Howling III: The Marsupials

Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: Philippe Mora

Starring: Barry Otto, Imogen Annesley, Leigh Biolos, Dagmar Blahova, Ralph Cotterill

From: Bancannia Holdings Pty. Ltd.

This Ozploitation film is so odd it makes me want to say Oi!

While not as bonkers as Howling II: Stirba-Werewolf Bitch (the alternate title I'll always refer to it as) this movie is totally off the wall and a weird-yet also interesting-direction for the series to journey to. The movie is now back on Amazon Prime and while it is fullscreen and for some reason a 90 second trailer for the movie is how the video on Prime begins, overall it somehow seemed appropriate to watch this movie in such a fashion.

The execution of the plot was not always great... there are large time jumps in the final act where some actors barely look different despite many years having passed, there is some incredible overacting, the editing is even more jarring than in The Predator and a few times I wondered if there were missing reels... yet the general idea I did not hate. This brings up such ideas as werewolves from around the world evolving differently depending on where they are located, the ones in Australia becoming marsupials, and some even having a psychic connection. I also have to give props for them trying to tie in the extinct (although rumored to still be around in minuscule numbers) Thylacine, i.e. the Tasmanian Tiger.

Someone being a scientist and being interested in studying these now-discovered creatures makes sense, along with someone falling in love with one that looks like an attractive woman. I just wish this wouldn't have been so chaotic and containing everything from spoofs of movie-making and Aborigines to 80's Australian pop (which isn't the same as the new wave that was in II) and Dame Edna. On that note, while Edna is the only character anyone in America knows that was played by Barry Humphries, it's not like she is unknown here. While of course not as popular as in places like Europe or Australia, the Dame has appeared on American talk shows and she even briefly had her own show in the United States back in '91... it did not take off here as it did elsewhere so the show was brief. But as people from all over the world will read this... I wanted to offer such trivia.

At least this movie tries to have a sense of humor-that is hit or miss. Like I said, I wish the film would have been better overall as there definitely are intriguing ideas that are presented here... it just seems to be lost or at least obscured among all the chaos that was the finished product.