, they are going to get her some rest but her old man is always horny and she hears howling outside the window so he’s probably gonna go fuck the local artists. In the meantime, the blond girl shows up at the cabin somehow – she’s looking for her nun friend who went missing from the cabin and somehow werewolves from Romania are involved. To make things even WORSE, bomber jacket gets laid, gets bit and and – dum ta dum – when it’s finally time for the Big Howling Horror Movie Money Shot Transformation Scene^TM – for some reason, this time around…………….. he melts.

I’m not kidding. Without that person’s ‘watermark’ on their GIF, that’s from the movie. Here’s a still if that’s too gruesome for you:

So everything is going along really, really badly and then the blond ex-nun somehow knows that they have to trap the werewolves in this church and burn them alive, like they did in Romania. To do this, she must sacrifice herself by ringing the church bell and soft voice lady can light them all on fire from the outside. “No, you’ll die” says someone doing voice acting. “It’s what I must do.” says someone else.

And then, if it couldn’t get any worse, she lights the church on fire with a candle (I think) and it explodes like someone just bombed Britain during The Blitz.

The first Howling I didn’t love but I think other people did. The second one was stupid but –> Sybil Danning and magic laser fingers. The third one was wretched but simple in it’s niceness and shoeless lady running around Melbourne or somewhere. This one was real poop. Even the credits sucked. And there was this:

FILED UNDER: WEREWOLVES AND SHIT