Howling III - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Howling III

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie

Being a massive fan of the werewolf genre (well, the genre where vampires don’t sparkle and werewolves aren’t just hunky bare chested native Americans), I’m always ecstatic to find Scream Factory going back and releasing the Howling franchise films, even if the sequels to The Howling are not as witty or darkly myopic in regards to the werewolf tropes (and lets face it, a series that goes on for 6 films with most of them in the DTV market isn’t going to be a bastion of intelligence and nuance). They first release The Howling in a great collector’s edition back in 2013, then 2 years later revisited the franchise with Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. Now we get the completely insane and magically delicious nutball soup that is Howling III: Marsupials to enjoy with a new 4K remaster and a bevvy of new special features.

The Howling wasn’t the most serious of werewolf films on the market. It was more of a deconstruction of the werewolf genre, poking fun of the morays and tropes that were prevalent in the sub genre, yet still acting as a loving letter of adoration to the hairy moonlit doggos as well. The resulting sequels went completely off the walls though, not even wanting or trying to connect themselves to the original movie. They’re really more sequels in name only, and with this third entry (out of the five sequels and one remake from 2011) director Philippe Mora (who directed the 2nd film) goes completely balls to the walls with zany werewolf nuttiness.

Taking nothing from it’s predecessors, Howling III takes place in Australia, where a group of marsupial werewolves are in a game of survival with the humans in the area. Back in the day, the marsupial wolf known as the Tasmanian Tiger once dominated the outback, but now has been led to its extinction. However a group of werewolves who have descended from the Tasmanian Tiger now live in seclusion and come out at night to feed and rain terror down upon the humans in the area. Now it’s up to said humans to fight back and reclaim the land from the marsupial werewolves and survive the nights to do so.

There is nothing sane about Howling III: Marsupials. I mean, who had the bright idea to make werwolves into marsupials, complete with carrying their young in a pouch! I know we’re not talking about werekangaroos, but it’s still just plaid insane! Mora has a loose hand on the direction of the film, having characters come and go at will, with some plot points not even getting resolved. Luckily it bears no resemblance to the two films that came before it, but rather just carries the name Howling to even associate it with the previous two films (not to say that the second film really referenced the first at all either).

The stroke of genius in the film is to have Jerboa (Imogen Annelsey) run away from her werewolf home and become homeless in Sidney, Australia. There she’s picked up for looking like the type that a lone director is looking for and lands the role as a star in a werewolf horror film (what a coincidence!). However, the execution is just laughable. We have lines like Jerboa saying “I ran away because my stepfather tried to rape me and he’s a werewolf”, and a Russian Ballerina werewolf with a psychic connection to Jerboa’s rapey stepfather. Then there’s the government trying to come up with a way to control the marsupial vampires, and our horror producer not finding it odd that Jerboa has a hairy pocket on her stomach during their “intimacy” (I mean, a kangaroo like chest pouch to carry your young is COMPLETELY normal on a human /sarcasm).

Yes, yes, Howling III is just plain NUTS. There is nothing sane about the film in any way, and director Philippe Mora just has fun with the subject matter. The movie itself is genuinely awful to the core, but it survives on being such a crazy movie that you honestly can’t help but kind of enjoy yourself as you watch this train wreck unfold. The movie is in NO way good, but Howling III has garnered itself a cult following for being such an epic train wreck. It has been in about as many bad movie nights, and drinking game films over the years that it’s cult status has become kind of legend for for “so bad that it hurts so good” type of watches. I’m not going to say I like the film, but I can certainly see the attraction as the insanity is so overwhelming you can’t help wonder what type of drugs were involved in the creation.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 By the MPAA




Video:

The original master for this release was touted as being a new restoration from the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia, and Scream Factory has labeled this as a brand new 4K master for their release. The new master is leagues better than the old DVD I saw many years ago (at least going by my memory), but it is not without it’s share of faults and problems along the way. The image is very filmic and features nice grain layers across the image, but sometimes can be a bit soft with the details and washed out just a tad. It’s not wild with the washing out, but it keeps colors from really popping and being well saturated, instead being more of a pale look to it. Still, details are crisp and clean for the most part, with facial details and skin tones being the prominent source of textures and nuance in the picture. Blacks are usually rather nice, but also suffer from the washed out look, which gives us some pale black levels in certain scenes. Reds and Green primary colors look the best out of the major colors, and while there are some mild issues, the disc over all looks better than I’ve ever seen it.




Audio:

The theatrical 2.0 stereo track in DTS-HD MA 2.0 is more than capable for the genre, with a loud and boisterous mix that does the job well. There’s even some baked in LFE in the 2 channel track that digs decently deep. Naturally there’s no immersiveness of a 5.1 or higher mix in the rears or the subs, but dialog is clean and well replicated and the dynamic range is pretty good. This a low budget film though with a mix that is limited to 2 channels, so while it’s not wild and massive, it does quite nicely with the limited channels available.






Extras:

• BRAND NEW REMASTER OF THE FILM sponsored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
• NEW Audio Commentary with writer/director Philippe Mora, moderated by filmmaker Jamie Blanks
• NEW A Conversation with Philippe Mora – an interview with the writer/director
• Vintage interviews from the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! by director Mark Hartley
• Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

This is actually the very fist time that Howling III has ever had it’s own real release on Blu-ray, and I’m glad of it despite the intentionally horrible nature of the film itself. Timeless Media put out the Howling Trilogy (which included III, V and VI for some reason) about 8 years ago, but those were in a very nasty 4x3 Standard Definition release that was literally worse than the DVDs. Scream Factory has given us a nice new transfer, with a decent amount of extras (even though it’s not a collector’s edition). The movie is really one of those hilariously awful cult films that appeal to a very specific audience, but fans of the series will be ecstatic with getting it in REAL HD for once. I’m not sure how to really recommend it, as Howling III is just plain crazy nuts, but I will give them props for trying to take the werewolf genre in a different direction.





Technical Specifications:

Starring: Barry Otto, William Yang, Imogen Annesley, Deby Wightman, Lee Biolos, Christopher Pate, Max Fairchild, Jerome Patillo, Dagmar Blahova
Directed by: Philippe Mora
Written by: Philippe Mora (Screenplay), Gary Brander (Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 15th, 2019

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: For the Cult Fans

 

[Asere]

Thank you for the review. I really do not remember well if I'd seen this one or not but I l really liked the first one.

 

[tripplej]

Thanks as well for the review. I also can't remember these..

 

[Michael Scott]

Thank you for the review. I really do not remember well if I'd seen this one or not but I l really liked the first one.

the first one is a classic. I like watching it as a double feature with Silver Bullet

 

[Asere]

the first one is a classic. I like watching it as a double feature with Silver Bullet

Have you ever seen The Company of Wolves? I saw it not too long ago for the first time and really liked it.

 

[Michael Scott]

Have you ever seen The Company of Wolves? I saw it not too long ago for the first time and really liked it.

no, I haven't seen it. I'll have to check it out as I like me some WW movies