Howling II: …Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)

Howling II (1985) is a direct sequel to Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf film, The Howling. When last we saw television news reporter Karen White (Dee Wallace), she was turning into a pretty white werewolf on screen. Howling II opens at her funeral. Among the mourners are her brother, Ben (Reb Brown), a reporter assigned to investigate her death, Jenny (Annie McEnroe), and a supernatural investigator, Stefan (Christopher Lee.)

There’s a scene later in the movie when the gang has gone to “the dark country,” Transylvania, to track down Stirba, queen of the werewolves, when Ben is driving with Jenny in the front seat and Stefan in the back. As he listens to their inane chatter, Stefan closes his eyes. We later see that he was sleeping, but Lee masterfully shows in the mere movement of his eyelids how tedious the journey with them is for him.

Such is the entire film. Lee doesn’t continue to show disdain; he takes it all very seriously. There has to be a reason, though, that when he made Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), he apologized to Dante for making Howling II. The other actors are awful, particularly McEnroe. Even though he’s low key and delivers his lines in a hushed tone, I liked Brown more than her. His reactions are anything but realistic, but he at least sounds natural.

So, the plot isn’t awful. It at least pertains to the original story where the many other sequels did not. The execution, though, is awful. If I never see another wiping transition, it will be too soon. It contributes to the film looking like it was a straight-to-VHS release of the mid-1980s. Likewise, the credits are garish and cartoonish against an interesting gothic background. The music wasn’t bad; it was just repetitive, especially the “punk” rock song.

This makes Howling II sound cartoony. Originally, director Philippe Mora intended to make a horror comedy. When he left the production early, the powers-that-be re-edited it to be a straight horror film with a few laughs. (That explains the choppiness.) The problem is, there are no intended laughs, but plenty of unintentional ones. The only line that made me smile was the final exchange between Ben and Jenny in Transylvania, but I may just have been glad the movie was finally ending.

Oh, yeah, Sybil Danning plays Stirba. She does nothing for me, but her character is sexually active and ambiguous, growing hair to cover her naughty parts while she frolics in bed with her manservant, Vlad (Judd Omen) and the werewolf our heroes followed to Transylvania, Mariana (Marsha A. Hunt.) Scenes of their menager a trois are repeated nearly as often as the aforementioned “punk” rock song.

I don’t like to call movies, “bad.” I prefer to say only whether or not I like it and why… but Howling II: …Your Sister is a Werewolf (in the U.S.) or Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch (in the U.K.) is just that. For example, Stefan has gone a long distance to hunt and kill Stirba, but on the night of her ten-thousandth birthday, when all humankind may become werewolves, he’s lollygagging around the church as if he doesn’t know what day it is.