THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW (2020)

 

(Director/screenwriter/co-star: Jim Cummings)

Review

WOLF is a modest budget drama that sports a FARGO (1996), THE X-FILES (1993-2018) and lycanthropic vibe/setting. Set during the holiday season, between pre-Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it tells the tale of a divorced, ex-alcoholic cop (John Marshall, played by director/screenwriter Jim Cummings) trying to fend off a nervous breakdown while investigating a string of small-town murders.

There’s more than one monster in WOLF, the primary ones being Marshall and the mysterious-till-the-end killer. John, constantly hysterical and well-intentioned, yells at everyone, including his father, Sheriff Hadley (Robert Forster, MANIAC COP 3: BADGE OF SILENCE, 1993), Detective Julia Robson (Riki Lindhome,THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, 2009) and his daughter (Jenna, played by Chloe East). John’s constant shouting is heavy-handed but lends a consistency to WOLF’s monster theme if you can forgive it.

This tightly written, shot and edited film is a low-key standout work if you are in the mood for a supernatural-themed, dryly humorous drama with strong-to-great acting by its principals, occasional gore, and its minor, effective end-twist. Its killer is a solid choice. Also, its humor (love the ending) works in this hour-and-twenty-four-minute flick, worth checking out if you view this as a drama with terror elements.

SLEEPWALKERS (1992)

 

(Director: Mick Garris. Screenwriter: Stephen King.)

Review

Two half-feline/half-monster shapeshifters─”sleepwalkers”─move into a small town (Travis, Indiana), so that one of them, sick, can feed on a virgin. These sleepwalkers, Mary Brady (Alice Krige, SILENT HILL, 2006) and her vain, seemingly adolescent son (Charles Brady, played by Brian Krause, PLAN 9, 2015), insinuate themselves into the lives of the townspeople, especially the virginal Tanya Robertson (Mädchen Amick, TWIN PEAKS, 1989-91), whom Charles sets his oh-so-charming sights on. But the Bradys’ well-established and oft-executed plans go sideways in a violent and moderately gory way.

Stephen King’s screenplay, not based on any of his published stories or novels, is a silly, fun, and loopy ride, a mix of 1950s science fiction-horror, shapeshifter terror, familiar King settings and elements (cats, small towns, etc.), with late 1980s and early 1990s elements (e.g., Charles’s heavy metal guitar-wank motif) blended in.

It’s an entertaining flick, if you can appreciate its inherent silliness and occasionally icky EC Comics homage roots and often goofy, oddball characters, played by some fine actors, not the least of whom is Clovis the Attack Cat, who really hates sleepwalkers, especially Charles.

Beyond Krige, Krause and Amick, these players include: Cindy Pickett (DEEPSTAR SIX, 1989) as Mrs. Robertson, Tanya’s mother; Lyman Ward (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE, 1985) as Mr. Robertson, Tanya’s father; Glenn Shadix (BEETLEJUICE, 1988) as Mr. Fallows, a scheming teacher; Dan Martin (NIGHTMARE CINEMA, 2018) as Deputy Andy Simpson, Clovis the Attack Cat’s driver and staff member; Jim Haynie (JACK’S BACK, 1988) as Ira, the town’s sheriff; Ron Perlman (CRONOS, 1993) as Captain Soames, one of Ira’s cynical deputies; and Rusty Schwimmer (CANDYMAN, 1992) as a housewife, seen at the start of this fast-paced film.

Film and book geeks may delight in SLEEPWALKERS’s numerous cameos: Stephen King as “Cemetery Caretaker”; Clive Barker (HELLRAISER, 1987) as a dismissive in-the-field “Forensic Tech”; Tobe Hooper (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, 1974), an in-the-lab “Forensic Tech,” Joe Dante (THE HOWLING, 1981), another lab “Forensic Tech”; Cynthia Garris (CRITTERS 2, 1988) as Laurie, Hooper and Dante’s fellow “Lab Technician.”

SLEEPWALKERS may prove a worthwhile flick if you’re a fan of King’s MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986) and CREEPSHOW (1982, another EC Comics homage), and don’t mind oddball silliness and characters, with corn on the cob on the side.

COUGARS (2011)

 

(“short-form” film; director/screenwriter: Lonnie Martin)

Review

Sasha (Rebecca Hausman), a teenage girl disgusted by her mother’s promiscuity, isn’t into sex. Bastet, Sasha’s mother (Kendra North), argues with her daughter, telling her she should embrace her sexuality while she’s young and beautiful. When a classmate (Stuart, played by Charlie Dreizen) walks Sasha home, the release she’s been denying herself comes to the fore with messy results.

Lonnie Martin’s seventeen-minute film short is fun. Its intertangled, non-explicit carnal themes are little more than wordplay cleverness (bolstered by solid performances), but to criticize a movie this brief for not further developing the link between sex and its other themes seems clueless. While COUGARS does not go anywhere surprising, it’s a promising short-form film with reasonable─given its limited budget─effects. 

THE HOWLING: REBORN (2011)

 

(Director: Joe Nimziki, who co-wrote the screenplay with James Robert Johnston, billed as James Johnston, barely based on Gary Brandner’s 1978 novel The Howling II.)

Storyline

A high school student discovers he’s a lycanthrope just as other werewolves converge on him and his girlfriend.

Review

When a popular, aggressive girl invites high school senior Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) to a party, his life is irrevocably changed.  The girl, Eliana Wynter (Lindsey Shaw, billed as Lindsey Marie Shaw), runs with a pack of adolescent thugs, many of whom menace book-nerdy Will. After he is stalked at the party by a wild animal and escapes uninjured, secrets about his dead mother, Kay (Ivana Milicevic, CHILDREN OF THE CORN III: URBAN HARVEST, 1995), are revealed, threatening his future as well as the lives of those he cares about.

This eighth HOWLING entry is solid, with sketched, likeable or loathe-worthy characters, good FX, mostly fast-paced writing and a strong, quirky B-movie sensibility. Yes, some of its characters’ backstories could have been better developed─e.g., Kay’s contentious relationship with Will’s father, Jack (Frank Schorpion, PET SEMATARY, 2019), and a few less scenes with melancholic pop songs (including Gus Black’s slowed-down cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper”) might’ve improved said scenes. That said, these are minor complaints. If you keep your expectations low─not THE HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING (1995) low─but moderate nonetheless, this might be a worthwhile, unmemorable flick for just-before-bed viewing.

THE HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING (1995)

 

(a.k.a. HOWLING VII: MYSTERY WOMAN. Director: Clive Turner and an uncredited Roger Nall. Screenplay by Clive Turner, billed as “based on” Gary Brandner’s The Howling trilogy, but it’s not.)

Storyline

After a friendly stranger arrives in a small town, a series of savage, animalistic murders occur.

 

Review

A mysterious biker, Ted (Clive Turner), arrives in a sparsely populated cowboy town (Pioneertown) and gets a job at the community hub country bar (Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace) and makes friends with the locals. What they don’t know is that he has an agenda, making notes about his social interactions on a tape recorder in his motel room.

Meanwhile, a “Detective” (John Ramsden) talks to Father John, a local priest, about a series of out-of-town murders the Detective is investigating. The priest tells him that the killer he’s hunting has roots going back to the 1500s in Hungary and is a spawn of Satan─a werewolf! The cop is unconvinced but listens to Father John anyway. The priest’s voiceover, spread throughout the film, narrates extensive footage from HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE, HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH, and HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS.

Within days of Ted’s arrival, two bar patrons are torn apart. Eventually, the “Detective” meets Ted, everything comes to anticlimactic finish, and MOON finally ends.

MOON, the seventh HOWLING flick, is not a good film. Shot in Yucca Valley, California, its microbudget is painfully obvious. Most of its players, wooden in their roles, are non-actors, all of whom use their real first names and whose humor runs from a recurring George Jones joke to a scene with loud, squirting fart sounds. Its FX/transformation scenes are cheap, even for MOON’s infinitesimal financing, and there is no suspense in this amiable but boring-for-any-genre work.

MOON has some good things about it too. It’s the first film in the series since HOWLING II that strives for series continuity─in this case, it tries to bring together elements from the three previous movies (e.g., Romy Windsor reprises her role of Marie Adams, the famous writer, from HOWLING IV). While it doesn’t entirely succeed, it’s an admirable attempt on Turner’s part.

Another thing I liked about MOON was its set-up (why Ted comes to Pioneertown, and who hired him to go there) as well as its clever end-twist. Now, if everything else about it had been better, it might’ve made MOON worthwhile. It’s not the worst film I’ve seen, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone.

HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS (1991)

 

(Director: Hope Perello. Screenplay by Kevin Rock, loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1985 novel The Howling III.)

Storyline

A young werewolf is forced to join a malevolent carnival owner’s freak show.

Review

A young man, Ian (Brendan Hughes, RETURN TO HORROR HIGH, 1987), drifts into a small, dying town (Canton Bluff), where he is given room and board if he helps one of the townspeople, Dewey, repair his church. Elizabeth, Dewey’s young adult daughter, also lives with Dewey─a romantic bond forms between Ian and Elizabeth, though Ian is gun-shy about it.

Not long after that, a traveling carnival rolls into town, owned by the manipulative and mellifluous R.B. Harker (Bruce Payne, WARLOCK III: THE END OF INNOCENCE, 1999). The Canton Bluff citizens welcome the carnival, which puts down stakes on the edge of the town. Ian takes Elizabeth there, and Harker, seeing him, senses something about the shy young man. Because it’s that lunar time of the month, Ian turns into a werewolf and runs around town (while harming no one). Harker cages him and outs Ian as a lycanthrope, forcing the gentle young man to become a new attraction for the traveling sideshow. 

Murders rock the town. Ian is blamed for them despite the fact he was in his cage at the time. Can Elizabeth, Ian and the other townspeople stop Harker before more people die?

FREAKS has a mostly solid screenplay, a couple of briefly spooky scenes, and solid acting but its slightly overlong running time and limited budget hobbles the effectiveness of its film quality and its FX (some are good, though Ian’s werewolf makeup is laughable). Having said that, FREAKS is considerably better than its two preceding in-name-only prequels (HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE and HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH), so if you feel the need to watch one of the later, budget-challenged HOWLING movies, this might be the one to pick─just don’t expect much from this occasionally uneven flick.

B-movie geeks might also note these actors: Antonio Fargas (FIRESTARTER, 1984) as the physically deft Bellamey; Carol Lynley (THE NIGHT STALKER, 1972) as Miss Eddington; Elizabeth Shé (HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING, 1995) as Mary Lou; and Deep Roy (CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, 2005) as the cruel Toones.

HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH (1989)

 

(Director: Neal Sundstrom, billed as Neal Sundström. Screenplay by Clive Turner and Freddy Rowe, billed as “based on” Gary Brandner’s The Howling trilogy, but it’s not.)

Storyline

While visiting a Hungarian castle, strangers discover they have a werewolf in their midst.

 

Review

Budapest, 1489.  A family, living in a castle, are slain at their dinner table by a couple who kill themselves afterward─just as they discover a baby survived the slaughter.

 Five hundred years later, Count Istvan invites eight strangers to the reopening of his castle. The guests include: former rock star Ray Price (Clive Turner); a distracted Professor Dawson; movie star Anna Stenson; photographer David Gillespie; songwriter Gail Cameron; tennis player Jonathan Lane; playboy Richard Hamilton; and a ditzy, aspiring actress Marylou Summers.

Shortly after they arrive at the snowy abode, Professor Dawson tells Marylou, a loud American, about wolf packs that preyed on local townsfolk a thousand years prior─these packs were, still are, said to be led by a lycanthropic Satan. About the time that happened, the castle’s construction was finished before being abandoned for unknown reasons.

Things quickly go sideways for the guests. Dawson disappears. Count Istvan─who recounted the 1489-slaughter tale to them over breakfast─tells the others Dawson left, without saying anything more about it. It’s clear he’s hiding something. And a fierce winter storm has trapped them in the castle.

Flirtations, sex, more deaths, suspicion, and allegiance-switching occur. Eventually, the reasons for their invitations become clear. The identity of the killer and the ending, not unexpected, are solid.

This campy, supranatural take on Agatha Christie’s 1940 novel And Then There Were None has good, character-interesting moments in it. Unfortunately, REBIRTH runs long in the middle before picking up near the end.

REBIRTH’s players are mostly solid. Some of the characters are off-putting, but that seems intentional. Solid performances include: Phil Davis (ALIEN 3, 1992) as Count Istvan; Nigel Triffitt as Professor Dawson; Elizabeth Shé (HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS, 1991) as Marylou Summers; Mark Sivertson (VAMPIRES, 1998) as Jonathan Hammet; Victoria Catlin (MANIAC COP, 1988) as Dr. Catherine Peake; William Shockley (SHOWGIRLS, 1995) as Richard Hamilton; Stephanie Faulkner (J.D.’S REVENGE, 1976) as the no-nonsense Gail Cameron.

The FX are not great but, given REBIRTH’s limited budget, are worthwhile─the werewolf itself gets a few seconds of screen time, so if you’re looking for good werecreature footage, skip this one (I appreciate that the producers didn’t foist a crappy-looking shapeshifter on REBIRTH’s viewers).  The violence is mostly off-screen, with torn-out throats seen post-assault.

REBIRTH is an uneven film. Its storyline, its atmosphere, its players, and some of its early scenes are promising, but its overlong running time leads to some dull moments. It’s still more entertaining and amusing (intentionally so) than its predecessor (HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE, 1988) but I’d suggest that only franchise completists and core genre fans spend time on this fifth outing.

CAT PEOPLE (1942)

 

(Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenwriter: DeWitt Bodeen.)

Storyline

A Serbian immigrant woman weds an American man, triggering her superstitious belief that she’ll turn into jungle cat if she has sex with her husband.

 

Review

When an American, Oliver Reed (Kent Smith, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), marries a Serbian fashion artist, the neurotic Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), it exacerbates an irrational terror within her. She fears that if she kisses her husband, she’ll turn into a jungle cat and tear him apart. Her terror and his frustration are heightened when he and his close co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), realize they’re in love.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, 1943), tries to help the distraught Irena, who stalks Alice and Oliver at night. (Conway reprised his character in SEVENTH, a character-linked prequel to CAT.)

Irena’s downward emotional trajectory worsens, underscoring an increasingly dangerous question: can she be saved before she transforms, goes murderously insane?

At seventy-three minutes, this is a stunning film. The psychological and nuanced potency of DeWitt Bodeen’s taut, character-sketched screenplay is further brought to iconic and suspenseful life by its visual and musical aspects. Roy Webb’s score is dramatic without being overly so; art directors Albert S. D’Agostino and Walter E. Keller’s use of chiaroscuro and animation is enhanced by Nicholas Muscuraca’s cinematography, Mark Robson’s editing and Jacques Tourneur’s direction.

Acting-wise, all the players are dead-on in their roles. The leads are backed by notable actors, including Alec Craig (THE SPIDER WOMAN, 1943) as a “Zookeeper” and Alan Napier (THE UNINVITED, 1944) as Doc Carver─both Craig and Napier are uncredited in their CAT roles.

CAT is one of my all-time favorite films of any genre, one that is worth seeing if you enjoy suspenseful, psychological films with striking visual aspects and haunting characters. 

HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE (1988)

 

(Directors: John Hough and an uncredited Clive Turner. Screenplay by Clive Turner and Freddy Rowe, based on Gary Brandner’s The Howling trilogy.)

Storyline

A bestselling author and her husband head to the small town of Drago so she can recover from a mental breakdown, unaware it’s den of werewolves.

 

Review

HOWLING IV is essentially a remake of THE HOWLING (1981). Curiously, this fourth franchise entry is a more faithful adaptation of Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name.

This time out, it’s a bestselling author, Marie Adams (Romy Windsor, THE HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING, 1997), who has a mental breakdown─she sees visions of a nun who keeps trying to warn her about something, but Marie can’t tell what. Her husband, Richard (Michael T. Weiss, FREEWAY, 1996), suggests they go to a quiet, secluded mountain town he was told about, where Marie can rehabilitate. The town is Drago, the site of lycanthropic happenings in the first film.

At first, it seems close-knit and homey, if gossipy. Night after night, Marie hears “sinister” howls, which people say they don’t hear, or dismiss as coyotes. Marie’s nun-visions occur more often, each successive appearance showing the nun to be more frantic, making Marie, who feels increasingly alone, more neurotic, further driving away her moody, jealous husband. The presence of a flirtatious local artist, Eleanor (replacing the character of Marsha Quist from the first film), does not help Marie’s state of mind─Eleanor clearly has designs on Michael, who’s on shaky ground as far as marital fidelity goes.

Director John Hough (THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, 1973) has stated in interviews that HOWLING IV is not his work. He was constantly at odds with producer/screenwriter/uncredited director Clive Turner, who undercut Hough’s authority by constantly changing the script, not letting Hough meet co-screenwriter Freddy Rowe (whom Hough believes is a fictional person created by Turner) and other trickery. Once Hough delivered the finished film to Turner, Hough said the producer─who also has a cameo as “Tow Truck Driver”─shot more scenes and drastically recut the film, the version that was released.

It may be for the best for Hough that he can disavow this flick. While it’s mostly solid story-wise (aside from those weird nun-visions and how the werewolves fear the bell tower), its ultra-low budget goes a long way toward ruining it. It was shot without sound, with audio dubbed in post-production, and its uneven sound quality reflects that. It also lacks suspense (a good soundtrack would have helped) and there are a few instances of questionable editing. Its FX (melting-puddle werewolves?) are laughable─according to FX artist Steve Johnson who worked on the film, the FX team’s creative hands were tied by Turner and HOWLING IV’s financial constraints.

Normally, I would not criticize a film for its limited budget, but given some of the unnecessary scenes and other questionable creative choices made in the film, HOWLING IV could have better used its resources to deliver an improved movie─I’ve seen other filmmakers do it, why not Turner and (possibly) company?

Two of HOWLING IV ‘s other horror-notable actors: Susanne Severeid (DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE, 1980) as Janice, a friendly visitor with secrets; Lamya Derval (HELLHOLE, 1985) as Eleanor, Michael’s temptress artist.

Can you skip this one? Absolutely.

HOWLING III (1987)

 

(a.k.a. HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS. Director/screenwriter: Phillipe Mora, his script barely based on Gary Brandner’s 1985 book The Howling III.)

Storyline

A young lycanthropic runaway’s bad luck turns when she’s cast in a horror film. Unfortunately, members of her werewolf clan have followed her to the big city to return her to their fold.

 

Review

CAVEAT: possible mini-spoilers in this review.

Billed as a lyncathropic terror flick, HOWLING III is a quirky dramedy punctuated with horror elements. In it, a young woman, Jerboa (Imogen Annesley, QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, 2002) flees her backwater town (Flow) and her abusive stepparent, Thylo (Max Fairchild, THE ROAD WARRIOR, 1981) for a big city, where she─seen on the street by a sharp-eyed film crew member (Donny Martin)─is cast in a werewolf film (SHAPESHIFTERS PART 8).

Meanwhile, an American scientist, Professor Harry Beckmeyer (Barry Otto), working for his government, has flown to Australia (where HOWLING III takes place) to prove that werewolves exist, and stop furry-beast attacks across the globe. Beckmeyer’s not the only one seeking Jerboa─a trio of funny, shapeshifting nuns also track her. It’s not long before Jerboa, pregnant and close to giving birth, and Donny (Lee Biolos, billed as Leigh Biolos) find themselves in Flow, along with Beckmeyer and his associates, who study the town’s denizens in a laboratory. Local hunters and American and Australian soldiers show up as well.

One of the things I like about HOWLING III is how it delves into its distinctive, Oz-centric history, mixed biology, and mythology. I also like how it embraces its amiable, humane and sometimes goofy tone (even if the nun-based storyline fizzles out into an underexplained dead-end, and its ending, echoing that of the first HOWLING film, undercuts the largely positive and solid vibe of what came before it. Though effectively foreshadowed, this finish is character/situation inconsistent.

Unfortunately, HOWLING III sometimes comes off as unintentionally funny (e.g., the scenes where Dagmar Bláhová, playing Olga Gorki, appears to be overacting when her werewolf tendencies come to the fore─ Bláhová is solid when she’s not given ridiculous reaction scenes, so more’s the pity). Speaking of ridiculous scenes, fans of Larry Blamire’s THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA (2001) may enjoy a certain scene involving bones and dumb hunters. It does not help that many of the FX (e.g., the nuns’ wolfed-out scenes) feel like a silly Claymation, something more suitable for an early Peter Jackson film. Another potential minus for many viewers is its lack of suspense, though I don’t see it as a demerit, considering that the movie is not a horror flick. That said, it’s too bad that this subgenre-hybrid film got marketed as a terror work, making it almost certain to disappoint horror fans, who are often catholic in their narrowly defined expectations.

Horror and western fans may recognize some of HOWLING III’s players. Michael Pate (CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, 1959) played the American “President.” Frank Thring (MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME, 1985) played Jack Citron, a movie director. Ralph Cotterill (THE PROPOSITION, 2005) played Professor Sharp. Barry Humphries (SHOCK TREATMENT, 1981) played one of his iconic characters, Dame Edna Everage, as an “Academy Award Presenter.”

I wouldn’t recommend HOWLING III unless you’re looking for an ambitious, experimental werewolf dramedy with a few glaring flaws and a seriously low budget.

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.

THE HOWLING (1981)

 

(Director: Joe Dante. Screenplay by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless, based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name.)

Review

Loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name, the film version is about a television newswoman, Karen White (Dee Wallace, ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION, 1991), who’s being stalked by a serial killer. When the psycho, Eddie Quist, falls for a police set-up using Karen as bait, she’s almost raped and killed by Eddie, who’s fatally shot by the cops. Traumatized by this, she suffers from memory loss and has disjointed nightmares about her missing minutes. Her shrink, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, WAXWORK, 1988), suggests that she recuperate in a remote resort in the woods, Drago, where Waggner can better guide her healing.

Karen and her boyfriend, Bill (Christopher Stone, CUJO, 1983) arrive in Drago. Everybody’s friendly, if occasionally weird, some of them too friendly. One of those people is Marsha, an exotic woman who flirts with Bill. He fends off her advances, but after he’s attacked by a wolf-like creature, his attitude changes. Meanwhile, Karen is still unnerved by her unfolding-memory nightmares and the wolf howls that fill the night, some of them close to their cabin.

Back in Karen’s home city, her co-workers and friends─Terry Fisher (Belinda Balaski, GREMLINS, 1984) and Chris Halloran (Dennis Dugan)─have done further digging into Eddie’s life and death, and discovered several things: Eddie’s body has disappeared from the morgue; Eddie had an obsession with werewolves, Karen, and an area that bears an uncanny resemblance to Drago. . . Eventually, Terry and Chris head up there at different times, and it’s not long before the true nature of Drago’s denizens is revealed, with wild, bloody confrontations that Karen, Bill and her friends might not survive.

HOWLING is an excellent, humorous, and clever update of the furry moon-beast genre, a satire about media and a cautionary tale about sexual repression. Its tone is lighter than that of its source book (e.g., in the book Karen is raped in her own home, and its ending is different than that of the film). Aficionados of werewolf works might especially enjoy HOWLING’s nods to previous shapeshifter films, like the name of John Carradine’s character (Erle Kenton). In real life, Erle C. Kenton (1896-1980) was a director, actor, and writer; one of the films he directed was HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944), which featured Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the iconic Wolfman of several Universal films. In several scenes of HOWLING, Chaney’s first outing as Talbot (THE WOLFMAN, 1941) plays on a television set.

So many things make HOWLING work as well as it does. Its running time is kept short (an hour and thirty minutes, every scene important to the film).  Its writing and dialogue is sharp, often clever and funny, with an underlying theme of sexual and social repression woven into its various aspects, verbal and visual. Its special makeup effects, practical not digital (HOWLING predates the latter), are top-notch, overseen by Rick Baker (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, 1981), created by Rob Bottin (THE THING, 1982) and further brought into being by their talented special makeup effects crew.

Its cast is perfect and fun. Beyond Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone (who were married from 1980 until his death in late 1995), and others, everyone nailed their parts.

Kevin McCarthy (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1956) played Karen’s boss, Fred Francis (perhaps a reference to Freddie Francis, who directed 1975’s LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF). Dick Miller (AMITYVILLE 1992: IT'S ABOUT TIME, 1992) played Walter Paisley, the bookstore owner who’s also a werewolf expert. Robert Picardo (GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH, 1990) played Eddie Quist with playfully sadistic relish. Meschach Taylor (DAMIEN: OMEN II, 1978) played Shantz, a concerned cop. Kenneth Tobey (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, 1951) played an “Older Cop.”

The denizens of Drago include: Elisabeth Brooks (FAMILY PLOT, 1976) as Marsha; Slim Pickens (BLAZING SADDLES, 1974) as Sam Newfield; and Noble Willingham (THE LAST BOY SCOUT, 1991) as Charlie Barton.

Sharp-eyed horror fans might recognize Karen’s co-anchor, Lew Landers, who appears in GREMLINS (1984), another Joe Dante flick. James MacKrell played Landers in both films.

There are several uncredited cameos as well. Producer/director Roger Corman played “Man in Phone Booth.” HOWLING screenwriter John Sayles played a morgue attendant. Forrest J. Ackerman (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD II, 1988) played a grumbling bookstore customer. Writer/director Mick Garris (PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING, 1990) played “Man with TV Guide.”

HOWLING is one of my Top Ten werewolf flicks, worth checking out, even if you’re a casual lycanthropy viewer who doesn’t geek out like I did in this review.

THE WEREWOLF (1956)

 

(Director: Fred F. Sears. Screenwriters: Robert E. Kent and James B. Gordon.)

Storyline

An amnesiac stranger shows up in Mountaincrest, a small town. Not long after his arrival, a notorious thug is killed, seemingly by a wild animal. While the townsfolk put together a search party for the creature, the doctors whose experiments created the beast head to Mountaincrest.

 

Review

WEREWOLF is an entertaining, straightforward lycanthropic work, typically Fifties in what it shows (e.g., no gore; the violence is PG-rated by today’s standards). The hour-and-nineteen-minute film wastes no time in setting up and delivering its monster-on-the-loose goods, with taut dialogue, cut-to-it scenes, solid acting, and well-written characters who are sympathetic to Duncan Marsh, a stranger saddled with amnesia and synthetic shapeshifting.

Adding to the fun of this flick is its convincing lycanthropic makeup, created by Clay Campbell, who originally used it in THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1943; director: Lew Landers)─Campbell was not credited for his work on RETURN and WEREWOLF, and used the same (or similar) makeup in other films.

Good film, WEREWOLF─worth watching, possibly worth owning if you’re into well-made Fifties monster movies.