Any movie with the subtitle "The Freaks" can't be all bad. The Howling VI doesn't have anything to do with the other movies in the franchise. Come to think of it, none of the movies have anything to do with any of the others, but it does have werewolves. Well, one werewolf. But it has vampires too. Well, one vampire. So this isn't really vampires versus Werewolves, it's Vampire versus Werewolf. And considering that it's a Howling movie, it should be that hard to decide who's going to emerge victorious.

In a dust bowl of a Californian town, the residents are getting ready to pack up and leave because it hasn't rained in just about forever. This doesn't really have anything to do with the story, but that's how it begins. Soon though the ball gets rolling as a kindly British gent is hired by the local preacher to do some repairs on the church. About the same time a freak show rolls into town and we meet the geek, the alligator boy and the other various oddities like the half man and the midget. It takes a good 40 minutes or so to really get into the "meat" of the story, and even longer before we meet the vampire. Pacing clearly isn't the films strong suit.

What is its strong suit? That's a pretty good question and one I can't really answer. The writing is good and we meet some interesting characters, but for a horror movie there's a decided lack of horror. The gore is barely there and the nudity isn't worth mentioning. The werewolf looks cool, as does the vampire, but overall it feels like we get about 30 minutes worth of a good movie and an hour of padding. Padding isn't a bad thing when we're talking about a teenage girl's bra, but when it comes to a horror movie, less definitely isn't more.