Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf
Director: Philippe Mora
Cast: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Sybil Danning
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
Yes, this is one of the best so bad it’s good sequels to ever come out, and I really do mean it. Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (that subtitle is just slightly cooler than the other one: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch) is a very bad movie, but it’s also so much fun. It’s ridiculous, from start to finish, from plot to not-so-special effects, this movie cracks me up. I enjoy it every time I give it a watch. So with a big, stupid grin on my face, I popped in the new Blu-ray of it from Scream Factory.
It starts off with the Dee Wallace’s character (but so not the real Dee Wallace) getting buried, and us being introduced to her brother, played by 80s direct-to-video action super star, Reb Brown. Before you can say, “What are you doing in this movie?” Christopher Lee shows up as a werewolf hunter with all the answers. Like did you know werewolves can only really be killed by titanium? Or that they have a queen in Transylvania who’s not only a werewolf but a witch? Or that garlic, holy water, and other religious items now hurt werewolves? Yeah, I do sometimes think that they took an old vampire horror movie script, did a ‘find and replace’ for every time “vampire” is said in the dialog and replaced it with “werewolf” and called it good. But whatever, after some really shoddy looking werewolves crash Reb and Christopher Lee’s party to drive a stake through the dead sister’s heart to make sure she stays dead (because again, “werewolves”), they run off to Transylvanian to confront and kill the queen of the werewolves, played to busty perfection by Sybil Danning.
Look, if you want a good sequel to 1981’s The Howling, well then you can stop looking, because you’re never going to find it. But what you do get here with this one is a fun movie. It is also often laugh out loud funny, even if it wasn’t intended to be. From a werewolf orgy that looks like a nightmare out of a furry convention, to bat-demon puppets mouth-raping a priest to death, to actual dwarf tossing, to some of the most hilariously bad werewolf effects to ever blight the screen, to Christopher Lee tossing the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch around and Reb Brown screaming and shooting at anything that moves, this movie is dumb but it is a whole lot of fun. If you look up “so bad, it’s good” in the dictionary, this movie will be staring back at you from the page.
Befitting a movie of this caliber, Scream Factory has loaded up their new Blu-ray release of it with quite a few extras. There are two audio commentary tracks here, the first is with director Philippe Mora and second is with composer Steve Parsons and editor Charles Bornstein. There’s an interview with low budget action super star Reb Brown that runs nearly 14 minutes, another with the sex bomb werewolf queen herself Sybil Danning that’s 17 minutes long, and a third with special make-up effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler that’s over 15 minutes in length. There’s an alternate opening, an alternate ending, a behind the scenes video, theatrical trailer, and a stills gallery. So yeah, these extras are something to howl about.
Howling II is not a great movie, not a well-made movie, but like I said, it sure is a fun movie. It’s a big, dumb, puppy of a film that just wants to play, and I always want to play with it. If you like your werewolf movies silly but fun, this might be the flick for you. So believe it or not, but I am going to recommend it. Go into it with the right frame of mind and you’re bound to have a good time.
