Furry Lameness: Howling VI- The Freaks

One down, one to go!  The other half of my DVD features Howling VI: The Freaks.  The DVD itself is pretty light on Features (more on that later), so let's focus on the movie.  It features an early role by Bruce Payne, a plot involving circus freaks and a ghost town.  As a bonus, there is some actual Werewolf action, although still not as much as you would expect this far into a Werewolf film series.  I mean, you can excuse some of that for the first film, since it has to build up suspense about the creatures.  By the sixth film, however, you expect the creatures to be fighting for 80% of the film!  This is the least of the film series' problems though, so let's focus on those instead.  To find out just how many problems this movie has, read on...

After a random opening involving a woman being chased by a Werewolf (in P.O.V.), our hero wanders into a ghost town and immediately draws the ire of, well, everyone.

While working on repairing a Church, our hero keeps a keen eye on when the Full Moon will occur.  This plot point will be amazingly-disappointing, I assure you.

A Circus is coming into town and is led by a man named Harker.  He meets our hero and recognizes him, but can't figure out why.  When you find out the reason, it will also be amazingly-disappointing.

Hey look, Deep Roy is here playing one of the Freaks.  It's because he has an extra arm- not the much more obvious reason!

The Full Moon finally comes and our hero transforms...into a partially-hairy brute.  It's fairly-disappointing and followed by him leaping out a window and...

...appearing as a normal person.  Were you expecting some sort of rampage?  No deal.  He does end up being captured and put on display, transforming once again.  You will just ask- how is this not a film about Mr. Hyde?!?

As it turns out, Harker can turn into, um, a demon...or something due to some Ceremony.  When our hero and his family witnessed it, they were killed, although our hero survived and became a Werewolf...somehow.  Just go with it.

After building up the romantic sub-plot for 90 minutes, our hero heads off into the sunset with...the lizard-faced man.  That was unexpected, but at least he...stops to set the guy down and then they just walk as the Credits roll.  The End.

The real freaks are the people that like this movie!  The plot is just goofy, under-developed and lame.  To fill out the run-time, the movie has a romantic sub-plot, the main plot and character moments for just about every person in town.  Do I care about the Sheriff?  How about the overtly-corrupt Mayor?  Hell, even the Preacher is not that interesting- certainly not enough to warrant this much attention.  More importantly, the plot hinges upon a series of circumstances occurring for it to work.  Naturally, our hero wanders into town ahead of the Carnival, even though he says that he has been following them.  It just so happens that the Carnival takes in the lizard-faced guy, who turns into our hero's best friend.  The whole film falls apart without this one character, which is just really sad screenwriting!  The action is good at times, although it's certainly confusing.  What exactly does Payne become?  Is he a demon?  A werewolf?  Some sort of hybrid?  Either way, we get a two to three minute tussle between the pair for the finale, where the real winner is the Sun (since it causes the guy to melt...apparently)!  When your hero is outdone by a force of nature, you've made some serious mistakes.  While it is better than Howling V, I still recommend Howling II over this.  It's not good, but it is hilarious!

Next up, I begin a week of one word horror film titles.  First up, a German zombie tale that is only slightly-higher in budget than Zombie Campout.  Stay tuned...