Rish Outfield's reviews
Well, watching this was a nightmare, but I can't say it was very original. Strangely, this film is a remake of the first film. I don't know if that usually happens, but in this case, it shouldn't. Take terrible acting and terrible dialogue, marry it to terrible pacing and a terrible story, and guess what, you've got a terrible movie on your hands.
The plot was close to this: Familiar-looking, flat-chested writer suffers hallucinations, so she and her husband go out to a summer cottage in the middle of nowhere to relax. Stuff happens, they meet creepy townsfolk, she makes a friend, and I guess there's a werewolf there, but we don't really see him till the end (there's a lot of POV shots of the monster early on, and people pretending to be scared of it, but it didn't really work).
To say good things about Howling IV is hard, but I'll try: The tape I watched had neat-o previews before it. And the movie began with a great 80's song. But that was the highpoint. I felt like creating a Stupidity In the First Five Minutes skull. It was awful. I read a review that said the remake was far superior to the original, but I can't think of a single area (not a one) in which Part IV even EQUALS Part I. It was filled with a lot of dumbness on the part of the script and the characters, and illogical, stilted dialogue that sounded like a poorly translated foreign film. Oh, and it came with a shitty ending too. It has the star of the equally terrible House of Usher in it, if that helps you stay away.
Best Scare: Even the sounds of wolves howling in the night, so eerie in the original, weren't at all scary here.
I'd Recommend It To: Fans of werewolf movies without any werewolves in them.

The tyranist's thoughts
I mostly dig on monster movies. I guess it's a link to my childhood when those were the only kind of horror I ever saw. Werewolf movies are generally considered monster movies. This is a werewolf movie. I didn't dig on it.
The one good thing that came of watching this movie was the stunning realization that it has been a long time since I've watched '80s horror. I miss the '80s. It's like an ache in the back of my head all the time. In spite of its flaws, this movie took me back there for a time and for that I am grateful.
So what were the flaws? Well, it was generally poorly acted and poorly scripted. The plot was barely coherent and often wandered into long periods of filler. It was really a typical '80s sequel kind of plot. The werewolves weren't the least bit scary and they changed the Howling mythos just enough to really mess things up. The town of Drago was also vaguely confusing in that there were only six buildings but seemingly limitless applications for them.
To its advantage, it did contain the sickest werewolf transformation I've ever seen. It was fun to see Michael Weiss back before he was anybody.
I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone. Well, maybe if you were trying to watch the whole Howling series. That I could understand.