Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985) – Review

How do you follow up a classic like Joe Dante’s The Howling, a film that is still considered by most as one of the best in the genre? The producers of Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf clearly thought casting legendary Christopher Lee and the awesome Sybil Danning would be enough to compensate for not having anything much to do with the original film, other than a tangential familial connection, but they may have missed the mark a tad with that supposition. I am happy to report this failed supposition didn’t stop the film from being immensely entertaining. Whereas the sequel to An American Werewolf in London was lame and immediately forgettable the sequel to The Howling was so bizarre and so over-the-top weird that one can’t help but admire the sheer audacity of it all.

It also had several titles including Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch.

This movie opens with the funeral for Karen White, who was the television reporter and main character in the original, who had been bitten by a werewolf and turned wolf on camera and then was shot by her best friend. Strangely this movie will not explore any repercussions of those events. When she was shot the network immediately switched to a commercial so most of the viewers may have chalked it up as some kind of gimmick, but what about her friend who pulled the trigger, did he go to jail for murder? Did all the employees of the news station sign non-disclosure agreements stating that if ever an employee turned into a werewolf on air they would never discuss it with the public or authorities on pain of a lawsuit? Her on-air sacrifice was a noble attempt to expose the existence of werewolves, yet it is completely jettisoned in favour of an ancient Transylvanian werewolf sex cult.

“Forgive them, father. They know not what they do.”

Of the seven sequels to the original Howling, the second film is the only one that has any connection to the original, but just barely. Director Philippe Mora had asked the studio if he could go off and do his own thing with the series, and they agreed.  But then why bother having even the briefest tangential connection to the original if you are going to jettison everything that it set up? Karen White’s brother Ben (Reb Brown) is attending the funeral along with Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe) an apparent colleague of Karen’s. While at the service they are approached by Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee) who informs Ben that, “Your sister is a werewolf.” Not was but is. Turns out that the werewolf that bit Karen was from the original strain of werewolves dating back to an ancient sorceress by the name of Stirba (Sybil Danning), and werewolves of this bloodline cannot be killed by a mere silver bullet. They must be killed with a stake made of titanium. Uhhhh…what now? I know there is no hard and fast rule to the mythology of werewolves but that is just bizarre.

For it is written: the inhabitants of the Earth have been made drunk with her blood. And I saw her sent upon a hairy beast and she held forth a golden chalice full of the filthiness of fornications. And upon her forehead was written: “Behold I am the great mother of harlots and all abominations of the Earth.”

God bless Christopher Lee. Seriously, only someone of Christopher Lee’s calibre and gravitas could pull off the insane amount of dialogue and exposition he puts forth in this film, not only that but he even came up with some insane bullshit of his own to save the production. You see the film was mostly shot in Czechoslovakia, and when the studio finally sent over the werewolf costumes director Mora was quite dismayed to see boxes labelled Planet of the Apes, sure enough, it was full of old ape suits. When he called to complain about the difficulty of making a werewolf movie with ape costumes, they hung up on him.  So it was Christopher Lee to the rescue by suggesting they shoot a scene where Stefan Crosscoe explains that apes are a genetic step between man and wolf. Thus they were able to get by with shitty ape costumes that they could then intercut with footage of proper werewolf make-up they’d shoot later back in the States.

Christopher Lee is a genius and a damn good sport.

Crosscoe returns at night to the cemetery to drive a titanium stake through the “corpse” of Karen White when Ben and Jenny show up to stop him. Just as Ben is about to shoot this crazy man, who is about to desecrate his sister’s corpse, wolf arms burst out of the coffin. Ben quickly shoots the werewolf, never once bemoaning the fact that he just murdered his sister, and then he and Jenny quickly join Team Crosscoe in the hunt for Stirba. This script does not seem to care for such things as character motivation or logic, and the writing is certainly not aided by the actors playing our heroes.  To say that Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe give two of the worst performances in screen history may sound a bit hyperbolic, but at times you can swear Christopher Lee is contemplating staking himself through the heart to get away from them.

Note: Lee had previously worked with Reb Brown in Captain America II: Death Too Soon, so he should have had an inkling of what he was getting himself into.

Reb Brown, a side of beef that walks like a man.

After catching and interrogating one of the werewolves that were stalking our heroes they follow the exotic werewolf Mariana (Marsha A. Hunt) to Transylvania, home of Stirba the ten-thousand-year-old werewolf sorceress. Philippe Mora and crew got a lot of good production value shooting in the various churches and castles of Prague, and the locals hired to play the creepy villagers and werewolf coven give it their all and then some. When we first lay eyes on Stirba’s court one can’t help but think we are looking at a prequel to Eyes Wide Shut, and according to make-up effects man Steve Johnson the extras didn’t quite understand the “pretend” element of acting when it came to the orgy scene.  When the directed yelled cut, the sex kept on going.

Where do I sign up?

For the most part, Crosscoe ditches his American sidekicks, and who can blame him, so we are saddled with many scenes of Ben and Jenny bumbling around Transylvania in scenes that serve no point to this movie’s supposed plot. We get the two of them checking into a creepy hotel where they are given room 666, which even lunkhead Ben thinks is odd as the hotel doesn’t even have six floors. At one point Ben goes off with a dwarf by the name of Vasile (Jirí Krytinár) who helps him locate Stirba’s castle. Sadly things don’t go well for poor Vasile as he loses the special earplugs they wore to save them from the siren song of Stirba’s hypnotic spells.  This gets him possessed and later tossed out a window by Ben. You know you’re in a classy production if it has dwarf tossing in it. And Stirba doesn’t take that kind of shit lying down and has her gargoyle staff come to life to mouth rape one of Crosscoe’s cronies, and makes others explode in a gooey mess.  Let’s recap; Christopher Lee is hunting a ten-thousand-year-old sorceress whose coven members can only be killed by titanium stakes, she has the ability to mesmerize with her voice, she can bring inanimate objects to life, and she has Force Lightning.

Are we sure this is a werewolf movie?

When we first meet Stirba she was an ancient crone that is rejuvenated by sucking the life force from a young woman like some kind of succubus, then later she is ordering her chief henchman Vlad (Judd Omen) to bring Mariana to her for a little tête-à-tête and then tells Vlad to make love to the new “daughter” while she watches.  We are never given an end goal for Stirba; does she want to take over the world? Or maybe she just wants to hook up with her Crosscoe, who during the final showdown, is revealed to be her brother. Basically, her entire purpose in this film is to be sexy and weird.

So…um how about a ménage à trois with a little bestiality in there for good measure?

This is not a good movie. One could go so far as to say this is an insanely terrible movie that should have been strangled at birth, but by god is it entertaining. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I had so much fun watching this piece of filmic absurdity that I can’t help but recommend it. Now this movie is certainly not for everyone, but if you have a penchant for the bizarre, love Christopher Lee, and think Sybil Danning is the quintessential B-Movie goddess, then this film will have you giggling like a schoolgirl. And really, Howling II is all about Sybil Danning whose every cell screams sexual freedom and power. Only she could pull off wearing a leather outfit studded with copper straps, and chic sunglasses, all while petting a stuffed wolf from a throne of bones.

Hot, bizarre and incredibly dangerous.

Christopher Lee is on record for saying he did this film because though he’d made hundreds of movies, many of them in the horror genre, yet he’d never made a werewolf picture, and he’s since apologized to Joe Dante for being in this one. Sure, as a sequel to the Joe Dante original, this film is utter crap, but as an orgy of the bizarre, there is much to offer here. From the goofy ape-werewolf costumes to the script that doesn’t make a lick of sense, to the horrible performances by Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe, this film has all that a bad movie lover could want and more.

All hail Queen Danning!