# Howling IV: The Original Nightmare - dubbed in English? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 25, 2005, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howling-iv-the-original-nightmare-dubbed-in-english/296176 "2005-03-25T07:54:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2005, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howling-iv-the-original-nightmare-dubbed-in-english/296176/1 "2005-03-25T07:54:17Z")
Right now, I’m watching this movie on the Scifi channel. It would appear that the actors are American, speaking English, yet it also appears they have dubbed themselves, in English. Is it my imagination? Is the sound just off slightly? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2005, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howling-iv-the-original-nightmare-dubbed-in-english/296176/2 "2005-03-25T08:42:52Z")
Looped-garou, huh? (Sorry.) I’ve only seen the first one, so I can’t do any better than a bit of [hearsay](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095334/usercomments) from an anonymous IMDB user: > [@](#): > > Film maker JOHN HOUGH later disowned the film supposedly after Co -writer/actor/producer CLIVE TURNER (Whom went on to direct the awful seventh entry) took his cut of the film apart & used different shots & re-voiced it to suit his whims. I’m not sure how much I credit someone who’s capable of typing “Whom went on,” though. 😃 Really, I just came in to make the lame pun. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howling-iv-the-original-nightmare-dubbed-in-english/296176/3 "2005-03-26T00:18:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Film maker JOHN HOUGH later disowned the film supposedly after Co -writer/actor/producer CLIVE TURNER (Whom went on to direct the awful seventh entry) took his cut of the film apart & used different shots & re-voiced it to suit his whims. I guess I’ll go with that. But why on earth would you have your actors dub over their own voices - poorly? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howling-iv-the-original-nightmare-dubbed-in-english/296176/4 "2005-03-26T01:44:54Z")
It’s actually a pretty common technique, from what I understand. Few movies redub the entire soundtrack, but most will have one or two scenes where the dialogue you hear was recorded later in a studio. It cuts down on background noise, clears up indistinct line readings from the actors, and helps with scenes where getting a boom mike into the shot unobtrusively is problematic or outright impossible. A lot of movies that are in English but feature actors with strong regional accents also get redubbed. The original American release of _The Road Warrior_ was completely redubbed because it was felt US audiences wouldn’t be able to understand the cast’s thick Aussie accents. I also believe that it used to be more expensive to shoot synch sound than it was to dub the film after the fact, but that’s probably not the case any more. Of course, most movies are made by people who are a hell of a lot more competent than the folks who did _The Howling_, so it’s usually not nearly as obvious. But that, of course, applies to a hell of a lot more than just the audio in those flicks.