HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS (1991)

 

(Director: Hope Perello. Screenplay by Kevin Rock, loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1985 novel The Howling III.)

Storyline

A young werewolf is forced to join a malevolent carnival owner’s freak show.

Review

A young man, Ian (Brendan Hughes, RETURN TO HORROR HIGH, 1987), drifts into a small, dying town (Canton Bluff), where he is given room and board if he helps one of the townspeople, Dewey, repair his church. Elizabeth, Dewey’s young adult daughter, also lives with Dewey─a romantic bond forms between Ian and Elizabeth, though Ian is gun-shy about it.

Not long after that, a traveling carnival rolls into town, owned by the manipulative and mellifluous R.B. Harker (Bruce Payne, WARLOCK III: THE END OF INNOCENCE, 1999). The Canton Bluff citizens welcome the carnival, which puts down stakes on the edge of the town. Ian takes Elizabeth there, and Harker, seeing him, senses something about the shy young man. Because it’s that lunar time of the month, Ian turns into a werewolf and runs around town (while harming no one). Harker cages him and outs Ian as a lycanthrope, forcing the gentle young man to become a new attraction for the traveling sideshow. 

Murders rock the town. Ian is blamed for them despite the fact he was in his cage at the time. Can Elizabeth, Ian and the other townspeople stop Harker before more people die?

FREAKS has a mostly solid screenplay, a couple of briefly spooky scenes, and solid acting but its slightly overlong running time and limited budget hobbles the effectiveness of its film quality and its FX (some are good, though Ian’s werewolf makeup is laughable). Having said that, FREAKS is considerably better than its two preceding in-name-only prequels (HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE and HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH), so if you feel the need to watch one of the later, budget-challenged HOWLING movies, this might be the one to pick─just don’t expect much from this occasionally uneven flick.

B-movie geeks might also note these actors: Antonio Fargas (FIRESTARTER, 1984) as the physically deft Bellamey; Carol Lynley (THE NIGHT STALKER, 1972) as Miss Eddington; Elizabeth Shé (HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING, 1995) as Mary Lou; and Deep Roy (CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, 2005) as the cruel Toones.