HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF (1985)

 

(a.k.a. HOWLING II: IT’S NOT OVER YET; a.k.a. HOWLING II: STIRBA—WEREWOLF BITCH. Director: Philippe Mora. Screenplay by Robert Sarno and Gary Brandner, said to be loosely based on Brandner’s 1978 novel, THE HOWLING II, but if it is, it’s only in spirit.)

Storyline

Ben White, brother of Karen White from the first HOWLING, goes after werewolves who wanted to claim his sister’s resurrected body, with help from his girlfriend and a werewolf expert.

Review

Los Angeles, California.  HOWLING II begins at Karen White’s funeral, attended by her brother (Ben) and his girlfriend (Jenny Templeton). The details of Karen’s on-camera death at the end of THE HOWLING (1981) are not known by Ben and Jenny (the tapes of her death disappeared). All Ben and Jenny know is that her death was a suicide.

Also at the funeral is Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee), a stranger who tells Ben and Jenny about the circumstances surrounding Karen’s death─and that she’s not dead, since the M.E. took the fatal silver bullet from her body. At the next full moon, Stefan says, Karen will rise from her grave as a lycanthrope. Jenny isn’t sure what to think until Stefan shows them the tape of Karen’s transformation and death. Jenny believes Stefan. Ben still thinks Stefan is full of it. Later, they go to Karen’s coffin and by the end of the night, Ben is a believer too.

Stefan tells them he’s going to the Balkans to wipe out the remainder of the werewolf pack─a few of whom were seen at Karen’s funeral. They want to take her to Stirba, a lycanthropic enchantress and Stefan’s mortal enemy. Ben and Jenny go with Stefan─Ben wants revenge for his sister; Jenny wants to help resolve the situation.

Stefan, Jenny and Ben arrive in the Balkans. (In addition to LA, the film was shot in Czechoslovakia, specifically Central Bohemia and Borrandov Studios in Prague.) Werewolves stalk them, occasionally attack them.

The film meanders while Stefan and Stirba-hating villagers locate her castle near town. While this happens, Stirba─an old crone─breathes in a young sacrifice’s yellow soul-vapor during a satanic ritual. Stirba de-ages into a big-breasted, sexy woman (Sybil Danning), who dons metal-adorned leather and wraparound sunglasses (Danning had conjunctivitis) and prances around when she’s not ripping off her clothes and writhing in orgiastic, R-rated passion with Mariana (Marsha A. Hunt, DRACULA A.D. 1972) and Vlad (Judd Omen, C.H.U.D. II: BUD THE CHUD, 1989), her hunky second-in-command.

Jenny is kidnapped by Stirba’s minions and held as a future sacrifice. Stefan, Ben, and Stefan’s villager friends battle Stirba and her worshippers. Will Ben rescue Jenny? Will Stefan and the others defeat Stirba and her pack?

HOWLING II is not a good film but it has a lot of humor and occasional Hammer flick drama in it, along with a few worthwhile actors (this does not include the wooden role-fillers who played Jenny and Ben). Despite his evident disappointment with the project, Christopher Lee is professional and fun, elevating the film to a barely watchable level. Sybil Danning (THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES, 1972) is good as the villainess with a mysterious link to Stefan, and for those who can’t get enough of her breasts, one of her few nude shots is repeated seventeen times during the end-credits─a producer’s doing, something that pissed Danning off when she saw it. Tired of taking off her clothes on camera, she had been reluctant to do topless shots, but she’d relented. Then to see them used in that manner. . .

HOWLING II also has decent (if cheesy) practical FX, especially when one considers what the filmmakers had to work with. The blood is bright red, shots are clever, and some of the lycanthropes are ape-like─according to IMDb, that’s because the filmmakers were accidentally sent ape suits from a PLANET OF THE APES project, so Mora and company made do with what they had.

HOWLING II might appeal to fans of low budget, playful Eighties films and Lee/Danning completists. It’s far from the worst entry in this seven-film franchise, but for most people, it probably wouldn’t be worthwhile fare.