Howling II: ... Your Sister Is a Werewolf

A man investigating the death of his sister, discovers she is a werewolf and part of a werewolf cult in Transylvanina. The make-up, effects, plot, acting, direction, etc. are either pretty much non-existent or down right silly, but the film is entertaining in a cheesy way and Danning rips off her clothes (again). Bonus at the end credits, that scene with Danning is repeated over and over again. 5 out of 10.

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.

Dreadful horror sequel to "The Howling". This picks off with Karen White's funeral (she was killed at the end of the first film). Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee sadly) arrives there and tells Karen's brother Ben (Reb Brown) that Karen was a werewolf. He's going to Transylvania to kill Striba (Sybil Danning) the head werewolf. Ben and a coworker of Karens (Annie McEnroe) join him. A terrible script, bad direction, inept editing and truly horrendous acting by Brown and McEnroe single handedly sink this one. The werewolf effects are mostly kept in the dark--for good reason! They're terrible when you see them. Subpar special effects also--although I DID like the cartoon lightning that comes from Danning's fingers. There's also a werewolf orgy which is particularly stupid and Danning takes off her top at least EIGHT TIMES during the closing credits! There are a few good things--I found the village in Transylvania amusing--it looks like it came from a Universal horror flick from the 1930s! There are interesting camera tricks between transition scenes; Brown and McEnroe have good bodies and Lee and Danning are good in this--but they can't save it. Really--WHY did they do this? Where they that hard up for money??? This is one of IMDb's lowest rated movies. That alone should tell you something. Supposedly Danning was horrified when she saw the movie--I can understand why! A must-miss.

This is probably the worst movie I've ever tried to watch, bar none. Well, I hated "Je tu Ill Elle" also, but for pretentiousness and bad fake lesbian sex, not for stupidity or incompetance on the part of the crew. The film came on television and I started watching - the band scene was pretty good, I'm currently trying to find out who they are because I liked the music. Unfortunately the bands clips were the best quality material the film had to offer. To summarize: The Director and Editor apparently failed "coherency 101" and "continuity for dummies". The film is that bad. Immediately following the nightclub scene is a stilted, confusing scene at a warehouse - eager posturing from a soon to be snuffed extra aside - there is not one coherent bit to latch onto. Shots are edited out of visible, obvious order to construct a fight scene. It's *bizarre*. Christopher Lee is *wasted* in this film: apparently in both the drug-use and talent-use sense of the word. Prior 'Howling' footage is used, in combination with pathetic dialog looping, to particularly bad effect. The dialog written for this turkey is weaker than I'd have ever thought possible - perhaps the screenplay was actually written by one of the producers pre-teen children. The only reason I can see for trying to suffer through this piece of carbon dated 80's crap is on a dare. It's bad, but it's not even 'Plan 9' "interesting bad". Viewer Beware!

This often fiercely ridiculed and much-derided sequel in name only to the outstanding "The Howling" quite simply doesn't get the respect it really deserves. In an (ill-advised) attempt to persuade you that this film seriously smokes instead of completely chokes I'm going to forgo the standard synopsis and critique approach to writing a comment and in its place list several solid reasons why this movie rules. With that obligatory intro stuff out of the way, let's get to that illustrious list: 1) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 2) Christopher Lee goes to a trendy punk club and gets to wear these gnarly sunglasses. Moreover, the ever-amazing Mr. Lee somehow manages to maintain his composure and dignity throughout the flick despite the fact that he's saddled with a ludicrously demeaning crummy role in which he plays a veteran werewolf hunter (oops, I meant to say "occult investigator") who comes across like a third-rate Van Helsing clone. 3) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 4) The groovy punk theme song by Babel is totally smoking. 5) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 6) Brawny male lead Reb Brown as the jerky joking hero gives a performance that's so atrocious and obnoxious that it will give you a greater appreciation for what a fine, accomplished and multi-faceted thespian Arnold Schwarzenegger truly is. 7) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 8) The lighting is so poor and shoddy that it almost hides the fact that the werewolf costumes and make-up are extremely sub-par. 9) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 10) Annie McEnroe as the scrawny and insipid heroine thankfully keeps her clothes on. 11) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 12) Marsha A. Hunt as a foxy black werewolf thankfully takes her clothes off. 13) Sybil Danning rips off her top and exposes her breasts. 14) A poor hapless dwarf's eyes explode and said dwarf becomes a hideously grotesque eyeless ghoul who tries and fails to kill Christopher Lee. 15) During the inspired ending credits sequence we are entreated to countless repeated shots of Sybil Danning ripping off her top and exposing her breasts. Wait a minute; I think I might have already mentioned that moment elsewhere in this comment. Oh well, it's without a doubt the undeniable highlight of this tremendously special, important and significant cinematic landmark.

Lee hosted the 100 Years of Horror for Ted Newsom and was talking about filmic werewolves. He said something to the effect that his only brush with lycanthropy was The Howling II, then he quipped, "The less said about that the better." Indeed he was right as this film may very well be the worst in his entire catalog of screen performances. The first Howling by Joe Dante was a groundbreaking werewolf film with its incredible special effects and its campy sense of style and subject matter. It was a film to be taken seriously. Like other good original films, filmmakers for some strange reason thought that even more campy sequels were needed rather than what worked the first time(See CHUD then CHUD II to illustrate this point). This film is miles and miles away from the first on every front. There is absolutely nothing scary about it. It looks cheap and is pitch black through most of the major scenes. Lee is the only actor in the film worth mentioning(okay, I'll cede Ferdy Mayne too). Lee looks embarrassed as he says inane dialog and does ridiculous things(check out that ending with him and Stirba). Lee looks incredibly tired and knows what dreck this is which is a tad more insightful than the two leads who leave America to go to Romania. The story isn't really worth examining here, and you can bet there is very little story worth mentioning when you have to have Stephen Parsons and his band Babel play through much of the film in the beginning and the ending with that dreadful noise. Sybil Danning is here and, yes, she disrobes once and then we get that scene showed again and again and again - one reviewer said 17 times(I counted ten - but might have been so bored out of my mind by that point). I gave the film three stars, but it really deserves a zero - the three I gave it are 1 for Lee and two for Ms. Danning's contributions. Yuck!

Even though Gary Brandner, author of The Howling novels, co-wrote the screenplay to this movie, it has nothing to do with his 1979 novel The Howling II, much less the original The Howling. It tries, but this movie is just too weird to fully close the loop. There's never been another werewolf movie like this one. Whether that is positive or negative all depends on how much you like werewolves having sex. Ben White (Reb Brown, who is in a little movie called Yor Hunter from the Future that I could tell you about for many days) is dealing with the death of his sister Karen White, who just so happens to be the heroine of the first of these movies. He joins up with Jenny (Annie McEnroe, who was in Snowbeast and Battletruck) and the mysterious Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee, who apologized to Joe Dante for making this movie) to battle werewolves. This brings them on a journey to Transylvania and a battle against Stirba (Sybil Danning!), the queen of the werewolves, who is joined by Mariana (Marsha Hunt, who the song "Brown Sugar" is about) and Erle (Ferdy Mayne, who is in another film I can discuss for days and days, Night Train to Terror). What follows is complete lunacy: werewolf witchcraft, lycan orgies, Sybil Danning repeatedly ripping off her top (the same shot repeated again and again to no complaint), dwarves, priests being killed and punk rock from the band Babel. Director Philippe Mora actually made some pretty good films, like Mad Dog Morgan, The Beast Within and The Return of Captain Invincible. I'm insane and love this movie, so I will include it in my list of his good ones. Finally, let's talk about another subject I can hold court on: Christopher Lee. Mora didn't know that Sir Lee was a war hero in Czechoslovakia, where this was filmed. Actually, no one did, because he wasn't allowed to talk about his intelligence work during World War II. When he showed up for filming, he was greeted with a hero's welcome, as he had killed a top Nazi official named Reinhard Heydrich. In fact, before he became an actor, Lee remained a Nazi hunter for several years. I also love that this movie was sent the wrong costumes by 20th Century Fox. Instead of wolf suits, they were sent the monkey suits from Planet of the Apes. Lee tried to help fix this by ad-libbing, "The process of evolution is reversed."

Howling II (1985) was a complete 180 from the first film. Whilst the first film was campy and creepy. The second one was sleazy and cheesy. The production values on this one are pretty bad and the acting is atrocious. The brother of the anchorwoman werewolf from part one wants to find out what happened to his sis'. The "scene" from the first film was badly re-created. A skinny plain looking woman accompanies bro' (Reb Brown) to the old country (Romania) to uncover the mystery to her sister's murder/transformation/death. Christopher Lee appears and disappears over now and then as sort of a sage/guide to the two. Sybil Danning and her two biggest assets appear as Stirba, the head werewolf of the Romania. She also suffers from a bad case of morning face, ewww! Bad movie. There's nothing good about this stinker. I'm surprise Philippe Mora directed this picture because he's usually a good film-maker. The film is so dark that you need a flashlight to watch it (no, not the content but the film stock itself). To round the movie off you get a lousy "punk" performance from a Damned wannabe "Babel". Maybe if they forked over a couple of extra bucks they could've got the real deal instead of an imitation. Best to avoid unless you're desperate or you lost the remote and you're too lazy to change the channel.

After watching this, I had lost a little respect for Christopher Lee (This has passed over time). This film was utter garbage. First, they tried to recreate the ending from the first "Howling," with incredibly bad make-up. Then they try to turn it into a sad excuse of a werewolf * film! The plot sucks and the whole film is just AWFUL!!!! A brother of a werewolf victim from the first film (From the look of it, it was SUPPOSED to be Dee Wallace Stone)teams up with Lee and another woman to destroy the group of werewolves, lead by Sybil Danning, who seems to be naked all the time. This is not even worth renting (Unless you want to waste your time and money watching the nudity.). Try to catch it on cable instead. It would be so chopped up, it may actually make sense.

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.