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Howling VI: The Freaks

1991 film directed by Hope Perello

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2362883
Source-derived summary

Howling VI: The Freaks is a 1991 British direct-to-video horror film directed by Hope Perello, from a screenplay by Kevin Rock, starring Brendan Hughes, Bruce Payne, Michele Matheson, Sean Gregory Sullivan, and Carol Lynley. The Freaks is the sixth entry in the series of eight standalone films with a loose continuity.

Like most of the other films, The Freaks is loosely based on The Howling series of novels by Gary Brandner. However, minor elements from the third novel, The Howling III: Echoes, are in the film, which includes the solitary drifter Ian Richards who is cursed as a sympathetic werewolf and later recruited by R.B. Harker, a supernatural being, as well as werewolves being used in carnival freak shows.

Plot

A young girl runs through the woods being chased by a creature which corners and kills her. Later, a young drifter named Ian Richards goes to the small desert town of Canton Bluff, where he befriends the local pastor Dewey and gets a job repairing the church. Ian also befriends Dewey's daughter, Elizabeth, and there is a mutual attraction. A traveling circus comes to town, and Ian takes Elizabeth there on a date, where R.B. Harker, the owner, shows them his freakshow featuring Bellamey, Harker's assistant who bites the heads off live chickens, Toones, a man with dwarfism and a third arm, Toones's lover Carl/Carlotta, a transsexual lounge singer and Winston, a young man with Ichthyosis who goes by the stage name of 'alligator boy'. That night, the president of the local bank, Anna Eddington, goes missing after being alone with Harker.

Later, Ian attempts to skip town before the full moon, as he is secretly a werewolf.

Editorial summary

“Howling VI: The Freaks” enters the record as 1991 film directed by Hope Perello. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Howling, Freaks and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1991-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Howling, Freaks and film.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Howling VI: The Freaks” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Howling, Freaks and film provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2362883. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Howling VI: The Freaks”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Howling VI: The Freaks primary sources, Howling VI: The Freaks archive and Howling research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Howling VI: The Freaks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.