The Marstupials

doctorsmoothlove

Philippe Mora's mind must be a strange place. I can think of many different ways to tell a story about werewolves, but anything I could direct wouldn't be half as creative as The Howling 3: The Marsupials. It's an amusingly self-aware parody of the previous entries deeply rooted in loving Australian stereotypes. As weird as it is, I almost feel uncomfortable reviewing it as part of my bad movie series. The movie is stuffed with strange and sometimes sudden jolts of humor that are too effective to have been by chance.

Mora separated himself from Gary Brandner's novels, and created an unrelated new story. There are a few nudges to the first two films for fans (including a cool last scene parody of the last scene from the first Howling), but this one is a name-only sequel and takes place in Australia and the United States. The humor is increased and the violence is reduced (this is the only one so far to be rated PG13). It was also the final Howling film to be released theatrically in the States.

As the movie begins, we see a disheveled young woman riding on a bus full of nuns. One of them asks her why she left her family, and the girl says, "My stepfather tried to rape me and he's a werewolf". The actress says the line curtly and I can't tell if it is a misfire or subtle comedy. It's worth a quick chuckle before the story gets going. The girl, who we soon learn is called Jerboa goes to Sydney where men immediately start to leer at her suggestively. She sends them packing with a cute growl and rests for the night.

The next day some guy chases her for a while to ask her if she would like to star in a werewolf movie. She agrees and goes onset to a production of a movie that looks like one of the many knock-offs of The Wolf Man. The production values are so poor that you can clearly see the actor's hand throbbing about in the werewolf costume. After the first day, Donny, the guy who asked her to be in the movie, takes her to see a real werewolf movie in theaters. Whatever they watch has similar transformation effects to the first Howling film, which Jerboa says is unrealistic. Real werewolves transform whenever they want by gaining a lot of hair as the camera cuts away or if exposed to bright lights (possible nod to Gremlins, helmed by Howling director Joe Dante).

The two of them become intimate and Jerboa becomes pregnant with Donny's child. At a hospital visit, we learn that she has a pouch on her abdomen. She is a marsupial human (sort of)! Doctors and professors all over the world are curious to investigate other cases of wolf people and trace Jerboa's path back to her rapist stepfather's village. One such professor, Harry Beckmeyer, helps capture some werewolves and learns that they are descendants of a man who had an unnaturally close relationship with his pet wolf. His brood extends all over the world, from California (get it?) to the U.S.S.R.

Jerboa and Donny return to her village where they meet Harry and one of the werewolf women he has apparently fallen in love with. We are then treated to the birthing sequence of the baby, while Jerboa moans soft core. It would actually be very sexy if they puppet child wasn't there crawling into her pouch in close up. The two couples reside in the wilderness for many years until the Pope declares that werewolves are not agents of Satan (another in-joke) and declares they are also the children God, even though there is no afterlife in the werewolf religion. One of them actually says to Jerboa, "I'm just gonna die!" when some poachers (murderers?) get him. In a movie about marsupial werewolves, the idea of an afterlife seems impossible? The third Howling film is a vast improvement over the second one in nearly every aspect. Even the visuals are better, despite a lower budget. The werewolves actually look canine when transformed. Tacky attack scenes are avoided by focusing on the jokes. The convalescence of unintentional humor with the in-jokes will leave you with continuous giggles.

Recommended

score 7/10

doctorsmoothlove 12 April 2010

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2235220/