This film is dire.
Really terrible.
Do not watch it. Please. For your own sake.
OK, I’ll go on, I’ve suffered through this dross so you don’t have to.
This seventh entry in the Howling film series represents the return of Clive Turner, writer and co-producer on Howling IV and Howling V, only this time he writes, produces, directs and stars in this turgid stinker.
For a little background, it seems that Clive Turner found a small town in California called Pioneer Town and liked the town and locals so much he decided to make a film there.
The credits state that “The events depicted in this town are fictitious. The characters depicted in Pioneer Town are real.” and therefore Pappy plays Pappy, Jacqueline plays Jacqueline, Cheryl plays Cheryl etc. Almost none of the cast are actors, and it shows. In my Howling II review I said that Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe were terrible, and I noted Michael T. Weiss’ poor performance in my Howling 4 review, but this is a different league altogether! 5-year-olds playing sheep in primary school nativity plays routinely turn in more convincing performances that this!
Putting that aside, for a werewolf film, the seventh in a series of werewolf films no less, this features more drinking in the town bar than werewolves. It has more line dancing scenes than werewolf scenes. It has more scenes discussing Pappy’s chilli than it has werewolf scenes. Do you see where I’m going here?
The on-screen werewolf content is limited to a couple of red-lens POV shots and a terrible Halloween-rubber-mask werewolf in the last 2 minutes. in fact the werewolf is barely the focus of the film, it’s just something that happens while we get “fun” scenes with the “characters” of Pioneertown.
The films also makes a ham-fisted attempt to pull together the plots of Howling IV, Howling V and Howling VI into one narrative, when they were all made as stand-alone stories with no connection whatsoever.
Basically, this film is Clive Turner larking about with his Pioneer Town pals on-camera, and that is not fun, and certianly not worth seeing. In fact, I’ll make a bold claim, I’ve never seen Troll 2, The Room or Birdemic, but I will take the Pepsi challenge with those films vs this and am fairly confident this is far, far worse.
Related Reviews:
The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987)
Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)
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