All Rise...

You don't want to know about Appellate Judge Patrick Bromley's monkey phase.

The Charge

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The Case

Joe Dante's The Howling is one of the best werewolf movies ever made; it's 1985 sequel, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, is one of the worst. That doesn't mean it's not enjoyable, as its terribleness achieves a kind of transcendence few movies achieve. There's a reason it has garnered such a devoted cult following over the years. It's the kind of movie that must be seen to be believed.

Picking up almost directly after the events of the first movie, Howling II opens with Ben White (Reb Brown, Fast Break) attending the funeral of his sister Karen, the Dee Wallace character who was shot and killed at the end of the first film. He and journalist Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe) are confronted by Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee, Horror of Dracula), a stranger who proves to them that Ben's sister was a werewolf and ends her life when she returns from the dead. He convinces them to accompany him to Transylvania to track down Stirba (Sybil Danning, Battle Beyond the Stars), the werewolf queen, and end her reign of power for good. Their journey will include New Wave rock clubs, little people, exploding eyeballs, hirsute orgies and sorcery battles. You know what it has very little of? Werewolves.

Yes, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (also known as Stirba: Werewolf Bitch in some countries) features shockingly few werewolves. There is the occasional glimpse of a rubber mask or a face in mid-transformation (the monkey phase), as well as naked bodies covered in hair. None of these really count as werewolves. There's plenty of other weirdness to fill the werewolf void, and in its best moments the film takes on a hallucinatory quality—we can't believe what we are watching nor comprehend how it ever got made in the first place. This is a movie that raises far more questions than answers. You know, simple ones like "What's going on?" and "Why is that person doing that?" and "What are the choices I made in my life that led to this moment?" and "WHERE ARE ALL THE WEREWOLVES?"

The acting is bad and uncomfortable almost across the board. Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe are stiff and generic as the heroic lovers, demonstrating all the sexual chemistry of two siblings. The late, great Christopher Lee seems openly embarrassed (which, rumor has it, he was), but acquits himself by delivering the most ridiculous material in the film with a straight face. Guy's a consummate pro. The only actor who completely owns her work in Howling II is Sybil Danning, who commands the screen not just with her incredible physical presence but with her commitment to the role. Like an Amazon clad in all leather and brass, Danning never acknowledges the ridiculousness of what she's asked to say or do—she sells even the worst moments by appearing totally at home in a movie like this. Her costume designer deserves special mention, as does the editor who opted to replay the moment in which she rips off her dress almost 20 times during the closing credits. At least Howling II knows enough to go out with a bang.

So why are so many people drawn to this film—or to bad films like this in general? Sometimes it's because they feel superior to the material: the movie is bad, and we know it is bad, therefore it provides some strange satisfaction to stand above it or outside of it and point our fingers, laughing derisively. I suspect most fans of Howling II have moved beyond that point. For the first one or two viewings, it's impossible not to notice and probably appreciate its badness. Beyond that, though, repeat viewings cease to be ironic. If you keep coming back to something by choice, it's probably because you like it. I don't think I've yet reached that point with Howling II; for me it's better a movie talked about and picked over for its weirdness than enjoyed, as it tends to feel sluggish and dull in the moment. Given what goes on in the movie, I recognize that sounds impossible to believe. I won't deny that there is a lot of entertainment value here. I'm just of a mind that I would rather enjoy a werewolf movie that I don't have to feel terrible about liking.

Howling II makes its HD debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (who else?), who previously released a fantastic special edition of Joe Dante's original film. They do their usual solid work with the sequel, offering a 1.85:1 framed 1080p transfer with good color reproduction, decent detail and only a small amount of specking and print damage. This is surely the best the movie has ever looked. The only audio option is a lossless mono track that keeps the dialogue clear and audible in the center channel while sometimes cranking the score a bit too loud. It's no deal breaker, but you won't want to let the remote get too far away.

A good collection of supplements have been included in the bonus department that at least go a little way towards explaining just what the hell happened in the making of this film. The most informative extras are a pair of commentary tracks, the first with director Philippe Mora (with moderator Michael Felsher) in which he gives a good overview of the production and discusses the many challenges he faced in putting the film together. A second commentary is cut together with separate remarks from editor Charles Bornstein and composer Steve Parsons. In addition to the commentaries, there are three extended retrospective interviews, one with star Reb Brown (who seems like a very nice guy and has only happy memories of the film), one with star Sybil Danning (intense as ever) and one with effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler, affectionately called "A Monkey Phase," a reference to Christopher Lee's line of dialogue improvised to explain away why the werewolf makeup looked so bad—he says that when a man changes into a wolf, he first goes through a "monkey phase." That's the kind of movie Howling II is.

Also included with the special features are an alternate opening and ending, a few minutes of on-set behind the scenes footage, a still gallery and the original trailer, presented in HD.

Howling II is a weird recommendation. It's not a movie I like, but it's a movie I suggest seeing at least once. While I'm not typically an advocate of deliberately watching films I know to be terrible, there's something about the awful insanity of Howling II that becomes almost hypnotic. That this is the only film in the long-running Howling franchise to directly involve author Gary Brandner (upon whose books several of the movies are based) only adds to its legend. If he couldn't get it right, who could? Hardly anyone working on this one, it seems. Most bad movies disappear from memory almost as they play out. To its credit, Howling II doesn't do that. It's unforgettable.

The Verdict

Come for the werewolves, stay for the orgies. Because there are hardly any werewolves.

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