The Howling: New Moon Rising (1995, Clive Turner)

I survived! The Howling marathon has come to its conclusion with The Howling: New Moon Rising. Like I stated before, I didn't even know this film existed until way after the fact, due to it's limited availability on Region 2 DVD or VHS. I was very surprised that I found a brand new/sealed VHS copy for $2.00. It was like I struck gold. I couldn't figure out why it was so cheap. Maybe it's not that good?

The Howling: New Moon Rising (I'm not typing that again, it's too damn long. Why couldn't they have just called it Howling VII?) takes place right after the events in the sixth film. The bones of a werewolf are found in some redneck town. A mysterious Australian stranger named Ted (Clive Turner) stumbles into town (what's with these people from other countries mysteriously "appearing" in East Asscrack, USA seemingly out of nowhere?) looking for....this sounds really familiar...food and shelter in exchange for work. He gets hired to work at some hillbilly bar where line dancin' and singin' runs rampant. Ted fits right in (despite the fact that he's a long haired Australian who kind of looks like Eric Idle from Monty Python) and is soon cracking (very, very, very bad) jokes with the local yokels. After a bunch of songs and bad jokes, there is a werewolf prowling around, or at least we suspect that's what it is with the nauseatingly bright and blurry POV camera work.

I could go on, but what's the point? This movie sucked so hard. Easily the worst in the series, it actually made me yearn for part III. The acting in this film is some of the worst I have ever seen. Apparently most of the "actors" in this film are actually real people just hired because they were already regulars at the bar that most of the (non) action takes place. If you watch the end credits you'll notice that most of the cast use their real names. I believe there is only one scene with a werewolf (not including flashbacks from parts IV, V and VI, which they unsuccessfully try to tie to this film) and it looks really bad. The fact that the director, producer, writer and star are all the same person (Clive Turner) should have warned me how stinky this giant loaf of a movie would be. The film is half footage of assorted bar patrons performing country songs on the bar's stage. And I'm not talking about normal films that take place in bars where the band is performing in the background and the camera focuses on the main characters. In this, the band is more of a main character than anyone else. Did I mention how bad the acting was? I swear to God I was expecting to see someone holding cue cards on the side of the screen. I don't know why this movie was made but I wish it wasn't. It depressed me how bad it was and now I feel bloated from all of the comfort food I had to consume to make it to the end. I'm going to stop now before I hit something. Don't watch this movie, unless you want to suck.

RATING: 1/5