While I've mentioned the law of diminishing returns in other reviews, the Howling series might just be exempt from that, since they started at the top and rocketed to the bottom. Kind of hard to be terrible when you're already bad.
We open with a little girl being chased through the woods by something...something that soon catches her, leaving only a teddy bear behind. Some time later we meet Ian (Brendan Hughes) as he walks down the highway. He makes his way to Canton Bluffs, a typical middle of nowhere town.
He finds a job at the local church as a handyman. The preacher Dewey (Jered Barclay) and his daughter Elizbeth (Michelle Matheson) are friendly enough, and Elizbeth think Ian is the bee's knees. Why, he even asks her out to the new carnival that arrived in town!
The carnival is run by R.B. Harker (Bruce Payne), but the main attraction isn't animals but the freak show. With his assistant Bellamey (Antonio Fargas), Harker presides over a collection of human oddities:
Winston the Alligator Boy (Sean Gregory Sullivan)
Toones the Tiniest Three Arm Poker Player in the world (Deep Roy)
Carl/Carlotta (Christopher Marley)
The carnival is creepy as all get out, even if Ian does win Elizbeth a teddy bear. Yup, things are going great, at least until the following night. You see it's a full moon, and Ian has a little secret...
Ian then wakes up the next day in a cage with Harker looming over him. It seems Elizbeth's been found...at least most of her. Ian is rather upset at this, but Harker promises to protect Ian if he agrees to work in his show.
This is quite a surprise to Elizbeth, who's alive and well. She tries to get the sheriff (Gary Cervantes) to intervene, but Ian makes it clear he wants to stay in the cage. Later, Harker has a talk with the sheriff. When the sheriff is found mutilated and missing most of his blood, the townspeople react poorly.
Ian and Elizbeth escape and Harker's true colors are reveled. Can a werewolf find happiness?
When you compare this to parts 2 through 5, this is actually pretty good. Of course there are plenty of problems, namely if Harker was the monster in the beginning and cursed Ian, why would Ian ever agree to work with him?
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