Howling II: ... Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)

Gee, my first 1 rating on IMDB! Deeply idiotic movie that does a great disservice to the original (which I LOVE). Badly made, awful quality (it looks like sh*t on both video and cable), unsexy, crappy music and totally embarrassing for all involved. Christopher Lee comes out all right, but that was never hard for the Master. This must be for him what my brother and I call a "mortgage film": The mortgage was due, so he took it. Faugh. Go back and get the original.

Fmovies: Ben a out-of-town cop is convinced his sister was brutally killed and wants to bring her killer to justice, but he's approached by Stefan who believes his sister was a victim of a werewolf cult. So Ben, his sister's best friend and Stefan travel to Transylvania to put a end to this evil.

This is incredibly awful B-grade stuff and I wondered how it even got released. It makes the original 'Howling' look like a masterpiece. What was Christopher Lee thinking, as this has to be his worst performance I've seen.

There was a lot wrong with this real cheap-ass film, ranging from the really hammy and wooden performances from Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt and Sybil Danning (not to forgot Lee), cheesy fashion (those sunnies), cheap and lame special effects, bad use of lighting, the humour... if there was any, trashy 80s music (with some of the film just focusing on some unknown band playing), werewolf's having orgies which is a sight to see and a tiresome story with flat and annoying dialogue. I thought if it was that bad it would be awfully funny, but I was wrong.

The positives were the location and settings of the film looked great, but that's about it... actually I'll add Sybil Danning short stripping scene too.

During the end credits the band plays their crap-house song during a weird montage of scenes from the film, which I beckon the question why?

An awful piece of mess, however at least it isn't boring.

1/5

Incredibly idiotic, senseless, and utterly sleazy sequel to the popular 1981 werewolf film "The Howling" stars Sir Christopher Lee as Stefan Crosscoe, an occult expert determined to wipe out lycanthropes, in particular those who associate with the fiendish queen werewolf bitch Stirba (Sybil Danning). He makes a point of telling Ben White (Reb Brown), the brother of the Dee Wallace character from the first film, the specifics of her "death". When Ben is unable to deny the evidence, he heads off, with reporter Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe) in tow, for Transylania, to help Stefan in his werewolf killing mission.

The story is absurd, the dialogue hilariously awful; poor Sir Christopher and Sybil have to utter some pretty dumb lines. The makeup effects are crude to the nth degree, but are delicious in their egregious lack of quality. The scene with the eyeballs exploding is pretty cool. In some ways, "Stirba - Werewolf Bitch" goes back to Gothic basics in a way by exploiting flavourful European Old World atmosphere. But it adds a lot of spice to the deal by being so damn trashy. The sexy ladies present dress quite provocatively, and Sybil is willing to disrobe and show off her ample assets. The New Wave pop soundtrack is a total hoot; we're made to listen to that priceless title theme song a number of times. Original "Howling" author Gary Brandner co-scripted, from his novel "Howling II: The Return", and maintains a very tongue in cheek approach. With the level of both cheese and trash on display, it's clear that this was never meant to be taken seriously.

Sir Christopher looks pretty serious here, though; the movie does benefit from his professionalism. Sybil is a mildly amusing antagonist. Brown and McEnroe are just sort of there as hero and heroine. Marsha A. Hunt, Judd Omen, Ferdy Mayne (who has the same character name as John Carradine in "Howling" No. 1), Patrick Field, Jimmy Nail, and Jiri Krytinar co-star.

Directed by Philippe Mora, who has the distinction of being director on two "Howling" sequels, the other being "The Marsupials: The Howling III".

The end credits are actually a highlight.

Seven out of 10.

Howling II: ... Your Sister Is a Werewolf fmovies. "The Howling" was a horror movie that had horror in it, Howling II is a horror movie that's hilarious!! It almost makes fun of itself!! Christopher Lee was so funny, he should of won an Oscar! And as for the rest of the cast, they make "Airplane" look like a drama. You'd think they picked these guys off the streets. And as for "Stirba- the Werewolf Whatever", her character was SOOOOOOOOO funny, she made the film a comedy!! I mean, "Stirba". Every time they mentioned her name I had to stop the tape and run into the next room, crying with laughter. Yes, I own this film. Of course, I bought it because I'm a collector and to pass the time by! Usually, you wouldn't find the content of this film funny, as my father found out the hard way, but it's presented in such style that... well, it's very hard to explain. Howling II is so bad, it's funny!! And that's all there is to it!!

I watched two Christopher Lee movies this weekend, Horror Hotel (Lee at his best) and Howling II (Lee at his worst). This is definitely the low point of the man's career. You can tell he did not want to be here and I feel so sorry for him. The "film" is pretty bad...but it's funny at the same time. I almost peed in my pants when Reb Brown (Captain America himself) ran into the room and screamed "BOO!!" The man is a comic genius and it's laugh out loud funny. Equally funny are the exploding dwarf, the drunken werewolf orgy, and the use of the eighties swipe (that device used to cut from scene to scene). We get some of the corniest swipes ever; a fan, diamond, swirl, and just the classic swipe are all used. Perhaps the funniest thing comes in the credits. The scene where Sybil Danning strips her clothes off is shown 10, count em, 10 times again over the credits. This does not compensate for the crappiness of the movie though. The most unbearable quality about the flick is the lighting. You can't see anything. If there is any werewolf action going on here, you can't see it! It's so dark and sometimes very painful to watch. Howling II is worth watching only if you're a Reb Brown fan or if you want to see Christopher Lee wearing some ridiculously cool eighties sunglasses, or maybe to see some Frankie Goes To Hollywood-lookin' band sing a song about "the pale, pale light of the moonglow."

From the moment Christopher Lee puts on a pair of punk sunglasses and tries to sneak into a punk rock club, you know you've got a stinker on your hands! This film had potential. Beneath all of the sludge there are the remnants of what could have been crafted into a decent film, if not an interesting one. The final product is a real mess, however. Aside from the gratuitous nudity and some very attractive women, Howling II winds up being a laughable excuse for a horror film. Christopher Lee gives it a nugget of credibility, but even he cannot raise it above the level of crap.

Having never seen any of the other films in this series, this critic will be forced to accept on face value that this is a genuine continuation of the events in part one. We start off at a funeral for one of the characters from the original, and within the first ten minutes we find ourselves in Transylvania with a small group of heroes ready to battle a coven of werewolves. The film is paced fairly well, and there are not too many dead spots. The action is there; it just isn't filmed well. One bright spot is the music of a punk band called Babel. Though their song is played quite often, it is rather catchy.

The problems with this film are great in number. First off, the acting is worse than pitiful. Christopher Lee is good enough, but that's where it ends. The two leads Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe are lacking in just about everything you'd want for such characters. The writing is wretched, the editing redundant, and the direction amateurish. There are a couple nice special effect gimmicks, but the cheesy ones far out weigh them in number. Sybil Danning is nice to look at, but her acting performance is less than satisfactory. Judd Omen looks the part he plays, but his voice and acting are unconvincing to say the least. Much of the dialog is in an unintelligible language that may or may not be Latin.

I liked the general idea for the story. I always enjoy stories of true believers out to battle seemingly invincible forces of evil. One scene where a small group of good guys are trekking through a dark forest and shooting down a bunch of werewolves is even kind of exciting. Kind of. Maybe a bigger budget or a better director could have made the rest of the film a bit more compelling. 3 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Side note: As of this writing, the censors at youtube.com have still not taken down the ending credits with Sybil Danning ripping off her top several times while the Babel song is playing! Catch it while you can!