#howling3

needlefelt werethylacine loosely inspired by Howling III: The Marsupials, a film i love dearly!!!

I didn’t know what I was getting into. On Monday I went to Eyesore Cinema for the Full Moon screening series and was introduced to Howling III: The Marsupials. I’ve seen The Howling which is considered a horror classic by Joe Dante. I appreciated the effects but overall I thought it was a forgettable film. Before attending I was assured that having skipped the second one wouldn’t matter as there wasn’t any continuity from the first two. I can report that there didn’t even seem to be any continuity within this film itself. I spent a lot of this movie confused and while I found the first film to be forgettable I had a very different response to this one. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget this sequel. 

The film opens with Professor Harry Beckmeyer (Barry Otto) screening archival footage of Australian Aborigines sacrificially killing what seems to be a werewolf. He explains to his class that the animal/person being sacrificed has a face so realistic looking that it couldn’t be a person wearing a mask. He obviously isn’t watching the same footage as I was because it clearly looked like a person wearing a bad werewolf mask. This is all just setup to introduce Professor Beckmeyer’s obsession with finding and hopefully studying this mythical werewolf species. Everyone around him thinks this is just a myth but he insists they’re real and this obsession helps drive the movie along. 

Soon after we’re introduced to Jerboa (Imogen Annesley), a young werewolf, who while living with her wolf pack in the outback, escapes her abusive father. She runs away to the big city of Sydney where she is promptly discovered to act in a horror film. Her wild, animal like look immediately entrances Donny Martin (Leigh Biolos) who introduces her to the most supportive film director ever, Jack Citron (Frank Thring) who finds everything to be “Simply Marvelous.” With her new found calling as an actress/model established she begins a loving relationship with Donny who instantly becomes infatuated with her. They begin an intense sexual relationship because Jerboa, who is part wolf is likely in heat. This leads to many hilarious moments with Donny proclaiming his love for Jerboa to any and every person he shares a scene with. 

Everything I’ve written above is just setup for what rapidly becomes a truly strange film. We meet other werewolves who have infiltrated the Sydney arts scene, medical studies that don’t seem to bring about useful results and the birth of a werewolf/human hybrid that is just plain gross with its use of mucus. There really isn’t a second in this movie that anyone would consider scary but it certainly tries. The special effects, story and acting just don’t allow it to break from it’s campy bubble. There is consistently an element of comedy that creeps in due to just how insane everything is.

This was the first Howling sequel to be released after the movie’s naming rights were sold. It’s less involved with The Howling series and more connected to the Ozploitation genre. This is a movement started in Australia in the 1970′s that spawned a lot of grindhouse cinema classics like Mad Max, Patrick, Next of Kin, Dead End Drive-in and Walkabout. These films are some of the best and most well known ones, the genre itself is best known for bad taste comedy, carpocalypse and horror films. Howling III fits somewhere in between. It’s relevance continued due to it’s place in The Howling franchise but it’s pure trash cinema. It’s charms do sneak through at times but at no point does it ever feel like it’s trying to be anything other than ridiculous. 

The most frustrating part of the movie for me was the ending. It isn’t disappointing, it’s just non-stop. There were more false endings than the end of Peter Jackson’s Return of the King. Whenever I thought it was finally over it kept adding an additional story thread. I blurted out in frustration a few times “How this this film still going?.” It felt like each improbable and unnecessary scene was tacked on to hit a feature length running time. When the ending does finally come it’s so bizarre that I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief. Ultimately though I recommend  Howling III: The Marsupials because it’s actually a fun movie to watch. It’s unlike any werewolf movie I've ever seen and it always diverted away from my expectations. It’s certainly one of a kind.