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...

Three Witches: Warlock 3

Let's close up this witching chapter of Mondo Bizarro with a look at the third and final film in the series.  Mind you, I call it a series very, very loosely.  Considering that the first film is about a time-traveling magician, the second film is about the Son of Satan and this film is about this guy trying to kill the descendant of a witch.  Sadly, this film is bereft of Julian Sands, although they do have a decent fill-in.  New to the role- and only doing it once- is Bruce Payne, a man most people would recognize as either Damodar from Dungeons & Dragons or Kell from Highlander: Endgame.  He is a classically-trained theater actor from England, but he does stuff like this?  That would be sad if it wasn't so common.  The other thing notable about this movie is what else was lost or changed.  For starters, a different company owns the rights to this movie.  I guess it's a Terminator situation, huh?  Secondly, the movie took six years to get made and was not released theatrically.  Anyone still optimistic?  Anyhow, let's close this book with...

Warlock 3: The End of Innocence

The movie begins with a flashback to the 16th Century involving a woman running around in the woods and being chased by a warlock.  Guys, you are giving me flashbacks to both Troll 2 and Leprechaun 2.  Is this what you want to inspire?!?  In the present, we are introduced to our heroine who is extremely-generic.  I try to find something interesting in actors, but damn is she dull!  Her friends, however, spend their first scene engaging in some handcuffed lap-dancing.  I think we have officially reached 'the end of innocence' now!  The plot of the film involves our heroine wanting to go to an old family estate to get some heirlooms before reconstruction work is done.  That means leaving on the weekend before mid-terms to get the stuff.  In a rare bit of story logic, the friends put work over play and refuse to go.  That's creative!  I wonder where they're going to go with this.  Before our hero gets there, a man is killed by a force in the window.  Who is he?  Nobody.  Why is this important?  It's not.  Our heroine's first night is filled with all of the cliches- creaking boards, thunderstorm and freaky mirror spirits.  What?  You don't see those every night?  All of this builds up to...the friends showing up.  Thanks for nothing, plot thread.

*

Around this time, the fifth wheel of the group- the one without a lady- opens up a rusty pipe and lets loose the warlock.  I guess he was hanging out with his buddies from Dark Water.  Since he is a stoner,- why not- he ignores this reveal.  An art historian shows up to warn our heroine about the whole family curse involving the warlock.  Speaking of which, a mysterious man shows up and talks in a British accent.  Witch!  Of course, only our secondary heroine figures out that something is awry.  Since she is a Wiccan (not a Druid!) with a magical necklace, she is immune to his powers.  Unfortunately, the fifth wheel is not and gets manipulated into helping our villain.  How?  He is in love with our heroine, so he plays along.  Oh and we get another BDSM scene with the couple- thanks, movie.  When our Wiccan finally confronts the Warlock, she learns that a lock of her hair was stolen by the stoner guy, as well as her necklace.  He turns her into glass and shatters her.  He uses his powers to capture everyone else.  He tortures and abuses them until they 'give her up' (a nod to the stone retrieval in Part 2, maybe).  The BDSM couple get tortured Hellraiser-style until they concede.  The big sacrifice goes pretty well until our heroine moves slightly out of the way and fights back.  A big fight ensues & the pompous warlock goes down thanks to a knife hidden in a doll.  Hey, don't look at me- I didn't write it!  The End.

*

This movie is really not that good.  It has some good magical effects in it, but they are nothing compared to Part 2.  Payne does a good job, but I can't help but miss Sands here.  You guys could have just called this The End of Innocence, you know, and saved yourself this problem.  The plot is just not up to par for what you would expect with this series.  The first two films involve a warlock trying to end all of existence or bring Hell to Earth.  This one- he just wants power.  If you can turn people to glass, you should learn to just accept what you have!  If I could turn people into glass, well, I would not bother with a silly website about movies.  The film is about what you expect with direct-to-video films from this era and nothing more.  You could have done so much more, guys!  Oh well.

*

Next up, a bad movie about witches with an even worse transfer.  Can I complain about a film transfer when the movie is also this bad?  Yes, yes I can.  Stay tuned...

Cop Land: Full Eclipse

Oh Jim Wynorski, can I never escape you?  In fairness, I actually did not know that this was one of his films until I started to watch it.  Good surprise or bad surprise- you decide!  This is a film about police officers who take an extra kick in order to get an edge on the criminals of the day.  The help comes in the form of a strange policeman and his mysterious formula to create 'super cops.'  What does this have to do with werewolves?  That's for me to know and you to find out, mister!  This is...

Full Eclipse

The movie begins with a hostage situation at a night club.  The two detectives (Mario Van Peebles and Anthony Dennison aka one of the cops on The Closer) go in through the roof's vents, although the latter does his best 'I'm getting too old for this shit' routine.  They take forever to go through the vents- which support 200-lb men- and even fail to stop a guy who stupidly stands up to the Uzi-wielding thug.  Way to be man...that is full of bullet holes.  The partner makes a noise, causing him to be shot full of holes.  It is only then that Mr. Peebles decides to drop out of the vent and kill the bad guys.  Timing is not your strong suit!  The man ends up in the hospital, but is visited by a strange man who inject something in his I.V.  He shows up the next day for work and appears to have no wounds or anything.  Someone had his V8 today!  Naturally, that morning, they run across a drive-by shooting, which leads to a major action scene.  The partner actually chases the car down on foot, while Peebles follows.  He actually wrestles with one of the guys after they steal a motorcycle!  He causes the vehicle to crash and walks out unscathed, slightly freaking out his partner.  Meanwhile, we get a sub-plot involving our hero's marriage degrading.  That was...out of nowhere, movie!

*

Before all of this can sink in, Peebles' partner shows up at a 'cop bar' and blows his brains out with a strange bullet.  This drives our hero to seek industry counseling, which leads him to a mysterious man (Bruce Payne).  He is hesitant, but shows up for 'group therapy.'  They explain that they have formed a group to enforce the laws in the way that regular cops will not.  He is not quite on-board, so they take him to watch a mission of theirs.  After injecting themselves with a mysterious fluid, they swim across a river and attack a group of mafioso.  They have crazed faces and claws, which strikes our hero as odd.  He tries to quit, but is told that he is working with them- like it or not.  He is still not convinced, even after the hot blond on the team tries to seduce him.  We get some bits of him looking into his partner's death, discovering some cryptic notes he left behind and the fact that he melted his favorite silver dollar into a bullet.  At the next meeting, he discovers that just the blond is there.  When he turns her down again, she does the natural thing: she shoots a hole in his chest!  After injecting him with the serum, his wounds heal and he does the nasty with her.  She shows signs of the same crazed face and teeth.  Want to explain this at all?

*

Entering the third act, Peebles is now on-board with the whole 'rogue cops' thing.  The group gets attacked in their van by some members of the group killed earlier, but they all walk out in pseudo-werewolf form.  Basically, they have faces like the vampires on Buffy and claws reminiscent of Subspecies' villain.  We learn, however, that there is some strife in the group.  One of them is regretting the vicious actions of the group, so he has to die.  We finally learn the truth behind the serum.  Basically, Payne's character is a 500+ year old werewolf that has been taking fluid from his brain and injecting it into the people.  That's right- werewolf juice makes you heal super-fast and become Wolverine.  Before you can let that sink in, the hero and the blond escape through a glass window, but the latter dies.  Evidently, she has been taking less and less of the serum and is human enough to die.  Really, movie?  That's like saying that Luc Devaraux's brother was frozen, but not actually a UniSol!  Anyhow, Peebles convinces the others to revolt against Payne, who finally turns into a full werewolf under the full moon!  Holy Kibakichi, Batman- what took you so long?!?  Peebles manages to kill him by causing the freighter canister they were on to fall.  We get the 'It's not over' ending in the form of Peebles and his reunited wife going around and carrying on Payne's mission of vengeance.

*

This movie is honestly quite entertaining, even if it has some serious plot issues.  There is a lot of action- pseudo werewolf and other- and it moves pretty briskly.  The whole bit with Peebles partner's transformation occurring is jarring enough to hold your interest for a while.  The acting is about as good as you are going to get from an action movie made in the '90s that was directed by Jim Wynorski.  On the plus side, Bruce Payne- aka Damadar from Dungeons & Dragons- is always fun to watch.  When the movie gets around to explaining everything, it loses a little momentum though.  The whole idea is a bit silly and never quite explained enough for most people's tastes.  The real werewolf you get at the end makes up for a lot of this, but appears pretty briefly.  If you want a fun action movie that won't make a lot of sense, give this one a rental.  It's loud, pulpy and weird enough to hold most people's attention for 90 minutes.

*

Up next, a black kung-fu star becomes an international spy.  Maybe you should lose the afro for undercover work, buddy!  Stay tuned...