Howling II, The: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1985)
 | Directed By: Philippe Mora |
| Written By: Gary Brandner & Robert Sarno | |
| Starring: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt, Sybil Danning ... | |
| Running Time: 91 min | |
| Release Date: 28/08/1985 | |
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Christopher Lee stars in this tale of werewolf hunters who have been personally affected by the beasts, and their quest to destroy Stirba, queen of the werewolves. Directed by Philippe Mora, who also made "The Beast Within" and "The Howling III".
There's something really weird about this one. I mean, I've seen lots of bad werewolf movies over the years I've been writing for this website, but this one is bad in a way that I've never quite come across before. It's bad in a way that actually makes me nervous, like maybe there's something going on here that's just gone right over my head. However, I'm certainly not alone in suspecting that this is really just one big mess of a movie.
This story opens at the funeral of Karen White, the main character from the first, classic movie. Her brother is approached by a professional werewolf hunter, played by Christopher Lee, who tells him that his sister is a werewolf. So far it all sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Anyway, the brother remains routinely sceptical, even in the wake of viewing a video tape of his sister changing into a werewolf, but is finally convinced when he himself comes upon a werewolf in graveyard. He then joins Christopher Lee on a hunt for Stirba, the queen of all werewolves, in order to try and avenge his sister. From this point things continue pretty much as you'd expect ... lots of violence, nudity, and general bad behaviour.
"The Howling II" completely fails as a horror movie, and pretty much on every other level as well. I didn't even follow what was going on half the time, and I was trying my best to pay attention for the most part. I don't really understand how it could be quite this atrocious ... it has Christopher Lee as a werewolf hunter for crying out loud! Where can you possibly go wrong? And did Lee not try and point out to the director that nobody else in the movie was actually acting? Reb Brown, who plays Karen White's brother, honestly gives one of the the worst performances I've ever seen committed to film by a 'professional' actor. It does at least try to connect itself with the original movie in some way, something that a lot of the other sequels just don't bother with at all. But in a way that just makes it worse since it further disgraces the memory of how great the first movie was, and also demonstartes how little the werewolves in this one resemble those in the first ... or indeed, anything else about this movie.
The only question is whether or not this is the worst werewolf movie sequel of all time, or if that honour should go to "Teen Wolf Too". It's a toughie. I vote for this one. But just because this movie is a crime against cinema doesn't necessarily mean that, as a werewolf movie fan, you shouldn't watch it. In fact, you should really watch the entire Howling saga regardless of how bad it is. I've had to suffer through them, so why shouldn't you? You'll be glad to hear that it is, at least, mercifully short. In fact that's probably the best thing about it.
Apparently you aren't allowed to write a review of this movie without mentioning Sybil Danning's breasts. So I'll end on that note ...
Sybil Danning's breasts are quite nice.
Ignore this movie and pretend it doesn't even exist. And if you must watch this movie, please don't make someone else watch it with you.
I actually paid money to see this in a theater. Some people say "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is the worst movie ever made. This one gets my pick. It seems that they had enough money for a couple of key actors (Sybil Danning being the only one I can remember). The rest of the cast appears to be made up of local talent from whatever eastern bloc country they're filming in (I'm guessing Yugoslavia). There is much muddled wandering around in dungeons. There is considerable really bad editing to obliterate any sense of a plot that the acting hadn't already massacred. In the end, even the producer must have realized that Sybil Danning doing a Janet Jackson was the only worthwhile scene in the movie, because they rerun that scene multiple times during the end credits.
After seeing this, you'll feel oddly cheerful, knowing that nothing worse can happen to you all day--unless you've got a double-feature with "Highlander 2" (shudder)
This is possibly the most amazing werewolf movie ever, in the sense its amazing it was ever made. It was filmed as "Stirba: Werewolf Bitch" but released under the considerably less amusing title of "The Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf".
Your gardener is also a werewolf, by the way. As is the entire population of Eastern Europe, except for one dwarf (more on him later).
If you approach it seeking a horror movie, well, you're going to be disappointed. I have the flu, and I've been coughing up scarier stuff all week. The only really horrifying part are the werewolf threeway sex scenes, in which the make-up consists of nothing but press-on nails, yokel dentures and hair glued haphazardly all over the actors, less like lupine fur than if they'd rolled naked all over the floor of a barber shop. What with the weird, shrill moaning, goofy orgasm faces and flabby, grotty, fuzz-encrusted bodies, you can practically feel your gentials shriveling up into your body cavity - it's like cinematic chemical castration.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This movie is allegedly a sequel to the classic The Howling, except it was written and directed by crazy people. Or possibly baboons. I'm totally serious. I don't think anyone involved with this had ever seen a movie, or heard of a werewolf. You think "random" is funny? Buddy, you ain't seen random til you see this movie. As a horror movie it's crap on a stick, but as a surreal comedy it's sheer brilliance.
The plot, such as it is, has the brother of tv reporter turned werewolf Karen White, and his perky girlfriend, trying to discover the circumstances behind her death. They turn for help to Christopher Lee who's a sort of Jesus freak werewolf expert. Lee plays his role absolutely straight, which makes all the batshittery happening around him even more surreal. Such as the fact that this supposed expert in all things furry and moony didn't realize the dude trimming his hedges was a werewolf.
Despite this rather telling blind spot, the two young blond dipshits place their trust in Lee, who convinces them they need to track down the werewolf queen, Stirba. It's unclear how he figured this out. They all go skipping off to Transylvania, where people dressed in a Project Runway version of traditional costumes swarm the streets celebrating something or other.
Meanwhile, having sucked the poorly-animated life energy from a girl and turned from an old hag into Sybil Danning, Stirba busies herself getting her bisexual freak on, then dons a metal-and-leather dominatrix outfit so clunky she can barely movie in it and, because this is 1984, hires a New Wave band to play at her huge goth werewolf orgy.
While the werewolves squabble, whip each other, screw and generally fart around uselessly, our intrepid heros prepare to storm the castle. I suppose it's a nice change of pace. Usually in monster movies, the humans have sex and then are killed by monsters; here, monsters have sex and are killed by the humans.
If I'm making this seem coherent, I apologize, because it isn't. The movie will act like it's going to make sense for a little while, then, just when your eyes begin to glaze over, throws in a puppet show featuring a the Big Bad Wolf raping a woman, or cuts to a melting wax head engulfed in flames while someone chants in Latin. Like I said, it was made by crazy people.
For one thing, the filmmakers seem to have gotten werewolves confused with vampires and wizards. The fearless werewolf killers arm themselves with a Vatican's worth of relics (although titanium bullets seem to do the job equally well) and a vial of holy water thrown at a werewolf like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch causes the poor critter to erupt into a two-hundred-foot tall tower of flame and smoke.
These werewolves can do all sorts of things besides, you know, change into wolves (or gorilla suits). Stirba, with the help of a rubber pterodactyl on a stick, chants a spell that make a dwarf's earplugs and teeth fall out! And then, orange lighting bolts shoot from her fingertips and explode his eyeballs. Adding insult to injury, she reanimates him, dresses him like a clown, and sends him to kill Christopher Lee.
Yes, that's right, folks. This movie features a zombie dwarf clown assassin. Didn't I tell you it was great? The only thing they forgot was to have him attempt to take down Lee with some wire-fu ninja movies. Oh, and then the rubber pterodactyl comes to life and crawls down the priest's throat. Because, after all this, why not?
Did I mention the editor is overly fond of cheezy transition effects? Instead of a cut or a fade, scene changes are indicated by wipes in a different geometric shape each time. And during one orgy sequence, a guy in a tight leather pants and a huge metal wolf shaped helmet strides across the floor and treads on a couple orgy-goers, almost tripping? I must also point out that you should watch the whole credits, as they run over a music video for the New Wave band that shows the exact same shot of Stirba ripping off her top to expose her ginormous breasts literally twenty times.
Wow. Here is a film filled with mysticism and sex. More of that than wrewolves. Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning, what a weird combo!
Acting isn't too bad here. Storyline is a bit vague but it works. The scenery in this movie is extraordinary. especially all the old graveyards and gothic buildings.
The creatures in this Howling are pretty cheesy. I was not impressed at all with the actual wolves. The film was entertaining in other aspects though. The debauchery and rituals make up for the lack of wolven terror.
The special effects here are cartoonish and old school as hell. but not terrible.
I think this movie possibly seems more confused and inconsistent about werewolf mythology and folklore than any other movie I've reviewed on this site. We've got everything from the use of garlic to driving stakes through the heart and using titanium bullets ... it's just bizarre is what it is. There is mention of silver bullets, such as those being removed from Karen White in her autopsy which led to her waking up and by association to most of the other events that make up this sorry excuse of a movie. I could kill that bloody mortician ... there's also mentions of werewolves changing with the moon cycles, which from what I remember was actually something that was refuted in the original "Howling" movie. Not that such a petty slip-up really matters in a movie this bad, but still. These are certainly some of the sexiest werewolves I've ever come across. I mean, you've got tonnes of werewolf sex right here ... Stirba's layer seems pretty much to be a lycanthropic brothel of some kind. It's weird. You've got your werewolf threesomes, werewolf orgies, werewolves in leather (all of which, by the way, would make GREAT titles for B-movies). So if you're into that wolf-on-wolf action then you should definitely buy this movie, though personally I'd suggest that your money may be better spent on a damn good therapist. The special effects are inconsistent at best, somewhat varying in quality throughout the movie. There are at least a lot of effects on show, with a lot of different styles of werewolves, so they certainly weren't lazy about it. This team was headed by Steve Johnson, who served as special assistant to Rick Baker on "American Werewolf". You get a few moments of Baker-style goodness (with a lower budget, of course), but even those tend to be poorly shot and unconvincing, most likely thanks to the director. This team produced some much better special effects work on the "Howling IV", but I guess they'd had some more experience by that point. Johnson would produce his best werewolf work on "Bad Moon" about a decade after this. |
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