The title of this film suggests the popular George Romero/Stephen King anthology CREEPSHOW (1992), but this is a mild collection of terror tales.
Approached by the attractive April (Shannon Michelle Parsons) at a carnival, teenager Jeff (Brian D. Kelly) takes her into the freak show, where the Freak Master (Gunnar Hansen) tells the stories behind the exhibits:
An obnoxious young man goes to pay off a girl he's gotten pregnant and then dumped, but the girl's sorceress sister reveals that the baby was born a flesh-eating mutant, who makes his father his first meal. A young boy is adopted by new foster parents, who prove to be descended from a long line of
werewolves and inform the boy that he's a lycanthrope as well. A doctor brings an ancient mummy to a Halloween party in the 19th century; during a seance, the mummy's spirit possesses one of the guests, who kills (and in one case mummifies) the others. A grocery deliveryman finds that one of his
customers is a hideously deformed man, and enters into a bargain to trade bodies with him--with nasty results.
His tales concluded, the Freak Master reveals one last surprise: April is his daughter and one of his attractions, as she has a grotesque Siamese twin growing from her stomach. Jeff flees in shock.
Generally, the anthology format doesn't allow for a great deal of development of story or character, which is why the makers of most multi-story horror films have aimed to jolt audiences with unexpected plot twists or present flawed characters who get what's coming to them. In the case of
FREAKSHOW, unfortunately, the payoffs are unsurprising (and, in a couple of cases, spelled out well before they arrive) and inevitability becomes predictability in most of the stories. Without any truly startling developments, the movie comes to depend mostly on gross-outs and unconvincing makeup
effects to deliver its horrors, lacking the shock value and sense of twisted poetic justice of the EC comics that have inspired so many films of this type. Clearly made on a low budget, the movie does have some atmospheric moments and decent acting, with genre veterans Gunnar Hansen (THE TEXAS
CHAINSAW MASSACRE) and Hammer Films actress Veronica Carlson on hand for some cachet, but the material and its presentation are largely uninspired, resulting in a show that's nothing to freak out about. (Graphic violence, nudity, adult situations, substance abuse, profanity.) leave a comment
