Howling III: The Marsupials

Year: 1987

Director: Phillipe Mora

Written by: Phillipe Mora

Threat: Werewolf

Weapon of Choice: Teeth

Based upon: novel - Howling III - Gary Brandner

IMDb page: IMDb link

      Howling III

Other movies in this series:
The Howling
Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf
The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare
Howling V: The Rebirth
Howling VI: The Freaks
Howling: New Moon Rising

The tyranist's thoughts
I like the werewolf movies, but even I am not so enamoured of them to think that the Howling series lacks serious problems. Along comes a copy of number 3, subtitled 'The Marsupials.' I hate it already.
So there's a tribe of werefolk living in the outback of Australia where they've apparently been hiding and breeding for over 50 years. One of them escapes to the big city where she gets involved with some people, including one chap who is really keen to prove that werewolves exist.
The movie started out reasonably, although the low production values are immediately apparent and the plot is really pointless from the start. Still, I didn't find anything to loathe right up front. The female protagonist is not hard to look at and Australia's a pretty country. It goes downhill awfully fast after that.
It seemed that the filmmakers wanted to have some sort of Anne Rice effect on werewolves. My personal opinion is that they failed miserably, partly because the story is just ridiculous and wholly unbelievable and partly because the cast and script just didn't blend well. I suppose if you are a werewolf fan, there are bits here to please, but really, this is the second worse Australian horror flick I've ever seen.

Total Skulls: 17

Sequel skull
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie skull
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title skull
Bad premise skull
Bad acting skull
Bad dialogue
Bad execution skullskull
MTV Editing skull
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes skull
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster skull
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect skull
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots skull
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending skull
Unbelievably crappy ending skull
What the hell? skullskull