Howling 2

Alternate titles : Howling 2 : Stirba the Werewolf Bitch, Howling 2 : Your Sister's a Werewolf.

Tagline : "It's not over yet."

Undoubtedly the biggest stinker of a sequel since "Exorcist 2". This poor follow up to the original "Howling" shows the brother of the late Karen White (Dee Wallace's character from the first film), and his girlfriend hooking up with horror veteran Christopher Lee to battle a werewolf sect in Transylvania.

That is essentially the film in a nutshell, but as I've got a page to fill here I'll continue. The fun starts off after Karen's funeral when her brother Ben (Reb Brown) finds out the truth behind Karen's death from a werewolf hunter named Stefan Croscoe (Christopher Lee in his worst ever role).

So with that, Ben and girlfriend Jenny (Annie McEnroe) decide to accompany Stefan on a little excursion to Transylvania, to destry a female werewolf named Stirba (Sybil Danning), who has a penchant for tight leatherwear and punk rock music.

Trouble is that the only thing that can kill Stirba and her castle full of punk rocker werewolved is is Titanium, as they have become immune to silver. Fortunately, Stefan just happens to have an ample supply, and so they quickly get stuck in.

One of the duffest werewolf films I have ever had the misfortune of viewing. Whilst Christopher Lee delivers a respectable performance (as always) and the shots of Sybil Danning stalking around in her leatherwear and getting her kit off were very nice to watch, the film on the whole is just plain awful, and matters aren't helped by the shameless ripping off of special effects from "American Werewolf in London" (yes I DID notice) or the annoying punk rock song that plays virtually non-stop throughout.

I think the writers also got a bit confused and thought they were doing a vampire feature, what with the setting being in Transylvania, killing the wolves by a stake through the heart and having Lee cast as a "Van-Helsing" type character. All I can say is Christopher Lee must have been strapped for cash when he made this one. One last thought though, what was British TV actor Jimmy Nail doing in this????

Overall Marks : 3/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines "The rocking, shocking, new wave of horror", "Nightmares never die", "Twice the terror! Twice the torment".
• Christopher Lee was apparently less than happy with how the film turned out, and was even quoted as saying "The less said about my role on that film the better" during an interview. It was also reported that when he was cast in "Gremlins 2", the first thing he did was apologise to Joe Dante (who directed the first film) for appearing in this.
• Original "Howling" author Gary Bradner helped write the screenplay, though the film is not in any way connected to his follow up novel entitled "Howling 2".
• Reb Brown, who played Ben, also played the original Captain America in the 1979 TV movies of the same name.
• When the werewolf costumes arrived, they discovered the prop department had simply got a bunch of leftover costumes from the "Planet of the Apes" movies and glued more fur onto them, which looked ridiculous. But they were forced to use them as they had no other costumes, hence why the wolves looked more like apes. Christopher Lee's line about "Evolution working in reverse" was improvised on set to explain their strange appearance.
• There were numerous cut releases in the US, under the title "Howling 2 : Your Sister is a Werewolf". The version released as "Howling 2 : Stirba the werewolf Bitch" was uncut. All current disc releases are of the uncut version.
• During the end credit sequence, the same shot of Sybil Danning ripping off her shirt is repeated a total of 18 times.
• The UK cinema and VHS releases were plainly titled "Howling 2" on the posters and video sleeve, but had the sub-title "Stirba the Werewolf Bitch" on the film intro credits and was of the uncut version.
• Director Philip Mora also directed "Howling 3" and also the 1989 sci-fi thriller "Communion".
• The scenes in Transylvania were actually filmed in Czechoslovakia.

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