Movies: Horror Movie Discussion

[BostonBob]

Smile 2 coming to theatres in October.






And even with Hugh Grant in it this looks promising.

 

[shadow1]

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988) - 4/10

An author struggling with mental health vacations at a remote cottage, but keeps having visions of werewolves.

Romy Windsor stars as Marie, an author who has a breakdown while meeting with her agent. She keeps having visions of nuns and wolves, which her doctor attributes to her overactive imagination from her writing career. At her doctor's advice, Marie and her husband Richard (Michael T. Weiss) vacation at a cottage in a small town called Drago. However, Marie keeps hearing disturbing howling noises at night...

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare was directed by John Hough, and written by Freddie Rowe and Clive Turner. Just like the original film, Howling IV is based on the 1977 Gary Brander novel "The Howling". That makes this movie more of a remake than a sequel, only this time it's a UK production which was filmed in Africa and was released directly to video. How does it fare?

It's... diet Howling! Prior to watching Howling IV, I had no idea it was essentially a remake rather than a true sequel. I'm slow, but fortunately it didn't take me long to figure it out. Sure, the characters are a lot different, and there are tons of details changed, but most of the story beats are the same.

According to IMDB, this film is more faithful to Brander's novel than the original Howling (1981). Personally, I think almost none of the changes work. The romantic elements in Howling IV are played up more, but the jealousy between the lovelorn characters it so melodramatic it feels like you're watching a soap opera at times.

The visions experienced by Marie also add a cheese factor to the movie. They don't really make sense, and are supposed to add to this film's mystery. While the solution to the mystery is a little different than the original Howling, you can pretty see where things are going. Furthermore, Marie was a dingbat at times. She has visions about werewolves for weeks, but when she hears actual howling outside of her cottage, it's like she can't figure out what it is or how to describe it to others. For crying out loud, even if this wasn't a werewolf movie, it's not uncommon to hear animals howling out in the country.

That's not to say I hate this movie though. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but Howling IV is the type of movie you throw on at 1am with the volume cranked down. The film is easy to follow, but there aren't a ton of explosive sequences. In fact, unless I blinked and missed it, the first werewolf doesn't appear until an hour and 9 minutes in. That's a long time to go without werewolf action.

The werewolves themselves are a mixed bag. Overall, they're the second best in the series (so far), but there's a high variance in quality. The first time we see a werewolf, it looks terrible. Considering the film's poster has the werewolf drawn on it, I figured that's why Howling IV kept the werewolves out of the movie for so long. However, there's one werewolf that looks really good. There is also an extremely gory scene that comes out of no where (and doesn't make that much sense), but was still pretty cool. Sadly, that sequence was juxtaposed against the movie introducing the classic "teen wolf" half human/half werewolf characters... so I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

I also need to mention how atrocious the editing in Howling IV's last five minutes. Normally I wouldn't highlight something like this, but mother of god. There is a sequence where I swear the camera cuts every second and is extremely jarring. It's like the film, which is super docile for 95% of the run time, tried to cram every action sequence and horror set piece in at the very end. The result is it makes the movie look cheap and draws attention to its low budget.

Overall, Howling IV is a mediocre werewolf movie. Considering we've basically already seen a better version of this movie, it is arguably the most pointless Howling of the first four. Others may argue that the plots of Howling II and III are so insane that the series needed a refresh. I don't necessarily disagree with that hypothetical argument, but this low budget remake wasn't the best solution. Howling IV had a budget of $2M, but I could not find any earnings information for this direct-to-video movie.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

It's on Tubi in the US.

I won't be held responsible for this.

It's on Tubi in Canada too!

I've commented on a few pretty bad Amityville films before:

Amityville: No Escape (and 6 others)
Amityville: Dollhouse
Amityville Island

This Amityville Death Toilet (Jacobs, 2023) is easily the cheapest entry of all these crappy films, and one of the cheapest films I've ever seen. I understand that it's a joke, part of a series of death toilet films made by a bunch of friends, with no screenplays (he needs to find the toilet but gets told where it is) and minimal effort. What I don't understand is everything else - especially the floating filters (a shark, zombies), but not limited to that (the editing of the mayor's scenes are just all the improvised takes put together, constantly rephrasing the same things to pad the runtime). A few things still made me laugh, mainly the main actor playing all of this nonsense straight and the insistence on the Amityville house windows (and every 75 shots of the windows made me chuckle, as they don't look anything like the original ones, but they were the only hint that these twits even knew about the original films). It's almost so bad it's good. Certainly more bearable than a few of the other entries I've watched. 1.5/10

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

It's on Tubi in Canada too!

I've commented on a few pretty bad Amityville films before:

Amityville: No Escape (and 6 others)
Amityville: Dollhouse
Amityville Island

This Amityville Death Toilet (Jacobs, 2023) is easily the cheapest entry of all these crappy films, and one of the cheapest films I've ever seen. I understand that it's a joke, part of a series of death toilet films made by a bunch of friends, with no screenplays (he needs to find the toilet but gets told where it is) and minimal effort. What I don't understand is everything else - especially the floating filters (a shark, zombies), but not limited to that (the editing of the mayor's scenes are just all the improvised takes put together, constantly rephrasing the same things to pad the runtime). A few things still made me laugh, mainly the main actor playing all of this nonsense straight and the insistence on the Amityville house windows (and every 75 shots of the windows made me chuckle, as they don't look anything like the original ones, but they were the only hint that these twits even knew about the original films). It's almost so bad it's good. Certainly more bearable than a few of the other entries I've watched. 1.5/10

The one shot of a toilet holding a gun got a genuine laugh out of me.

I honestly don't understand how the knife worked. Where was it coming from and what direction was it moving? It looks like it was from behind by the seat but the victims are always staring forward. Also, why couldn't they use a real knife rather than a fake one made of foil. That actually feels like more work than just having a knife!

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The one shot of a toilet holding a gun got a genuine laugh out of me.

I honestly don't understand how the knife worked. Where was it coming from and what direction was it moving? It looks like it was from behind by the seat but the victims are always staring forward. Also, why couldn't they use a real knife rather than a fake one made of foil. That actually feels like more work than just having a knife!

The toilet was probably too evil to risk handing it real weapons. The atrocious intro toilet kills were a bold choice - they're making it clear right away that you'll regret wasting your time with the rest. They were probably lifted from previous entries in the death toilet series too (I won't verify that claim) as none of the intro ones were filmed in the actual "Amityville bathroom".

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The toilet was probably too evil to risk handing it real weapons. The atrocious intro toilet kills were a bold choice - they're making it clear right away that you'll regret wasting your time with the rest. They were probably lifted from previous entries in the death toilet series too (I won't verify that claim) as none of the intro ones were filmed in the actual "Amityville bathroom".

Ah yes, like the classic Rocky movie series' habit of recapping previous movies in the opening minutes of the new movie.

Influences abound!

 

[shadow1]

It's on Tubi in Canada too!

I've commented on a few pretty bad Amityville films before:

Amityville: No Escape (and 6 others)
Amityville: Dollhouse
Amityville Island

This Amityville Death Toilet (Jacobs, 2023) is easily the cheapest entry of all these crappy films, and one of the cheapest films I've ever seen. I understand that it's a joke, part of a series of death toilet films made by a bunch of friends, with no screenplays (he needs to find the toilet but gets told where it is) and minimal effort. What I don't understand is everything else - especially the floating filters (a shark, zombies), but not limited to that (the editing of the mayor's scenes are just all the improvised takes put together, constantly rephrasing the same things to pad the runtime). A few things still made me laugh, mainly the main actor playing all of this nonsense straight and the insistence on the Amityville house windows (and every 75 shots of the windows made me chuckle, as they don't look anything like the original ones, but they were the only hint that these twits even knew about the original films). It's almost so bad it's good. Certainly more bearable than a few of the other entries I've watched. 1.5/10

Great read, thank you!

 

[BostonBob]

MaXXXine is being released on July 5th.

I'm looking forward to watching the 3rd and final installment of the X trilogy.