Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: M
Duration: 98 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Philippe Mora
Cast: Barry Otto, Imogen Annesley, Max Fairchild, Leigh Biolos, Dasha Blahova, Ralph Cotterill, Barry Humphries
The third film in the wildly scattershot Howling franchise is absolutely one of my favorites of the series, it was a staple of basic cable in the 80s and 90s, so I grew up on a steady-diet of this crazy werewolf film. It's a lycan movie un-lycan any other, dealing with an Australian strain of the canine beast descended from the long extinct Tasmanian Tiger, and being from Australia you just know they had to be marsupials as well!
The film is directed by Phillipe Mora (The Beast Within) who also directed the fairly awful - though not un-entertaining - The Howling II: You're Sister Is A Werewolf (1985), for this third film he went full on ozploitation, filming in Australia with a largely Australian cast, making a full-tilt slice of weird werewolf movie making the likes of which the cinema world had not seen before, or since.
The film establishes that there's a lost tribe of marsupial werewolves living in the rural outback of Australia, and when the government becomes aware of their existence they send agents them with orders to exterminate them on site. We have a sympathetic American scientist Harry Beckmeyer (Barry Otto, The Punisher) who working with the Australian government, plus the gorgeous teen-aged lycan named Jerboa (Imogen Annesley, Queen of the Damned) on the run from her abusive stepfather Thylo (Max Fairchild), who is the leader of their werewolf clan. While on the run she encounters American teenager Donny Martin (Leigh Biolos) who is in the city filming a horror movie with director Jack Citron (Frank Thring, Mad Dog Morgan), catching the director's eye, who casts her in his latest film, a cheesy werewolf film titled Shape Shifters Part 8.
Jerboa and Donny begin to fall in love while filming, with her admitting to Donny that she is a werewolf, though he doesn't believe her at first blush, though when he finds her fur-lined marsupial pouch - if you know what I mean! - while she sleeps he starts to comes around to the idea. Later on at the movie premiere party a strobing light triggers her transformation, while fleeing the party she is hit by a passing car, and ends up in the hospital where the doctors and government agents discover her lycanthropic secret and marsupial pouch. She's kept against her their for further observation, with the doctor's also noting that she is pregnant with Donny's child.
Meanwhile her abusive stepfather Thylo has dispatched three of his lycan clan to return Jerboa to him, three female werewolves disguised as nuns, which is a very nice touch of nunsploitation, who eventually make their way to the hospital where she is being kept and free her, spilling a lot of blood in the process.
It's a strange film indeed, and then we have Professor Beckmeyer falling in love with a Russian dancer name Olga (Dagmar Bláhová) who is of course a werewolf, with him changing allegiances and running off with her to start their own hybrid furry family in the outback.
Dagmar Bláhová has a very unique look, she's wide eyes with an even wider Cheshire cat grin that is just creepy, she has a gypsy vibe, but still not as creepy as those werewolf nuns.
Eventually we have the government agents tracking the werewolves back to Thylo's compound, in the village of Flow - you know, Wolf spelled backwards (ugh) - launching a military assault and taking Thylo prisoner. Thylo eventually escapes after being tortured, praying to the gods to transformed into a giant wolf, which he absolutely does. The big beast savages the government soldiers, but is only seen in a fleeting glimpse before being blown to smithereens by a rocket launcher!
I've seen this film so many times, on TV and on home video, but I always seem to forget the epilogue involving the Hollywood career of Jerboa and Donny, with their now teenage son and reunion with Beckmeyer. It's a strange stinger that culminates with a Golden Globe type awards show that sort of mirrors the ending of the first film, with Dee Wallace transforming on during a live news broadcast. This scene features ozploitation legend Barry Humphries (Les Patterson Saves the World) as his character Dame Edna presenting at the awards, making this possibly one of the most Australian movies ever made.
I love the weirdness of this one, there' so much about it that makes so very little sense, but it moves fast and is hugely entertaining. I'm not sure why there's a scene paying homage to the chest-burster scene from Alien but there it is! On top of that you get the marsupial birth of a werewolf baby, plus aboriginal actor Burnham Burnham (Dark Age) as a ferocious Tasmanian Tiger striped werewolf - which is pretty darn cool!
Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo, a dynamic and well-balanced track that offers up good stereo separation throughout, optional English subtitles are provided.
Onto the extras, we get nearly identical extras as the Scream Factory release, beginning with an audio commentary with Writer/Director Philippe Mora, moderated by filmmaker Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend) , which mirrors a lot of what is touched on in the interviews on the disc, but is a great track just the same. There's also a 15-min interview with the director speaking of how he was inspired by the vintage black and white footage of the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger, this interview looking to have been edited down to a shorter running time that the 27-min interview on the Scream Factory disc. We also get about 17-min of extended interviews with the director and special make-up FX artist Bob McCarron from the Not Quite Hollywood! ozploitation doc.
Unlike the Scream Factory disc Umbrella carry-over the vintage audio commentary for director Philippe Mora that appeared on the 2000 DVD from Elite Entertainment, plus we get an expanded selection of VHS trailers and a TV spot,and an image gallery of press clippings, home video releases and promotional images. There's also a 2-min Easter Egg of Mora discussing horror icon Christopher Lee.
The single-disc release comes housed in over-sized Blu-ray keepcase with sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the very familiar home video artwork, differentiated from Scream's use of the same image by boosting the colors a bit, especially the yellow, and using "The Marsupials' subtitle. The reverse side features a new illustration from Umbrella's in-house designer Simon Sherry, the new illustration is also featured on the disc. This is a movie that's always had bad artwork in my opinion, so it's nice to have display options, but to be honest the new artwork is no great shakes either.
Special Features:
- Vintage Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Philippe Mora
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Philippe Mora, Moderated By Filmmaker Jamie Blanks
- Colonial Lycanthropy: A Conversation With Philippe Mora (15 min)
- Vintage Interviews From The Documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! By Director Mark Hartley (19 min)
- TV Spot (1 min)
- Trailers (8 min)
- Gallery (4 min)
- Easter Egg (2 min)
Howling III - The Marsupials (1987) is a gonzo ozploitation version of a werewolf film, it's never boring but it also doesn't make a lick of sense. It's almost like a nightmare, the kind where you cannot quite recall how you transitioned from one strange scene to the next. It has a hallucinatory dream logic about it that I just dig a bunch. That's not to say it's a great horror film, it ain't, but it's a demented watch that doesn't skimp on the strange. About the only thing I don't care for is that we don't get a real satisfying werewolf transformation in the whole dang film, though we do get loads of cool looking werewolves, but never do get a wholly satisfying transformation, which for a typical werewolf film would spell certain doom, but this ain't your average werewolf film, not by a long shot. Great to this Australian b-movie gem getting an extras packed release from an Australian label, very cool!
