Howling II (1985)

"The rocking, shocking new wave of horror!"

Plot

At Karen White's funeral, her brother, Ben, and former colleague, Jenny, meet the enigmatic Stefan, an occult investigator, who reveals that she was a werewolf and that he will protect her grave overnight. Refusing to believe him, Ben and Jenny visit her grave overnight where Stefan makes them watch her come back to life as a werewolf before staking her with a a titanium rod. The group then resolve to go to Transylvania to take out a werewolf cult which is headed up by the alluring Stirba and destroy lycanthropes across the world once and for all.

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The Howling is one of the great werewolf films; a mix of satire and horror, helmed capably by Joe Dante and featuring some of the best make-up effects you'll ever see on camera. It was successful enough to not only spawn one sequel but a whole series of cheaply-made sequels, with the bulk of them being even more terrible than the preceding one (can only think of Howling VI: The Freaks which improves on its predecessors). The Howling series has gone on to become one of the worst horror series ever made both critically and commercially to the point where it has died off with no hope of it being resurrected (2011 being the release of the last sequel to date). When I originally watched Howling II years ago, I immediately dismissed it - but then I wasn't a big fan of the original to begin with and it's grown on me over the years. Ditching the original's seriousness and scares, Howling II is very much the epitome of the crazy 80s horror genre. It was filmed and then shelved for two years before it was eventually sent straight-to-video. Surely an early warning sign of just how terrible everyone considered this sequel to be... and believe me it's terrible. But it's so bad, it becomes untouchable to criticise and has developed a notorious reputation - all of which is warranted.

I think the best thing that can be said about Howling II is that it follows on from the original, starting up a short while afterwards at the funeral of Karen White (with another actress stepping in for Dee Wallace). The fact that the main character here is her brother is the only connection that this sequel has but it's still something that the majority of the sequels failed to bother with. But then the script is tossed out of the window and it's anything goes for the rest of Howling II. To even consider describing it would be to do it an injustice. Not only content with completely re-writing the werewolf rules of the first film which now come off as more vampiric lore than lycanthropic, it unleashes a series of improbable plot holes and contrived tongue-in-cheek sequences in an 'throw everything at the screen and hope something sticks' mentality.

One of Howling II's biggest faults is that it is badly edited, with random shots intercut into scenes as well as poor scene transition swiping, full of cheap-looking werewolf effects, loads of mystical mumbo jumbo and plenty of 80s punk rock music to boot - if you're not a fan of New Wave punk band Babel (yeah, right?) and their one song, then you definitely won't be by the end of the film either as it's constantly performed. The emphasis on 80s music, clothing and general culture really dates this more than the other sequels. There's no question as to what decade this was made in but I guess everyone was having so much fun expressing themselves in new ways that they forgot to include the key ingredients that film makers have been using for decades - namely a story and script. It's films like this where it's best not to think too hard about what is going on, sit back and see where the journey takes you. And that is to Transylvania (the then-Czechoslovakia doubling up for Romania) where every gypsy cliche and East European stereotype is wheeled out.

The journey will not take you anywhere near a convincing make-up department. The werewolves look dreadful and transformations nowhere near the quality of the original. Apparently, when the werewolf suits arrived on set they were contained in a crate marked: "20th Century Fox: Planet of the Apes" so the team had to improvise what they did with them, even allowing Lee to come up with a throwaway line about how werewolves are 'evolving' so as not to make it look obvious. The gore effects fair a little better, with a dwarf who has his eyes pop out, but only in the sense that they're gloriously over-the-top. Howling II also likes to emphasise the werewolf's primal desires - namely that they like to have a lot of sex. Werewolf orgies galore take place throughout the film but unless you like your sex scenes with a lot of bodily hair, grunting and sweat then these will be more off-putting than arousing. There's a reason why werewolf films tend not to show this side of their shaggy characters and these scenes add a sleazy touch to the film. Not that it really needed it to begin with but anyone portraying a werewolf overacts, emphasising the feral nature of the character with all the tact of a runaway train.

Even the legendary Christopher Lee can't save this train wreck and I feel sorry and embarrassed for him to be associated with anything to do with this. Lee is slumming big time here and looks like he'd rather be anywhere else (even sporting a pair of silly 80s designer sun glasses which give him that 'uncool granddad' look). He's still the best thing on display and rather amusingly apologised to Joe Dante, director of The Howling, for appearing in this when the two men made Gremlins 2: The New Batch a few years later. Lee said this was the worst film he ever made and I wouldn't disagree with him. THE star of the show is Sybil Danning as Stirba, gloriously decked out in a revealing leather costume and hamming it up beyond belief. Danning goes fully into her role, playing Stirba like a dominatrix goddess, lording it up for the camera every time she's on screen. It's such a mad performance that you wish she had more to do throughout. Danning, who does look fantastic in various states of undress, said to the producers she was tired of nudity in her films and wanted to remain clothed. The producers cast her for the fact she'd get naked and so they both agreed to do a single topless shot. To get the last laugh, the ending credits feature the shot of her ripping open her top to reveal her enhanced chest from earlier in the film which is then replayed seventeen times, with each replay followed up by a clip of someone in the film reacting to something. It's the most sophisticated piece of editing on display anywhere in the film!

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Final Verdict

Howling II has about as much going for it as a feature film as a cheesy 80s music video would (complete with the punk rock soundtrack) and the comparison between the two is pretty accurate. Largely unconcerned with the finer arts of film making like a story, script and characters, Howling II just lets rip with a bewildering array of 80s cheese, incompetent filmmaking and unfortunate luck. It's a complete car crash of a film, one of the worst sequels of all time and yet strangely watchable.

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Howling II Director(s): Phillippe Mora Writer(s): Gary Brandner (based on the novel "The Howling II" by), Robert Sarno (screenplay by) Actor(s): Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha Hunt, Sybil Danning, Jimmy Nail, Judd Omen, Ferdy Mayne Duration: 91 mins