After the travesty of Howling II and it's follow up of Howling III we enter the realm of the made for direct to video sales. No longer is the Howling series seen as a theatrical release, but a cheaper made for tv or direct to video market.

Starting this trend is Howling IV: The Original Nightmare 1988 stars only Michael T Weiss of Days of Our Lives and The Pretender fame. The rest of the cast is just a bunch of no names which is not surprising. If you notice a difference in sound it's because of the fact they dubbed the film after it was done due to crew issues. Overall this Howling film follows the book more faithfully and there in lies the problem. A young author goes off the deep end when she over works herself goes to a small town in northern California. Her husband and her have a falling out due to her constant mental issues, and he goes and has an affair with a werewolf which ultimately gets him to become one himself. The town is revealed to be populated entirely by werewolves. Aided by a former nun the writer and her trap the werewolves in a church and burn it to the ground, killing the werewolves.

The book pretty much follows this same thing expect for a few minor differences and if this sounds rather boring to watch it slightly is. I will say Michael Weiss is pretty good looking and I'd cast him as a werewolf in this era because he has the look everyone sort of expects, slightly hairy, buff, but still human. The cast is pretty forgettable otherwise putting in rather lame wooden acting. The effects are cool but leave you wondering just how the heck does this have to do with werewolves. Michael's character literary melts and then reforms as a werewolf. The werewolves seem to be a combo of animatronic masks but are definitely quadrupeds. The final conclusion has them as dark haired German shepherds. I wouldn't expect much more from a direct video expect there are problems. The main werewolf is anthro and looks a bit cool, minus the lack of fur, but the rest are all four legged dogs. If you look quick you can even see huskies used as well which is just laughable. Given the past though this does try and be a horror film but it covers no real ground.

Howling V: Rebirth 1989, a year later another direct to video release was made. This one is like most of the Howling films is seperate onto itself. Where as Howling IV did a good job over all with a werewolf story, Howling V does everything bad. This isn't so much a werewolf movie as it's Clue. With everyone trying to figure out who is a werewolf and who isn't. In the end the big reveal is a sort of open ending that leaves you wondering what you did in the middle and beginning. A group of tourists are brought to a castle where a mass sucide took place to stop an unnamed evil, implied to be a werewolf (via a howling), we are soon treated to a couple of werewolf attacks with a person in some sort of werewolf costume who looks ok, if you can pause it fast enough. This leads to the biggest problem for this film, all the Howling films feature werewolves at the very least, this one doesn't. We are treated to a bunch of ham fisted "actors" who just spend time talking in the castle with a murder mystery which ends in no big reveal and no real resolution. It's also one of the few werewolf films that I fell asleep to.

Howling VI 1991, all but concludes the direct to video of the Howling series. I won't do VII because it's damn near impossible to find and I have heard it's not a werewolf film at all, also uses a lot of stock footage. However Howling VI where did this one come from? It has a cast, a cast I can reconize people's face and some are pretty impressive. A werewolf wanders into town and helps fix the church up, pretty nice guy. Come full moon he has to tie himself up, but all is not lost as the circus comes to town run by of course a vampire played by Bruce Payne. The vampire make a deal, the werewolf goes on as a wolf boy, things seem to go alright with the vampire trying to get the werewolf to reveal in his true nature. The vampire attacks the town and werewolf comes to the rescue, killing the vampire and leaving town.

A rather simple film but it's filled with good acting and a very good villain in Bruce Payne. Unlike the erotic exploits of most of the series, there little sex in part VI and it's more straight up horror. The effects are...well it's direct to video what would you like? I will give it props that it is a make up job and an actual suit was used verses the forth coming cgi that would rapidly change everything. The film in the end feels like a good ending point for a series that was harking back to the 80's in style and horror films. However the Howling would not rest for too too long...