Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Werewolf > Howling 3: The Marsupials (1986/Umbrella Entertainment PAL Region Zero DVD)

Howling 3: The Marsupials (1986/Umbrella Entertainment PAL Region Zero DVD)

 

Picture: D     Sound: C-     Extras: D     Film: C-

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This DVD can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0 PAL format software, and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the review.

 

 

 

Let’s play a game.  I’m going to throw out a few words and phrases, and you put the word “werewolf” in front of each.  Okay?  Here we go: “Marsupial”  “Nuns”  “Birth Scene”  “Ballerina” and “Happy Ending.”  If that doesn’t peak your interest then you’re obviously looking at the wrong movie.

 

The third installment of the eight-part Howling series started by Joe Dante, Howling 3 moves the action to Australia where marsupial werewolves live in small towns in the outback.  But one werewolf, the lovely-but-hairy Jerboa Jerboa, dreams of life in the big city where she finds love and work on the set of a werewolf movie.

 

The plot takes a back seat, in this film, to the more refined pleasures of watching werewolves shaking their heads violently as they transform, nuns eating people, and a baby werewolf crawling his way from the birth canal to his mother’s pouch.  And really, there’s nothing wrong with that, especially since I’m not sure the plot makes any sense anyway.  Apparently, by the end of the movie the werewolves are the good guys and Jerboa is a supermodel.

 

The picture, in 1.77:1 widescreen, has that distinct look of a film made in the 1980s that has begun to degrade over the past 20 years.  The audio, in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, is similarly a bit soft. The only extras are a stills gallery, trailer, TV spot, and an audio commentary from writer/director Philippe Mora.

 

While Howling 3 is a far cry from the original Howling, if you’ll excuse the pun, the third installment is an entirely different beast from the original.  The first Howling is a decently respected film and held to be one of the classic examples of werewolf movies.  This film is more about the inherent pleasures of werewolf movies in general as it gently lampoons the genre.  So revisit that list at the beginning of this review, and if you’re a filmgoer with simple tastes that enjoys simple pleasures like werewolf ballerinas, then I’d say you’ve come to the right place.

 

 

As noted above, you can order these imports exclusively from Umbrella at:

 

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

 

 

-   Matthew Carrick


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com