Director: Hope Perello
Year: 1991
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Working as a handyman, a drifter in a small town finds his relationship with a woman tested when the new carnival arriving in the town reveals his secret lycanthropic condition to everyone as a new act in the show, eventually forcing him to come to terms with everything happening around town.
Review:
There wasn’t much to this one that holds it up. One of the best aspects here is the admittedly enjoyable series of setpieces and general overview of the interactions between the different aspects of the carnival. Looking through the various exhibits at the fair and what they entail, from the deformities kept behind bars to the dead specimens in jars and everything in between, this sets up the kind of atmosphere that throws up the kind of sleazy, low-budget huckster carnival that this clearly represents. The flimsy effects trying to portray the various conditions of the others in the show are involved with manage to complete the experience, much like the different attractions shown off to the locals that are shown off to help give this a nice bit of that atmosphere as well which leads into the fun finale where the creatures are exposed and given for a solid enough time with the town-wide stalking and some solid encounters here. These are enough to be worthwhile.
There are plenty of issues with this one. The main drawback is the immensely glacial and outright terrible pacing here that never gives the film a chance to get going. As this goes for nearly half an hour before even potentially introducing anything remotely horror-based at all, there’s a long stretch where nothing happens, as it tends to revolve around the endless subplots in play rather than go for the kind of interesting fare present. Far too much time is also spent in the middle of the film waiting around trying to resolve the middling murder mystery about who’s really responsible, when it’s immensely obvious who was the culprit, so the idea of wasting time on outside subplots to carry that section along just makes for a wholly long time of nothing happening. The pacing does get fixed in the finale, where it starts to pick up more energy and enthusiasm, but getting there is a real struggle at times.
The other issue here is the generally convoluted and far-too-messy storyline, where this has way too many plotlines going on. The idea of this one going for a dual storyline about the carnival boss looking for the guy and him sneaking around the town looking to keep his secret serves well enough as a fine enough way to keep the film going. However, to then bring up a bunch of outside factors involving the relationship involving the minister father trying to keep his daughter out of his clutches, the relationship between him and the carnival owner, and the different storylines about the town succumbing to the vampire, unknowingly unaware of the culprit behind everything, are all far too much to incorporate in this kind of story. The lack of focus on anything means it never really develops any kind of interest in anything happening, and is also somewhat responsible for the generally slack pacing as well, and combined with its low-budget limitations, is what brings it down.
Overview: *.5/5
An intriguing enough but somewhat flawed franchise variation, it has some decent enough points about it while still being let down by some rather large drawbacks. Those with an interest in that type of genre fare or a hardcore fan of the franchise, while most others out there might not be too impressed, and should heed caution.
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