"The Howling" series limped to a merciful conclusion (back then) with one of the worst films of all-time.
Writer-director Clive Turner plays Aussie Ted. He arrives in Pioneer Town in the California desert and quickly finds work at the local bar. The losers and hangers-on there welcome him with open arms, yet assorted folks start ending up dead. A police inspector and overly serious priest are on the case as the townspeople suspect Ted of more than an obsession with the music of George Jones.
I cannot stress how inept this film is. Turner tries to tie this entry to two other entries in the series, and borrows liberally from these lousy, but better, films without providing any permissions or rights in the credits (he cowrote and acted in them). He decides to shoot using non-actors, who use their real names as their character names. The editing is a mess, watch for the useless flashbacks, and the climax features one of the unintentionally funniest werewolf transformation scenes in film history. The real townspeople center around a country bar, so the viewer is punished with non-stop scenes of terrible country songs and bored line dancing.
The "comedy bits" are obvious, dramatized reenactments of old high-lar-i-ous bar stories, and would not be funny even after your twentieth Coors. Turner has no budget, and the gore looks like ketchup and baby powder. This ended the franchise, and I use that term loosely, for over a decade; and rightfully so. The original wasn't perfect, but it sure deserved better than this. Even after viewing around seven thousand films, this would still be in my bottom five worst of all-time.
