NFSA SAR FELLOWSHIP
Title No: 547783
W I D E R SCREENINGS TM presents...
AUSTRALIAN CINEMA / DVD
HOWLING 3: THE MARSUPIALS (2001)
Umbrella DVD (region 4)
d. Philippe Mora; pr. Charles Waterstreet, Philippe Mora; scr. Philippe Mora; novel. Gary Brandner; m. Allan Zavod; spec eff. Bob McCarron; cast. Barry Otto, Imogen Annesely, Max Fairchild, Leigh Biolos, Dasha Blahova, Ralph Cotterill, Barry Humphries (98 mins)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Australia's Post-Modern Werewolf Movie: Genre Scepticism in Tackling a "Modern Classic"
Joe Dante’s original The Howling is regarded as a contemporary classic of the werewolf genre.
TRAILER
EXTRACT
Its sequels extended the concept into rapidly dwindling exploitation fodder, going down under in Australia for Howling III: The Marsupials, directed by Ozploitation stalwart Philippe Mora. Here, Mora tries to interject a comedic twist, as Barry Otto stars as a professor studying a new species of marsupial werewolf and who soon falls in love with a pregnant werewolf bitch, fleeing with her to protect her brood from military forces intent on exterminating them. Mora is aware that this material is ridiculous and makes no attempt to conceal this, instead drawing attention to the nature of this film as cinematic artifice at any and every opportunity.
With a deliberately hilarious script replete with Aussie allusions, Howling III is a horror film for genre sceptics.
It begins with anthropological contexts grounded in an absurd pseudo-science which Mora never takes seriously, instead concentrating on a portrait of small town Australiana and its sociological stresses on young people. However, the acceptance of lycanthropy throughout undercuts any pretences to social documentation. Instead, the film is a pastiche of Australiana concentrating on the predicament facing a new generation cursed by the traditions of their elders (in this case the curse of lycanthropy) – the werewolf bitch is thus presented as a young woman seeking independence in a world in which she has been cursed by tradition.
_________________________________________
Self-Referencing a Parodic Artifice
Despite these contexts, Howling III is a silly film more about the artifice involved in creating horror in Australia than about providing an actual horror movie: in that sense it is about post-modern pop-culture, all jokey self-reference intended to distance and dislocate the audience rather than involve them. Indeed, Mora is intent to mock the genre for its inherent fantastic stupidity and low budget craftsmanship. This unfortunately results in a deliberate bad movie which parodies bad movies, saved only by a knowing script which is perhaps wittier than expected for this type of movie, although in the latter stages devolves into a peculiar bathos involving the werewolf bitch who does not want to be what she is and is an emotional, needy woman just looking for a new life beyond persecution.
The original Howling managed to be comedic, scary and self-referential and although Mora’s film attempts the same balance in a uniquely Australian context it has little respect for the genre it parodies.
Mora here seems to feel himself above this material and pokes fun at it as much as possible: the result is a disrespectful parody of horror movie artifice, engaging in script and concept but un-involving as horror drama. References to the horror movie making process in the first half work well but by the time the film launches into its proper plot it has lost all conviction and merely appears a padded put-on.
In short, Howling III is a film all about pretense and, as such, never engages as a horror film, too removed by post-modern self-reflexivity and ultimately falling between two stools – parody and horror – without ever truly reconciling them as the first film did so successfully.
_________________________________________
DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION:
Howling 3 Marsupials
AMAZON.COM DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Howling III: The Marsupials
AMAZON.CO.UK DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Howling 3 - The Marsupials [DVD] [1987]
RECOMMENDED AUSTRALIAN VIEWING SELECTIONS
