The Howling II (1985)

Ben, brother to the famous reporter Karen White who was brutally murdered for apparently no reason, is approached, along with Karen's former colleague Jenny, at his sister's funeral by a strange man named Stefan Crosscoe, who insists that his sister was a werewolf when she died. Although untrusting of the man at first, Jenny and Ben become convinced of the validity of his strange stories when they see Karen rise from the dead as a werewolf. After putting Karen to eternal rest, Stefan convinces Ben and Jenny to join him in Transylvania (yes, apparently in this universe Transylvania is a sovereign nation), where the 10,000 year-old queen of the werewolves, Stirba, is preparing to reawaken and, on the anniversary of her birth, all werewolves will transform into their real selves, possibly dooming humanity...

While The Howling transcended the more notorious conventions of the horror genre, The Howling II wallows in them. While there's really nothing wrong with that, it's jarring in a film that's following the original's serious (at least in tone) write-up of the werewolf mythos. Plus, the film commits a few unforgiveable sins. Right off the bat, it completely-and nonsensically-screws up the interesting and rich ending of the original. Second, it forces Christopher Lee into one of the dullest and most unoriginal roles ever concieved, Stefan Crosscoe, werewolf hunter extraordinare and uninteresting van Helsing clone. Third, it simply opened the gateway for another painful glut of sequels.

Of course, like any B-movie worth its weight in crap, the film tries to redeem its flaws by parading more breasts than can be found even in a fourteen-year old boy's wildest dreams. Although it really overdoes it, Howlling II does follow up on the original by playing with the connection between the human-werewolf transformation and sexual desire, which basically means, yes, you have even more folks turning into werewolves while in the middle of screwing their brains out. In fact, this movie ought to have gone down in history as the first film to show a full werewolf orgy (although I could be wrong, and some obscure Italian production beat them to the punch.) The casting of Sybil Danning, who has appeared in fine films such as Swedish Love Games and Reform School Girls, as the werewolf queen Stirba is a huge clue as to this movie's real purpose. Not to say Sybil doesn't do a fine job, she actually does a far better one than the others (even, sadly, Christopher Lee). While pretty much all the main actors are in full "here for the paycheck" mode, Sybil is having a hell of a time. She struts around in leather outfits that would make Wonder Woman blush while shooting off bad dialogue that would make Ed Wood (almost) blush. Everything she does is in style, which is more than can be said for everyone else involved in this flick.

Pretty much Howling II's only other positive aspect is the use of scenery and background action. The sequence of medieval art during the opening credits is fairly impressive (too bad the music is not so). Also the movie uses the fact that it's filmed in Czechoslavakia toward nice results, with some good (if erratic and choppy) shots of gothic architecture and appropriate statuary. Not only that, but you also have a few nice "local" touches here and there. Formost in my mind was a rather eerie Punch and Judy-style puppet show featuring a werewolf puppet. But for every interesting moment, there's at least fifteen minutes of drivel coming right up.

There are worse horror films out there (God knows I've seen some of them), but unfortunately what we have here is a film that's too campy and sleazy to be taken seriously, while at the same time too serious and uneven to be a camp classic. Whether or not the other Howling films will walk down the same dark road is something I, unfortunately, will discover.

Cast Connections:

-Sybi Danning (Stirba) also appeared in Amazon Women from the Moon/

Scenes To See:

-Werewolf threesome
-Dancing Transylvanians

Choice Quotes:

"Your room number is 666."
"This hotel doesn't have six floors."
"I know. Funny, isn't it?"
-A hotel clerk and Ben White respectively