14. Howling III: The MarsupialsHave you ever thought, "What would it be like for werewolves to evolve pouches?" No? Well, someone in Australia did, and they combined it with a love of 1970s body hair in a movie that feels more like an acid-fueled dream sequence. Considering the train wreck that was
Howling II, I guess the only way to follow it was just to get weird. Really weird.
A guy meets a girl and falls in love. Unfortunately, she's a marsupial werewolf, and world governments are now openly hunting them, so they go into hiding. Meanwhile, a professor working for the government studies werewolves and falls in love with a Russian ballerina who has defected...and is also a werewolf. Eventually these competing storylines meet up and combine into
something. I'm not sure it's a movie.
Anyway, there are plot lines that exist and go nowhere. Some werewolves use aboriginal powers to transform and kill hunters, a burned werewolf somehow comes back to life to attack a guy, and one dude turns into a giant werewolf to take out a special forces team that isn't so special. There are competing love stories between two men and their hairy ladies, one of whom has a pouch, and the other of whom has way more nipples than I'm into, all because at some point in history, somebody did the nasty with a wolf. Also, predatory animal spirits have been taking over people's bodies, including ones for extinct animals, which is nice but has no real bearing on the film.
Apparently werewolves see with a fish-eye lens and like to dress like nuns, too.
Oh, there is a series of time-lapses too, during which everything becomes ok again, so don't worry! Everything is hunk-dory! Except that a faux-Academy Award is given to a werewolf who accidentally transforms on stage! Oh no! What does this matter?!
Is it wrong that several times I heard folks say, "You won't make it in the bush," and I got offended that they were commenting on body hair? Seriously, there is a LOT of body hair. And sweat too. Australians must believe that you're only getting laid if it looks like someone hosed you down for an hour with baby oil.
I guess this was pretty much the only way any movie could follow
Howling II. I don't know if it's a good thing. It literally ends with the most stereotypical director-type you can think of saying, "Cut." I guess that's supposed to be better than the weird music video at the end of the last film. God, there are like 8 of these movies.
15. MutantYou know the sign of a good movie? If Wings Hauser is in it. I'm kidding, but Mutant is one of those movies. Only it's a zombie movie. Only they're weird chemical zombies that need blood to survive, so...toxic vampires?
Wings Hauser and a guy playing his little brother end up in the most redneck small town imaginable, where white trash run them off the road, the sheriff is a drunk, and people are creepy, dying, or both. Eventually it's up to Wings, the sheriff, and the local schoolmarm to take down a horde of blood-eating zombies which burn people with the chemicals that spew out of their palm vaginas. I really wish I could claim I had made that sentence up, but nope, it's really what happens in this movie.
On the upside, Bo Hopkins plays the sheriff. He was great in
The Wild Bunch and is one of the best things here, though even he can't save this movie from dragging along. It's like an hour before you really get to see a proper zombie, instead focusing on the "mystery" of the town in a way that is overly long and uninteresting. I'll just say it now, Mutant is no
Nightmare at Noon, which also starred Bo Hopkins and Wings Hauser fighting toxic zombies in a small town. That movie is way better than this one. Plus, it has Brion James playing an albino who wishes he was in Devo.
But back to this movie. If you like bars covered in Confederate flags and representations of rural people as white trash assholes who are sexist and don't like city folks but don't want to get into
Deliverance-type territory, you might be more inclined to like this movie. Also, we've got a deus ex-machina ending here. Joy. What does this movie get right? Well, imagine a horde of zombie children attacking a kid in a school bathroom. Best scene in the movie right there, folks.