{"id":2271,"date":"2024-08-14T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2271"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:27:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:27:24","slug":"howling-ii-your-sister-is-a-werewolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/14\/howling-ii-your-sister-is-a-werewolf\/","title":{"rendered":"Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf <\/strong>(1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hemdale\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillipe Mora\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Sarno and Gary Brandner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stephen W. Parsons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Geoffrey Stephenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 1985 (US, limited)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt, Sybil Danning, Judd Omen, Ferdinand Mayne, Patrick Field, Jimmy Nail, Jiri Krytinar.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I never take notes while watching movies for two reasons. First, it\u2019s too distracting. Second, I\u2019m afraid I might miss something important. Of course, every rule is subject to a little bending now and then. I completely broke it while watching Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong>, a howler of a sequel to the 1981 movie. I didn\u2019t want to forget anything. Here\u2019s what I wrote down:<\/p>\n

– There\u2019s a subset of moviegoers that wait for the moment when a character says the title of the movie. It\u2019s more likely to happen in some movies than others. It\u2019s easier to work in something like Three Amigos than The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The writers manage to work in \u201cYour sister is a werewolf.\u201d not once but twice. Now that\u2019s great writing!<\/p>\n

– I am convinced Phillipe Mora looked to Edward D. Wood Jr. for inspiration. The movie opens with a portentous monologue by star Christopher Lee. It\u2019s something to do with a prophecy about \u201cthe great mother of harlots\u201d riding a \u201chairy beast\u201d holding forth a \u201cgolden chalice full of the filthiness of fornications\u201d. I couldn\u2019t help but be reminded of Criswell\u2019s intro to Plan 9 from Outer Space. I also thought of Bela Lugosi\u2019s rambling monologues in Glen or Glenda. The difference is Lee\u2019s dialogue makes slightly more sense.<\/p>\n

– Babel, the punk rock band featured in the movie, must have great representation. Their agent gets them gigs all over the world. We see them play at an underground nightclub in L.A. and at a werewolf orgy in a Transylvanian castle. Did they stop in Peoria too?<\/p>\n

– The number of the hotel room given to the heroes in Transylvania is 666. How can they NOT know this is a bad omen? Come on, the place doesn\u2019t even have a sixth floor.<\/p>\n

– The shot of sexy star Sybil Danning baring her breasts is repeated 17 times in the closing credits. They\u2019re intercut with other shots from the movie made to look like reaction shots. It says a lot for her \u201cassets\u201d that even an owl looks impressed.<\/p>\n

– As bad as it is, I find Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong> far more entertaining than ANY of the Underworld movies. The cheesy FX involving latex, rubber monsters and stage blood look more convincing than any amount of CGI.<\/p>\n

– I guess the budget didn\u2019t allow for transformation scenes as there aren\u2019t any. Isn\u2019t this the high point of werewolf movies?<\/p>\n

– How can you NOT enjoy a movie featuring a blonde werewolf?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know. Maybe love is too strong a word for how I feel about Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong>. I certainly didn\u2019t love or like it when I first laid eyes on it in early \u201986. Quite the opposite, I hated it. I rented it from the Video Den with high hopes. I liked the first movie as well as the two Howling novels from screenwriter Gary Brandner. I was dismayed to see it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the book. I turned it off about 40 minutes in and didn\u2019t bother watching the rest of it until years later. That time, I got a kick out of it. I realized I was looking at it all wrong. It\u2019s not so much a lame horror sequel as it is a laughably bad movie. On that level, it\u2019s GREAT!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Mora (The Beast Within) picks up shortly after the events of the first movie. Reporter-turned-werewolf Karen White is being eulogized after her on-air death by silver bullets. In attendance are her brother Ben (Brown, star of the 1983 camp classic Yor, the Hunter from the Future) and colleague Jenny (McEnroe, The Hand). There\u2019s also a mysterious interloper on hand, occult expert Stefan Crosscoe (Lee, The Man with the Golden Gun). He\u2019s the one that tells Ben his sister is a werewolf. Naturally, he doesn\u2019t believe him at first. He doesn\u2019t even believe it when he\u2019s shown a videotape of Karen\u2019s final broadcast. He changes his tune after encountering werewolves in the cemetery where his sister isn\u2019t resting in peace. She won\u2019t until 10,000YO werewolf queen Stirba (Danning, Chained Heat) is destroyed before the rise of the new full moon when all lycanthropes will make their existence known to mankind. To do this, they have to go to \u201cThe Dark Country\u201d aka Transylvania.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ben, Jenny and Stefan arrive in the Balkan village during their annual festival celebrating the new full moon. They hook up with a group of townspeople who also lost loved ones to werewolves. One of them is a dwarf (Krytinar) well-versed in the art of knife-throwing. Meanwhile, thanks to her powers of witchcraft, Stirba is aware that they\u2019re coming for her. She and her hairy, fanged minions prepare for the final bloody battle.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I seriously considered putting Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong> (man, I LOVE that title!) in the comedy section, but decided against it. It hardly seems fair to lump in it with intentionally funny movies that really aren\u2019t that funny. It attains that special level of goofiness only achieved by the best of the worst. Its wonkiness is in the details. It goes off the rails early when Stefan explains that werewolves born of Stirba\u2019s lineage are impervious to silver; they must be killed with titanium. So it is that he drives a titanium stake through their hearts. WHOA! Hold the phone! A stake through the heart? It sounds like somebody got their folklore mixed up. Don\u2019t even get me started on the garlic wreath Jenny pulls from her suitcase.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Plot details like this distract the viewer from trying to follow the nonsensical story that also involves a lusty lady werewolf (Hunt, Dracula A.D. 1972) that feeds on punk rockers. Ah, yes! This brings me to another goofy scene. In it, Lee goes undercover in a punk club to spy on her. Question, who\u2019s NOT going to notice a 63YO man in such a place? He doesn\u2019t exactly blend in despite the duds and shades he dons for the job. HA, HA, HA!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m sure many of you are asking why a distinguished actor like Lee agreed to appear in Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong>. According to IMDb, the Hammer horror vet took the job because he never starred in a werewolf picture before. He clearly regretted it because he apologized to Howling director Joe Dante his first day on the set of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Nonetheless, he brings a measure of dignity to the undignified material. I give him a lot of credit for managing to keep a straight face the whole time. Most actors would burst out laughing at dopey dialogue like \u201cYour sister is a werewolf.\u201d Brown and McEnroe are simply terrible, but I have a suspicion that\u2019s intentional. They had to know they were making garbage. Still, you\u2019ll be wondering why Reb didn\u2019t win an Oscar for his brilliant performance as Yor after watching him in this. Of course, a romance develops between the two leads. It\u2019s not at all believable, but he has to have some incentive to rescue her from Stirba\u2019s clutches. The prospect of getting laid after the dust dies down is as good as any. Danning is FREAKING HOT! She has nice boobs too. Nothing else needs to be said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong> is the only Howling sequel (there are seven) that has anything to do with the original. I haven\u2019t seen any of the others, so I can\u2019t speak to their quality. I can say that this first sequel is NUTSO! It also has a few decent splatter scenes although I would have liked to more of the red stuff. The werewolf suits aren\u2019t at all convincing, but there\u2019s a reason for that. The studio accidentally sent monkey suits to the set in Czechoslovakia and Mora had to make do with what he had due to budget constraints. Thankfully, Lee came up with a unique solution to the dilemma with this line of dialogue: \u201cThe process of evolution is reversed.\u201d Man > monkey > wolf, get it? Excuse me while I deal with this sudden fit of laughter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So do I recommend Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf<\/strong>? Oddly enough, yes. It\u2019s one of my favorite werewolf movies albeit for all the wrong reasons. When I say it bites, I mean it as a compliment. If you like bad movies, I say go for it. It helps if you have a sense of humor. It\u2019s an awesome awesomely bad movie. If you\u2019re not a bad movie connoisseur, STAY AWAY! You won\u2019t get the joke.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hemdale\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillipe Mora\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Sarno and Gary Brandner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stephen W. Parsons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Geoffrey Stephenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 1985 (US, limited)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt, Sybil Danning, Judd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Howling-II-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3230,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions\/3230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}