year 3 day 124

movie: Howling 3 Marsupials
starring: Imogen Annesley, Barry Otto
genre: Comedy, Horror
year: 1987
format: Popcornflix

plot:A professor discovers an old homemade film belonging to his grandfather from 1905, of a group of men having captured a werewolf and goes looking for proof. He ends up finding a tribe in a tiny Australian village of shapeshifting marsupials. Soon, he discovers a Russian ballerina has traveled there as well from another werewolf tribe in order to help blend the bloodlines. Before long, the government gets involved sending out hunters.

Based loosely on the novel, and third in the movie series.

Okay, um...yeah...bad acting. The first half of this is just chalked full of bad acting. The story is there, the humour is there, but the acting is like cardboard and rice cakes, stiff and bland. Half way through you can see where the actors are finally comfortable with the material and it starts to have some bones.

I think this was meant to be a stand alone, I'm not completely sure. There were however, tiny scraps of some real science and mythology in it.
This is listed as a horror but it's far from it. Even for a 1980's film, it's sort of a quack. What it does have going for it is the idea that the different parts of the planet would naturally lend to different species of shapeshifters, just like any other kind of animal.   I did like the idea that the two tribe leaders were able to find each other by a psychic link. The use of Shamanism to bridge some of the story was a smart move. Sadly, the ending was just ridiculous, with the U.S. president giving amnesty to all werewolves.

The little nod to the first film with the lead female werewolf turning on television was cute.