Howling III (1987)

"Just when you thought it was safe to go Down Under"

Plot

A young woman escapes from a small tribe in the Australian outback and heads to the city where a chance meeting with an assistant film director who decides to cast her in his latest film “Shape Shifters Part 8.” But what he doesn’t know is that she is actually a werewolf who has escaped from her tribe. Meanwhile, a scientist looking for evidence that werewolves exist uncovers the tribe and must protect them when the government wants to destroy them, seeing them as a threat to mankind.

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The third of The Howling series, this second sequel decides to ditch any connection with the previous films (save for the werewolves) and goes off and does its own thing in Australia of all places. But if you thought the last sequel was bad then you haven’t seen anything yet. Director Philippe Mora, returning from Howling II, promised to deliver a better sequel after the critical and financial backlash that film received. He denied it was his doing, blamed the producers for meddling and then went off to make his own film free of studio constraint to show everyone what he could do on his own. Adding a touch of humour – scratch that – throwing in a huge dollop of cheese and ham, Mora manages to create an even worse cornball sequel and prove that he was the one behind the big pile of werewolf poo, not the producers.

There is so much wrong with Howling III, it's hard to know where to start. To begin with, the budget has been dramatically slashed since the previous two films to the point where everything looks cheap, from the film stock itself right down to the make-up effects. The film seems to have no specific main plot, with about ten sub-plots all being crammed in and desperately fighting for some screen time. The basic story about Jerboa and Donny would have been enough for the narrative to be based around but Mora throws in everything-but-the-kitchen-sink. Without a single direction to follow, the film drifts around aimlessly and rather confusingly at times. I’m sure that by the time Howling III has finished, it has spanned something like twenty years of story. It’s just too much for a ninety-minute movie. It doesn't really know when to quit either, with the final third of the film seemingly neverending and glossing over a couple of moments where I thought the credits were going to roll but the nightmare continued.

Australians should prosecute the makers of this film for being so damned stereotypical. In one scene, we see an Aborigine pop out of nowhere and actually shout "wanna throw another shrimp on the barby?" Talk about stereotyping an entire country. To completely kill off the last microscopic thread of credibility that the film has, that famous Australian export, Dame Edna Everage, makes a cameo appearance at the end. All the film needed was Crocodile Dundee and a couple of cans of Fosters and this would have been the advertisement of the century – actually a couple of Mick Dundee’s friends from Crocodile Dundee (the actors who played Nugget and Donk) appear as hunters in this one. There must have only been a handful of actual Australian actors in the 1980s because between this, Crocodile Dundee and the likes of Mad Max 2, you'll see the same faces pop up time and time again.

Then we move onto what should have been the real star attraction of the film - the werewolves. At least the original The Howling had some fantastic make-up effects and a great transformation scene. The effects in here are lame, cheap and it's easy to see that they are men in suits. The werewolves (actually not even proper werewolves, they’re marsupials) look nothing like the rabid chap on the poster, instead possessing more of a goofy cartoon character vibe. Case in point: the scene in which three of the werewolves/marsupials disguise themselves as nuns to rescue Jerboa. Werewolves are not portrayed as killers or cursed humans here but just a separate species who want to live and work in peace just like everybody else and only resort to violence when they have to defend themselves. It's not too different a take from the last films in all honesty just without the aggression and kills. Perhaps the film's weirdest effects scene is watching Jerboa give birth to a baby human-marsupial-werewolf hybrid which then proceeds to crawl up her very hairy stomach and into her pouch.

Another of the film's many weaknesses is that of the acting, which is dreadful overall. Imogen Annesley is attractive enough as Jerboa to make you believe that Donnie could fall in love with her, despite overly hairy genital area and clammy marsupial pouch. Allegedly, Nicole Kidman was considered for this role before Annesley got it so that would have been an interesting casting choice. Everyone else in the film seems completely bewildered at what is going on, with the worst culprit being bald-headed Max Fairchild who looks and acts like he has just walked on from Mad Max (not an accidental comparison as he was in Mad Max and Mad Max 2). The only one who seems to inject some level of deliberate absurdity into their performance is Frank Thring, the notable Australian actor who was an ever-present in epics of the 60s such as Ben Hur, El Cid and King of Kings. He does a Hitchcock impression as the flamboyant director of the film-within-a-film.

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Final Verdict

Howling III is the most bizarre of the sequels but definitely not the worst (somehow) simply for the fact that you have no idea what is going to come next. From Russian werewolf ballerinas to newly-born marsupials scurrying into pouches, the film succeeds in making itself intentionally terrible. Entertaining? Not in the slightest. But intriguing because when you think you've weirded out and reached rock bottom, you haven't. This was the last of the Howling films to receive a cinematic release and you can see why. Sorry Mr Mora but you had your choice to prove a point from the first sequel and you blew it.

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Howling III Director(s): Phillippe Mora Writer(s): Gary Brandner (based on the novel "The Howling III" by), Philippe Mora (screen story by) Actor(s): Barry Otto, Max Fairchild, Imogen Annesley, Lee Biolos, Dagmar Bláhová, Ralph Cotterill, Frank Thring, Michael Pate Duration: 98 mins