Director: Philippe Mora
Writers: Gary Brandner, Robert Sarno
Producer: Steven A. Lane
Cast: Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning, Reb Brown, Annie McEnroe, Marsha Hunt, Judd Omen, Ferdy Mayne, Jiří Krytinář, Valerie Kaplanová, Petr Skarke, Igor Smrzik, Jimmy Nail, Patrick Field, Ladislav Krečmer, Ivo Niederle, Jan Kraus, James Crawford, Steven Bronowski, the band Babel (Stephen W. Parsons, Chris Pye, Simon Etchell, Steve Young)
In Los Angeles, California, Ben White (Reb Brown) attends the funeral of his sister, television newscaster Karen White (Hana Ludvikova). There he meets occult investigator Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee), who tries to convince Ben that his dead sister is a werewolf, and that only a ritual Stefan can perform will give her soul peace. When werewolves attack to try claiming Karen’s body, Ben is convinced and, along with Karen’s co-worker Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe), joins Stefan on his mission to Transylvania. That is where Stefan hopes to find and destroy 10,000-year-old sorceress and queen of the werewolves Stirba (Sybil Danning).
The Flashback Fanatic movie review
1981’s The Howling was the hit horror film very loosely adapted from the novel by Gary Brandner. Howling II was Brandner’s sequel novel that was also published before the first film adaptation. For the film sequel, Brandner was approached to do the screenplay. In fact, he did several due to ongoing budget cuts and shooting location changes. With each of his screenplay renovations becoming more unwieldy, Brandner finally left the project. The resulting film has even less to do with Gary Brandner’s source novels than the first film. What we are left with is the energetic and unfocused Howling II … Your Sister is a Werewolf.
This is a flick that is hard to defend. It is one of those missed opportunity movies that may never have lived up to that great, first film, but, knowing its constant production difficulties and compromises, it is amazing that it was ever finished. It is also a film that no one would ever qualify as good, yet it certainly has its fans (including eccentric louts, like me).
So, just why the hell do I like Howling II … Your Sister is a Werewolf? Of course, we all know that I have bad taste. However, allow me to list the valid merits that I discern in this much-maligned fright flick:
- Fun cast, especially Sybil Danning
- Terrific, synthy, new wave soundtrack
- Sybil Danning
- And… uh… Sybil Danning!
There! Did you just see how many facets there are to appreciate in this cinematic gem? What more justification could I possibly need to turn off my brain and turn on with this salacious and sinister silliness? Did I mention that Sybil Danning is in this? Well, she is, so I am completely validated for fetishizing this funky fright flick.
Okay, I suppose that now you want some highfalutin film analysis of Howling II ... Your Sister is a Werewolf. Geez, you’re really barking up the wrong tree, but here goes…
I guess there is sort of a plot involving werewolves, werewolf attacks, shooting werewolves, and even werewolf orgies. Leading this cult of wanton werewolves is none other than Stirba, as portrayed by Euro film and B movie goddess Sybil Danning, in a succession of crazed fashion statements just waiting to get torn off to reveal… more Sybil Danning! OWOOOOOO! Danning had appeared in several films starring Christopher Lee, but this crazy flick surely has their most memorable scene together.
Horror heavyweight Christopher Lee lends what little credibility this frantic and fearsome fluff can muster. We see him open the film by reading from some tome that is meant to impart biblical-styled legitimacy and dread about the supernatural shenanigans to come. Even more impressive is when his occult investigator Stefan Crosscoe is slumming at a punk concert while tailing the werewolf Mariana (Marsha Hunt). See the man rockin’ those new wave shades! During the filming of this scene, the punks in the concert audience were getting so out of hand that Lee had to wade through the unruly crowd to escort actress Marsha Hunt to safety. As Dracula, Lee had put the bite on Hunt back in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).
Reb Brown was another of Lee’s former castmates. Brown had starred as the superhero Captain America in two television movies. Lee was the chief villain in the second one, Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979). Brown is back in hero mode here alongside Lee’s Stefan Crosscoe. Once Brown’s Ben White gets past his mourning and angry skepticism, he spends the remainder of the film primal screaming while shooting werewolves. I have read that this is a Reb Brown habit in some of his other action movies. He also lends a bit of humor to the proceedings. My favorite line is Brown’s improvised reference to the werewolves as fuzzballs.
Apparently, Brown got on well with director Philippe Mora. He was cast the next year in Mora’s Australian true-crime drama Death of a Soldier (1986). Brown’s performance as a serial-killing soldier stationed in Australia during World War II earned him an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
As journalist Jenny Templeton, Annie McEnroe tags along with Stefan and Ben on the werewolf search-and-destroy mission. She rather abruptly becomes Ben’s love interest and then a damsel in distress. It is a shame that her underwritten role never allows McEnroe to bring any of the quirky spunk and vulnerability she had back in the Oliver Stone horror film The Hand (1982).
Director Philippe Mora had already made the genuinely creepy The Beast Within (1982). This time around, once the production finally settled on shooting in what was then the country of Czechoslovakia, the locations provided a lot of production value and atmosphere. No doubt, the ever-dwindling budget dollars also went a lot further in the impoverished country. Further cost-cutting resulted in Mora being surprised in mid-production with a delivery of old ape suits from the Planet of the Apes films (1968–73) to be used for his werewolves. Alterations to the faces of the suits, lots of dark night scenes, and some inserted closeups of separately made werewolf heads tried to salvage the disaster. An even more horrendous snafu occurred when the eager-to-please Czech locals assured the director that they could perform a fire stunt and demonstrated it by simply dousing someone in kerosene and setting him ablaze. At that point, Mora insisted that the production shell out for some professional stuntmen.
Despite the obstacles of compromised scripting, budget cuts, foreign-language barriers, and communist surveillance, director Mora managed to give us a good-looking and lively film, even if the story is a bit loopy and characterizations are scant. At times there seems to be a what-the-hell frivolity at play with extraneous bits of goofy humor. We even get a throwaway trick-or-treat scene. Mora would also direct the next film in the series, Howling III: The Marsupials (1987).
The soundtrack, composed by Stephen W. Parsons, is a vital ingredient for my enjoyment of this film. This was Parsons’ first film soundtrack assignment, and it is he that fronts the band Babel in the punk rock club scene. We see them performing the “Howling” theme that will be reworked a few different ways during the film. Best of all, as the closing credits roll, we see Babel performing the complete song in the punk club while there are various snippets of the film characters intercut from preceding scenes seemingly reacting to the shot of Sybil Danning’s Stirba tearing open her dress repeated 17 times. Believe it or not, that same breast-baring bit was originally repeated even more times until Danning complained to the producer. I surely hope that all these years later the magnificent Ms. Danning can appreciate that her repetitious and ravishing reveal perfectly complements what amounts to the greatest music video of all time. MTV, eat your heart out!
It is puzzling why a film as popular and respected as 1981’s The Howling gave way to such a disreputable series of movies. Beginning with Howling II … Your Sister is a Werewolf, each installment would go its own way and must be judged on its own merits. In many ways, this second film suffers the most as it is always compared to its classic predecessor. The only thread it shares is the reference to the Karen White character of the first film. Otherwise, this is an entirely standalone film, as all the others in the series would be.
This second film was generally dismissed by most yet still revered by those of us looking for a hedonistic horror experience. We get to indulge in that Christopher Lee gravitas and that Sybil Danning radiance resonating with Stephen Parson’s synthy, new wave tuneage. That’s all a cult film needs and all I need to join in this lupine lunacy. OWOOOOO!
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