- Directed by Philip Mora
- Written by Gary Brandner, Phillipe Mora
- Stars Barry Otto, Max Fairchild, Imogen Annesley
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D4wwf9R4lg
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It says “The terror continues” but this could really be a standalone movie. There’s no connection to the first two. It’s Australian werewolves this time instead of American and European, a different species that evolved separately as they very scientifically explain. There’s lots of medicine and bad science in this one. But it’s a dumb kind of ntertaining that moves pretty well.
Synopsis
In 1905 Australia, we see the natives poking a strange animal that they have killed. In Siberia, a man is killed.
Today, at the National Intelligence Agency, they are tracking a monster that killed three people. “We ain’t here to track werewolves in Russia!” one guy whines.
Professor Beckmeyer gives a lecture about the ultra-realistic wolf mask seen in the Australian film we saw earlier. This time, we get to see them stabbing the wolf-faced creature while it was still alive. He flies to Washington and tells the President that werewolves exist. We can’t do anything about the Russian werewolves, but Beckmeyer says they also have them in Australia, and those would be much easier to study.
Beckmeyer goes to Australia for more evidence; just so you’re sure, they show us the Sydney Opera House in four different shots. He meets up with Professor Sharp, a local expert.
A bunch of dirty people in rags attack a girl named Jerboa who runs away from home. Apparently a lot of the werewolves in Australia still live in the stone age. Later that night, we see that she is some kind of werewolf. The next morning, Donny, a casting agent, literally chases her across town to offer her a role in his shapeshifter movie. When he takes her to the movie set, we soon see that Australians of the 80s were very, very, very strange people.
Jerboa looks at the “werewolf” actors on-set and says that’s not what they really look like. “I’ll show you later,” she promises. She tells Donny later, during sex, that the full moon doesn’t have anything to do with the change. He notices that she has a big horizontal scar on her belly.
Three nuns come to town, and they’re obviously wolves in disguise. Beckmeyer wants to track down the aboriginal werewolf, and his friend points out that a Russian ballerina recently defected there. Because there are werewolves in Russia, it’s only logical that she should know all about them, right?
The three were-nuns come to the director’s party that night, but Jerboa has already run off. Jerboa runs away from Donny and gets hit by a car. They take her to the hospital, and the doctor thinks she might be an alien. Beckmeyer is alerted, and he comes to the hospital; this is exactly what he was waiting for.
Beckmeyer and Sharp examine her, and that scar is actually a pouch, like on a kangaroo. They also think she might be pregnant. The nuns wait outside the hospital until Beckmeyer and Sharp leave. When the nuns come in, all the doctors and hospital staff are killed. We see that the military is listening in on all this.
Jerboa and the nuns return to the small Mad-Max-like town that she came from originally.
Remember the brief mention of the ballerina? Olga the ballerina is worried about changing during her performance. Her manager seems to be telepathic, leading her to a drawing of Thylo, the man in charge of Mad-Max land. Beckmeyer and Sharp are in the audience for their rehearsal. She does, in fact, change into a werewolf right in the middle of the dance. The doctors take her into custody just like they did with Jerboa; that goes badly too.
Donny and the other main characters all come to the small town of Flow out in the outback. This is where Jerboa told Donny she was from. Jerboa goes into the barn and gives birth to a little mousy-looking thing that crawls into her pouch and hides there. Meanwhile, Olga and Thylo finally get together; they are soulmates or something, since she knew she had to find him.
Jerboa finds Donny and shows him the mouse-thing, and he’s fine with that. The military attacks Thylo’s camp and captures the whole group, including Olga. Beckmeyer questions her and wants to know why they do what they do, and she replies that they are being hunted. Beckmeyer hypnotizes Olga and tells him everything. Thylo fills in a few blanks as well. Olga is a straight-up werewolf, while Thylo is a were-marsupial; this is some kind of genetic-diversity pairing.
Jerboa’s baby has grown and now looks like a cross between E.T. and a monkey.
In the lab, the doctors force Thylo to change into a werewolf. Beckmeyer is bitten. From Thylo’s stripes, they identify him as a Tasmanian Wolf, a nearly-extinct species. The military wants to exterminate them, but Beckmeyer thinks they should be nurtured. They were believed to all be wiped out back in 1910.
Beckmeyer releases Olga and Thylo; it’s a jailbreak. They head to the outback; Jerboa, Donny, and the baby are already out there. A bunch of hunters try to track them all down; they get picked off surprisingly quickly. We see two special government-issued military hunters are on the case, but one of them gets bitten. Thylo calls on The Phantom, the great spirit that makes them what they are. The soldiers don’t last long. Sharp goes to the President and asks him to call off the hunt.
Olga and Beckmeyer fall in love, completely forgetting about Thylo. Time passes. Next thing we see, she’s pregnant as well. More time passes, and Jerboa’s baby now looks to be about ten while Olga’s baby is walking. They seem to age very quickly. Jerboa and Donny go back to civilization while Beckmeyer and Olga stay on the homestead.
Fifteen years pass, and Sharp comes for a visit. Beckmeyer’s daughter is now full-grown by this time. He tells them that it’s safe now for them to come back to civilization. The Pope intervened and got the President to stop hunting lycanthropes.
Another eight years pass, and Jerboa is a Hollywood actress with a different name. Beckmeyer still hasn’t found Jerboa and Donny. He’s back to teaching at the university, and Jerboa’s son is one of his students. Everyone watches the Academy Awards, and Jerboa wins Best Actress. The flashbulbs make her change on-camera.
Commentary
If this film is to be believed, it would appear that Australia is the sweatiest place on Earth, but only if you’re young and attractive. It’s a very selective heat. Maybe the hardest thing to believe was that they thought “Dame Edna” would still be a thing twenty-something years in the future.
There’s no ties here to the first two films other than the existence of werewolves. None of the characters or places established before appear here.
This is dumb. Really, really dumb. But it’s a fun kind of dumb that doesn’t drag and has reasonably high production values. The monster masks and makeup aren’t particularly good, but most everything else looks good. A whole bunch of things make absolutely no sense, but if you just roll with it, it’s at least entertaining.