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.
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.