Howling III (1987) Reviews

• Camp or campy?

  uds32002-09-25

  Misunderstood and ultimately quirky little entry in the HOWLING series. Absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the original film, being simply an antipodean tale of lycanthropic maladjustment! Way better now than upon its release, the full low-budgetry inanity of Mora's little pet works quite well if you can get on its wavelength, that is, down to a primordial level. Beautiful redhead, Miss Annesley (shame she can't speak as well as she looks) is the aptly named Jerboa, a girl with a rare secret. Biologically er, different, she has the cutest little pouch just above her more "R" rated parts, which following a night of passion, soon gains the tiniest of new inhabitants in a scene one can only describe as "different!" A subject of extreme interest to the medical profession, trivia buffs may notice none other than film historian and TV presenter Bill Collins making his rather pedestrian debut here as a hospital doctor, somewhat enamoured with Jerboa's never-seen-before physiology. Played strictly for laughs and non-conformist fun, the budget constraints were such that at the point of anyone actually being attacked by a werewolf, all the viewer ever gets to see is a back-pedalling actor with varying expressions of laugh-out-loud fright. In hindsight I think this adds to the quirkiness rather than detracts! Ever reliable Barry Otto (first up on anyone's list with a fully left-field flick in the offing) is Professor Harry Beckmeyer who takes it upon himself ultimately to protect Jerboa from those who would harm her. Michael Pate and son Christopher make a suitably stilted (as in "What the hell am I doing in a film like this?) contribution and Australia's grandest thespian Frank Thring, camps it up shamefully as a Z-Grade horror-movie director. Pontius Pilate (In Ben Hur) to THIS???? Hmmm, its a worry! IN the wash-up, what we have here a one-off film experience, one anyone can miss and be none the worse off for! If you ARE unavoidably entrapped one night, well at least you can say, "Yeah I've seen HOWLING III, my life is now fulfilled!"

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• One of the most unusual werewolf movies

  kelvinthelion2004-10-07

  I realize that this is not one of the more popular films in the howling series. I still haven't seen Howling parts 2, 4, or7, but I've read some pretty bad things about them. The Howling 3 is my favorite one. Yes, I pick it over the first one which seems to be everybody else's favorite. It has it's flaws of course but it also has a lot of insignificant firsts like werewolf nuns. We call them insignificant firsts because nobody else ever did the same thing but they are still neat ideas. It's also one of the few werewolf movies based on the idea that werewolves are people too and at times it seems that the people hunting the werewolves are the real bad guys. I really felt something for them and the plight of the thylacine (marsupial wolf) that was wiped out decades ago. It really seems more like an action comedy than a horror movie. The director claims that gore was the furthest thing on his mind. It also might be the only Howling movie with a PG-13 rating. My only real gripe is the dragged out ending that just keeps on going. It seems they had a hard time figuring out how to end it. All in all, I think they did pretty well with what little money they had. (1 million dollars Australian.) Notice during Jerboa's run through the arcade you can see a Rampage arcade machine. One of the characters in that game is a giant werewolf.

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• Imbecilic in-name-only sequel

  gridoon2005-03-29

  After the complete failure of a sequel that "Howling II" was, Philippe Mora returned for yet another installment, trying a different (more spoofy) approach this time....but it didn't work out much better. Most of the blame must go not to the direction, but to the awful, disconnected script, which makes the film feel thrown-together almost at random. The werewolf effects are mostly pathetic, though those involving Imogen Annesley's newborn "baby" somehow manage to be good (and disgusting). Obviously this film was also intended to be a spoof, but it could have used more subtlety: we know that that director is meant to be an Alfred Hitchcock - lookalike, we don't need to hear him talk about Janet Leigh and the shower scene in "Psycho", we know that "flow" is "wolf" spelled backwards, we don't need to see it reflected on a mirror, etc. Perhaps the only two good things about "Howling III" are two of its actors: Annesley (definitely the cutest werewolf I've ever seen) and Barry Otto, who gives an honest performance as the compassionate scientist. (*1/2)

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• Could have been a classic... if only...

  devinecomic2005-07-07

  Howling 3 is yet another horror effort, where excellent ideas and even the mood and atmosphere of a horror classic are not cultivated or nurtured throughout the film. I was brought up in the era of "The American Werewolf in London", definitely the classic, archetypal werewolf flick. Tough competition by anyone's standards. Yet Howling 3 has just as many good ideas, just as much depth, just as much potential... but just doesn't make it. The basis of the film resides upon some old Cine8 footage of a werewolf's capture by some natives. Grainy, snowy, short lived images, set the scene well, and could be perceived as scary. The idea of the werewolf being a type of marsupial species, a separate development of human life is interesting, and could be scary in that they have always lived amongst us. Separate werewolf societies, driven to the bleakest habitable places on the planet, but in contact with each other spiritually and genetically... yes, yes, this is definitely going somewhere. And then three of said werewolves dress up as Nuns, and travel to the big city to retrieve their runaway teen-wolfette, and gain entry to a fancy dress party having changed into actual habit-wearing wolf people... oh perleeease! A serious film, even a horror, can carry some comedy, but in Howling 3 the comedy is inappropriate, badly timed, and too farcical for words. The more serious horror aspects of the film being ruined by these interruptions. I remained unconvinced by any of the man-to-wolf changes, in fact, they were equally farcical, with their obvious "fur means fear" reliance. So, a film with potential, which obviously had serious horror intent, became a farce, even a spoof, by it's own making. A real shame and a real sham all in one. Stick to "American Werewolf in London" or even "Dog Soldiers" for that fur-fear-fix!! I rated a "3"

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• Is this the most catastrophically awful movie ever made?

  ExpendableMan2007-02-18

  The original Howling was a fun little Werewolf flick. Nothing too serious, just a simple but original premise, some well-handled tension, cool makeup effects and a nice healthy dose of gore and violence to round things off. Compared to its most immediate rival, An American Werewolf in London though it comes up second place, so why in the name of heaven it spawned so many follow ups is something of a mystery. The series is up to its seventh entry thus far and if the diminishing laws of sequels is anything to go on, they must be unspeakably terrible because Howling 3 (the only one I've been bored/curious/stupid enough to sit through) is so bad I'd have to say it's one of the worst films I've ever seen. The principle reason for this is the premise, as director Philippe Mora decides to do away with the original's everyday people versus rampaging monsters approach and instead, provides us with what must be the only Marsupial Werewolf Romance Epic in movie history. The script is massively overambitious, the acting so bad the cast might as well have been made of cardboard and any promise of bloodthirsty violence a la the original goes forever unsatisfied. You might get a few laughs out of it, but ultimately it's just a very poor film. The overambitious storyline considers an anthropologist, Dr Beckmeyer (Inspector Clouseau lookalike Barry Otto) and his studies of a race of marsupial werewolf people discovered in Australia. Mixed up in all this is a Russian ballet dancer who is secretly a non-marsupial werewolf herself come to breed with the Australians, a B-movie actress from the countryside who is also a werewolf and an idiot movie talent spotter who's fallen in love with her. So blindly in love with her in fact that he doesn't bat an eyelid when he first notices how hairy she is. Dr Beckmeyer is determined to prove that the werewolves are not to be frightened of and that studying them is the best approach, the Government is not so certain and wants to destroy them and eventually, after a painfully long set up, he joins up with the lycanthropes in an attempt to lead them to safety in the outback. You might think a film with 'Marsupial Werewolves' in might be entertaining. It isn't. The delivery is slow and tedious, with characters and subplots being introduced with no concern for cohesion and what should have been a campy, violent and fun film instead is dull, pretentious twaddle. Indeed, the only attraction to come from this is Imogen Annesley, a very attractive young woman whose career has failed to take off since the high point of stripping naked in a barn, giving birth to a rodent thing and having it crawl up her belly and into a kangaroo pouch on her abdomen. She might be gorgeous in a "I wish you weren't a hideous mutant freak monster" kind of way but she's more or less the only noteworthy thing deserving praise in the entire sorry enterprise. Oh and Dame Edna pops up at the end. So there you have it, a werewolf movie with a humanitarian message. Great, that's just what we needed. If you're a film student looking for a lesson in how not to make a movie you might just be capable of scraping some little residue of a hint out of this, but if not, I'd advise avoiding this movie like the bubonic plague.

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