Howling 3 - The Marsupials [DVD] [1987]

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Customer reviews

review by: K.L.M. date: 2009-02-06 rating:
Howling 3 is not a howling sucess.
I only bought this because I'm a fan of Howling 1,4 and 5 and I'm now sorry I did. This is not by any means a horror film it's a comedy with a couple of shock moments. Made in Australia by director Phil Mora (who directed Howling 2 and that is the only connection to the Howling series of movies) it centres on a group of friendly werewolves and there plight, only a small part by actress Glenda Linscott(Rita Conners in prisoner cell block h) as one of the werewolf nuns saves this from becoming the worst of the series for me. Even a small cameo from dame Edna at the end can't save it.

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review by: s.vernon date: 2007-10-29 rating:
FLAWED BUT ACCEPTABLE
After being transfixed with a video shot by his grandfather years ago, Professor Harry Beckmeyer, (Barry Otto) is asked by the US Government to fly to Australia to investigate a series of werewolf reports with Professor Sharp, (Ralph Cotterill) an old friend and colleague. In an isolated part of the bush, Jerboa, (Imogen Annesley) runs away from her stepfather, Thylo, (Max Fairchild) and escapes to Sydney . Spotting Jerboa, Donny Martin, (Leigh Biolos) offers her a small role in a horror movie and start a relationship together. When it's discovered that Jerboa is a marsupial werewolf and pregnant, they all team up to save the group from being hunted to death. br / br /The Good News: There is a few really nice things about this one. The focus is on its rather intriguing central premise of a specifically Australian colony of werewolves, called were-thylacines, since these are marsupial werewolves. Now, this notion is one of the most creative and original ideas out there, and what merit it has rests largely on the fact that it came up with this outlandish premise and it follows through on it, giving the chance to learn more than they probably ever wanted to know about these kinds of creature. The sequences devoted to them are quite ingeniously written out and paint a fully developed picture of their family life, which goes a long way in here to making the outlandish family life all the more believable. When it decides to go all out, it can deliver some amusing scenes. The transformations done are quite nicely handled, especially the one forced on by the strobbing light nearby. The sequence at the ballerina exhibit is one of the more inventive ideas around and is a full-on cheese scene that plays out wonderfully. The attempts at comedy are also nicely done, as an exchange on a bus gives off a great line, and several lines later on during the werewolf hunt worthy of a chuckle. The most amount of laughs occur due to the film-within-a-film scenes, which greatly pokes fun at the entire werewolf genre with a couple of great moments. There is some rather good things in here. br / br /The Bad News: There is still a couple of things keeping this down. The most obvious is that the film is way to cheesy to ever take seriously, whether this was intended or not. The werewolves look really terrible, with over-elongated snouts, non-threatening eyes, and more of a dog look to them than anything. The transformations occur in unusual places, but really can't hold up that well and come off very unconvincingly. There's plenty of other examples spread throughout, but those can't be spoiled. The lack of gore is also a big problem, as there's a large amount of bodies knocked off in here and it would've made the film a tad more tolerable had we seen them getting their kills on-screen. The ending chase through the bush is really hard to sit through, when it delves into a large amount of political debate over tolerating the species of werewolves more than the action shown. It's largely out-of-place and slows the movie down when they all go off on those rants when it should've been carrying through on its action scenes which showed lots of potential. Even worse is that it's a message carried out through the film, and really didn't need to be told to us in the manner given in the film. It's also one of the most confusing films around, as it delves into a couple different subplots that are adequately explained, but are not really in the right film. The different subplots aren't necessarily that bad, but only make the film far more confusing than it needs to be. It could've done with scaling a couple of them back or eliminating them altogether. That would still leave the explanation for the werewolves, which is one of the hokiest and most unbelievable ones offered, and is such a giant U-turn from normal werewolf lore that it needs a couple of views to acceptably get it down. br / br /The Final Verdict: Sure, it's a giant cheese-fest, but there's some good ideas in here that may not be all that original but it at least showed that there was some creativity used in the process. This is still only recommended to the most hardcore werewolf fan though. br /

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review by: lionheart138 date: 2006-02-08 rating:
Thylacine Werewolves
Despite that this film is poorly acted in a few places, it is worth watching as it has a very interesting story line. It follows a young werewolf girl who runs away from her pack, to go in to the city. Where she meets an all around nice human guy who falls in love with her.pThe story from then on follows their lives and the lives of the pack, its changes and trials. As well as the humans finding out about these werewolves existence, which isn't a good thing.pMost interesting of all is the werewolves themselves who are related to the Thylacine and have pouches to carry there new born children who are tiny when first born. pI say give this movie a shot, if you’re a fan of the howling series.


review by: charlie_gordon date: 2004-08-19 rating:
Werewolf's in Auz
Not the greatest speacial affects, some of the changes from human to wolf are a bit unrealistic, but there is a storyline that alters thoughout the film. Like most the howlings the film is about a group of werewolf's. It has the typical one going astray and mating the a human before returning the group. But it also has two quite good scenes, one were a baby wereworf is going into her mothers pouch as the mothers human and the other of a human strapped a chair as he's forced to change into a wolf.pThere is two scene in the film with poor acting. But I still feel the story and australian back groud makes the film is worth a look.pIt has a nice cast, a few famous australians in small parts of the film. I gave this four stars due to it's storyline and the two scenes mensioned earier. It's up to you if you care to watch it.

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Similar categories

Video . DVD Blu-ray . Categories . Horror . Film Series
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . DVD
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . BBFC Rating (intended_use_browse-bin) . 18
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Standard Edition
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Region(feature_browse-bin) . Region 2
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1980 - 1989
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English

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