Howling 2 (1985)

 

During last years Countdown to Halloween I reviewed The Howling and while it wasn't the first time I has seen it, a good deal of time had passed since the last time I watched it.  This year I decided to re-watch Howling 2.  I'll leave it up to you if you want to subtitle it as Your Sister is a Werewolf or the one I prefer Stirba Werewolf Bitch.  The original had Dee Wallace as Karen White who we last saw turning into a werewolf at the end of The Howling.  I would say Spoiler Alert but it's been like over forty years since it came out so deal with it.  Although the character is mentioned in the sequel (the movie begins at her funeral) and the character is also present (we see her alive and screaming in her coffin) there's no Dee Wallace in this one.  Playing her brother Ben is Reb Brown (Uncommon Valor and Tor, The Hunter from the Future) who decides to join forces with the mysterious Stefan Crosscoe played by the awesome as usual Christopher Lee.  With them is Jenny Templeton who worked with Karen before she died.  Annie McEnroe (True Stories and The Hand) plays Jenny.

 

The three of them go to Transylvania (or thereabouts) to find and kill a werewolf queen named Stirba played by Sybil Danning (Amazon Women on the Moon and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) who also happens to be two of the reasons to watch this film.  That was a little boob joke.  The joke was little not the boobs.  Just watch the film to see what I mean.  Anyway.... so they are looking for the werewolf queen and along the way run into some of her minions including Marian played by Marsha Hunt (Dracula A.D. 1972).  They eventually find Stirba's castle and a huge battle breaks out.  

 

Aside from Danning and Lee, another good reason to see the film is the theme song The Howling by new wave band Babel.  Talk about an ear worm, warning: it has the chance to get into your head and it might not leave for awhile.  The special effects are hit or miss this time through although the original werewolf transformations from the first film are still being used very well here.  The major issue I have is Stirba has some sort of demon she unleashes on her enemies and it looks like a puppet.  There is a head with eyes popping out and it looks horrible.  Even worse it is shown in slow motion and shown more than once.  So the special effects are a step down from the original.  There's also a couple spots where it seems like the film gets really slow.  Lot's of werewolves with Christopher Lee staying in control at all times.  In fact I kept waiting for it to be shown that Lee was also something more than human.  I gave the original three and a half this is a little less than that one was for me so I will offer up three silver bullets out of five for this sequel which is really nothing like the first one.