'Howling 2' review by MartialHorror

source: http://freewebs.com/mhhow2

Please check out the site!

HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF(1985)
(Directed by Philippe Mora)

"The Rocking, Shocking, New Wave of Horror? Now that is the biggest damn threat ever heard."- Signed by MartialHorror.

Plot: A man, whose sister became a werewolf in the first film, is convinced by a werewolf hunter to go find the werewolf queen Stirba and end her reign once and for all….or some *beep* like that. Also known as "Howling II: Stirba- Werewolf Bitch"......I'm dead serious.

Review:

In 1981, Joe Dante released “The Howling”, a werewolf film that revolutionized werewolf special effects. It was released around the same time as “An American Werewolf in London”, which possibly was even superior to “The Howling” in that regard. It also came around in the same year as “Wolfen”……a similar film that no one remembers. If there was one major criticism of “The Howling”, it was that it waited too long to reveal the werewolves. It felt as if the filmmakers planned on there being a sequel, and the first film was simply a set-up. Still, the pay off was amazing. Little did they know that the first sequel they would get is “Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf” and if you think that title is silly, an alternate title is “Howling II: Stirba- Werewolf Bitch”…Little did they know, this one film would pretty much ruin the chance at this being a good franchise…Oh, there was a franchise, but fans of the original try to pretend it does not exist.

The film opens with the great Christopher Lee(Known today as Saruman from "The Lord of the Rings") reading some quote from….I dunno, the Bible or a Bible-esque tome. Lee is superimposed in space and a skeleton floats around in the background. It’s as if the film is saying: “I hope you do not take this movie seriously, because we sure aren’t!”. Lee plays Stefan Crosscoe(I’m dead serious, that's his name), a werewolf hunter who wants to put down the protagonist of the first film. When we last saw her, she had turned into a werewolf on live television and was shot dead. For some reason, they recreate that scene for this film….I guess the first movie wasn’t *beep* enough for this. Oddly, it appears as if there was a big cover up, making me wonder how the hell do you cover up something like that on LIVE TELEVISION. It’s almost as idiotic as the Government covering up the transformers attack, as said in “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen”. Stefan tries to warn her brother, Ben(Reb Brown), that unless she’s killed with silver, she will continue to rise as a werewolf. Ben shoos him away, but his reporter friend Jenny(Annie McEnroe) believes him. Soon, werewolves attack and Ben and Jenny to decide to team up with Stefan and travel to Transylvania(I’m dead serious) to find and kill Stirba, Queen of the werewolves.

I cannot describe to you how bad “Howling 2” is. It’s mind numbingly bad. But I can’t say I was ever bored, so don’t expect a terribly negative rating in the end. Still, I can’t go into every flaw or I’ll never get done. So I’ll just talk about the flaws that really irked me. The first and most obvious are the wolves themselves. The first film had amazing monsters, but these look like guys in monkey suits or something. They certainly are not wolves!

My second major issue is the poor editing and random cut scenes. At times, they will splice random clips of other scenes from the movie into other scenes. Hell, I think they even reuse their own footage for at least one of the transformation scenes. The most hilarious example is that they keep showing this bad band who sing about howling(I'm dead serious). These guys show up a few times, and we presume they’re werewolves. But I can’t help but think that the cameraman snuck into one of their concerts and spliced that footage into the movie. When in the end, we see the werewolves transforming and going to kill the heroes, the band still plays and the audience is still cheering for them. Someone SERIOUSLY needs to learn the definition of continuity.

My third major issue was the acting. I will say that Christopher Lee(Stefan) does a good job, considering the material. The problem is that he must’ve cost too much money, or they wanted to be more hip, so he becomes a supporting character to our two leading morons. Speaking of hip, Lee dons these stylish sunglasses at one point and it’s so random and hilarious. Watch the movie just for that, as its the lamest attempt to make an old guy look hip. Oddly, that scene has him following the werewolves as they butcher some punks, but he never does anything to help them. Odd. But back to the acting, Reb Brown(Ben) and Annie McEnroe(Jenny) are horrendous. I believe that when people coined the phrase “wooden actor”, they were thinking of Reb Brown. I’ve seen trees with better acting skills! McEnroe constantly looks either confused or high on drugs, maybe both. It’s as if she got wasted and when she came to her senses, found herself on the set of “Howling 2”, and instead of acting, was busy wondering how she got there. The odd thing is that the rest of the cast isn’t bad in a campy kind of way. Sybil Danning(Stirba) isn’t a good actress(at least here), but more-or-less fits the role. The problem is that the films two leading actors happen to be the worst. They aren’t likeable characters either, so you’ll want them to die while knowing that God won’t be so kind. It really is distressing.

My final point of contention is just the execution of the whole damn thing. When it tries to be scary, it’s silly. When it tries to be silly, it’s annoying. When it tries to be annoying, then it’s scary……although not in a good way. A major example is that there are some werewolf sex scenes….I’m dead serious. There is even a werewolf threesome. The problem is…….it's disgusting. It’s not even interesting. It’s just two hairy chicks and a hairy guy growling like morons in their bed. Ew…….That sums up the whole movie.

Trust me when I say that there are so many other criticisms I have about the film. That’s because it does NOTHING right, except casting Christopher Lee. So how can one encompass all of its flaws in one single review? I could probably write a full review on what’s wrong with the OPENING SCENE. But still…..It’s one of those charming bad movies, and I have to admit that it never bored me. It ruined the series, and plenty of other bad Howling films would come(Including the dull but superior “Howling 5”, which is the only other one I’ve seen in recent years) because of it. The studio just lost faith in them, so would throw little money at them while actually HIRING THE SAME DIRECTOR for "Howling III". I don't remember the quality of that picture, but I think it was better than this. But once again, I didn't hate this at all. I *gasp* even kind of enjoyed it. I imagine that if I had seen it when it first came out, I would’ve called it the worst movie ever. But it’s bad movie image has grown enough that I really expected to hate it. But I didn’t……I had a few laughs, have a new appreciation of its predecessor(Hell, I even have a new appreciation of “Howling 5!”) and now can boast that I watched “Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf” from beginning to end without considering suicide just to get out of watching it.

Violence: It has some cheesy violence. R worthy for sure.

Nudity: A fair amount….not always pleasant due to the hairyness.

Overall: Don’t watch “Howling II: Your Sister if a Werewolf” unless, like me, you actively search for bad movies to test yourself. It is immensely inept, but it’s far from taking the place of “Terror Toons” as worst movie ever.

1.5/4 Stars


my reviews of martial arts and horror films
http://freewebs.com/martialhorror