The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf

 

**

I delight in the awfulness of a small selection of movies, and Howling 2 is one of them. This is an absolute mess of sloppy, choppy editing (why would director Mora edit footage of the band Babel performing in the punk club in L.A. while Stirba’s werewolf family charge after Stefan and his hunters out to stop her?), the awkwardness of Montana Sheriff Ben and L.A. reporter Jenny (both accompanying Stefan due to the werewolf turning of Ben's sister) as romantic couple just bonding with little real sexual chemistry to speak of (their “please hold me” embrace in the hotel of Transylvania just couldn’t be a worse “kill me now” moment in the film), werewolf sex, a dwarf’s eyeballs exploding from his sockets, surreal light displays from Stirba’s fingers, bizarre outré outfits for Stirba, Stirba’s vocal arrangements when chanting incantations, ghastly unconvincing effect of a priest’s face under attack of a winged creature brought to life by Stirba, a seemingly endless trek through the woods by Stefan and Ben (with individuals wronged by the werewolves) although Ben and the dwarf looked to have arrived at the same Castle Stirba in quick order, and Christopher Lee, all stern and authoritative, trapped in it. There’s a scene where Lee closes his eyes and seems to drift away as he appears annoyed by Ben and Jenny’s flirting while driving the road to the village near Stirba’s castle…I can only imagine that’s how he felt during the making of it and perhaps after watching this drivel. There’s no way around it, this film is trash. The werewolf attacks are clumsy and too fast (probably because any lingering on the effects would prove how even worse than they appear) to get any jollies from the gore presented before us. I am a Hammer guy and seeing Christopher Lee is a thrill but he’s stuck in a lost cause that certainly doesn’t deserve him. I honestly believe he didn’t have a clue the end results of this garbage was expected by him. Lee battling werewolves on paper would be seem easy to capitalize on, but Mora fails miserably. Instead Mora embarrasses Lee by placing him in the cesspool of werewolf orgies, delicious Sybil Danning breasts, punks cheering Babel, and the cringe-inducing romance of stiff dullards Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe. Brown and McEnroe didn’t deserve to be within ten feet of Lee much less share scenes with him…I thought they were indescribably terrible. So much to take in by this movie; this is the clear definition of rancid cinema at its most appalling. All that said, I can’t help but enjoy it for its sheer volume of rich embarrassments. I just wish Lee would have been in a werewolf film that could have been remembered for its quality instead of what results in The Howling II: You’re Sister is a Werewolf. Marsha Hunt and Judd Omen are the two werewolves that Stirba find most appealing (I guess that’s the right word; maybe most attractive is better?). Still, Danning is incredibly sexy even while covered in faux werewolf fur or strange costuming...but her presence here has helped to build the cult following for the film, and I return to it partially because of her. The use of vampire weapons to kill werewolves was just odd to me...and that titanium is sometimes needed instead of silver bullets just seems pulled out the screenwriter's ass to mix things up.

http://brianscarecrow88.tumblr.com/post/85502916146/sybil-danning-as-stirba-in-the-howling-ii-1985

http://brianscarecrow88.tumblr.com/post/85501271851/christopher-lee-the-howling-ii-1985