THE HOWLING 2

(A.k.a. HOWLING 2: STIRBA - WEREWOLF BITCH; HOWLING 2 ... YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF; HOWLING 2: IT'S NOT OVER YET; HOWLING 2: BARK AT THE MOON; HOWLING 2: SHE-WOLF)

The onscreen title on this disc is HOWLING 2 ... YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF.

Along with AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, Joe Dante's 1981 hit THE HOWLING brought werewolves growling into the 1980s in tantalisingly realistic fashion. Thanks to a witty, genre-savvy script and some sterling FX from a young Rob Bottin, THE HOWLING quickly became a fan favourite - even if it was John Landis' AMERICAN WEREWOLF that scored bigger at the box office ... and earned FX artist Rick Baker the first ever Academy Award for such achievements.

Inevitably, both films were bound to suffer from inferior sequels. AMERICAN WEREWOLF's didn't transpire until 1997's AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS, shat out by Anthony Waller (who'd previously given us the excellent MUTE WITNESS).

THE HOWLING's lame duck of a sequel came much sooner. In 1985, in fact. And it was directed by another promising young genre director of his time, Philipe Mora. Prior to THE HOWLING 2, Mora had given the world the low-key but interesting THE BEAST WITHIN and, more significantly, the 1976 Dennis Hopper curio MAD DOG MORGAN.

But then, as with Waller's career, it all went wrong when Mora signed up to direct the sequel to a popular werewolf film ...

After a funky electro titles sequence, we're straight into an LA church for the funeral of Karen White (the lead from the original HOWLING, albeit played here by someone called Hana Ludvikova), where the sinister Stefan (Christopher Lee) loitering at the back of the congregation captures the attention of TV reporter Jenny (Jamie Lee Curtis-lookalike Annie McEnroe).

As Jenny leaves the funeral, her boss tells her Karen is believed to be the latest victim of a spate of supposed coyote attacks. He asks her to investigate further into the story, and she begins by catching up with the enigmatic Stefan, who she spies hassling Karen's brother Ben (Reb Brown).

It turns out that Stefan is a werewolf hunter and he has disturbing news for Ben: he believes Karen was a lycanthrope!

Initially sceptical, Ben and Jenny get it on while they grow closer to Stefan and learn more about his sect of werewolf hunters. His clan believe that the world is filled with the hairy beasts, and that it is their task to eradicate it of them. How? By travelling to Transylvania and slaying the Queen of the Wolves herself, the sexy but slightly over-the-hill Stirba (Sybil Danning) ...

Stirba, in-between lots of hairy sex sessions with lycanthropes who resemble Baker's AMERICAN WEREWOLF look rather than Bottin's previous HOWLING efforts, gets wise to the fact that Stefan is out to get her, and that Jenny and Ben are also becoming followers of his cause ...

Terrible acting, a risible script and a nonsensical plot make THE HOWLING 2 tough to synopsise. It's also a tough watch, purely because it's almost totally incomprehensible after the first 30 minutes or so. I can only assume this is down to either (a) the shitloads of drugs that film crews took in the mid 80s, (b) chronic interference on the studio's part, or - most likely - (c) a combination of both.

The creature FX is poor for the most part, with the werewolves at times looking like rejects from the casting of QUEST FOR FIRE. Gore is kept at a relatively low level (although a couple of grisly aftermath corpses are cool, and the scene where lasers emit from Stirba's fingertips and cause a midget's eyes to explode is decent).

Performances are over-the-top, with Lee demonstrating once again how he's really just an old ham who relies on good direction and a nice script to reign in the amateur theatrics. I love the guy, don't get me wrong, but he's awful here. In his usual, amusing way.

Legend has it that when Lee met Dante on the set of the latter's GREMLINS 2: THE NEXT BATCH, he apologised for being a part of this wretched remake. So, even if the bloke's acting talents are at times dubious and his agent's decisions even more suspect, at least he never forgets his manners.

This film is also rife with scenes of sexless nudity that look more like clips from some bad Motley Crue promo video than a horror film. Big perms, lurid make-up and fake tits are the order of the day here. Not that that's a bad thing - it's hideously dated, but funny in being so.

THE HOWLING 2 is bad. Really bad. It's probably the nadir of Lee's acting career. It must surely rankle Danning that most fans first came to know of her through this piece of shit (although admittedly her figure has never looked better on film). Stephen Parsons' score is as horribly dated as the costumes and hairdos, while Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler presumably spent their FX budget on booze - they certainly didn't put the money into convincing creature effects.

Do you know what though? I have a soft spot for this film. Call it nostalgia, or perhaps it's just a penchant for truly trashy cinema. But this is shit and I could happily rewatch it twice monthly.

I viewed this screener DVD upscaled, which obviously would highlight any issues apparent in the transfer. I'm happy to say the print used is a relatively clean and vivid one, with scenes that previously appeared far too dark on VHS now making much more sense visually. Colours and blacks are stable, grain is minor and specks don't pose too many problems.

The main gripe people are likely to have with the image is that it's a little soft. But for a film from the mid-80s that was shot on a fairly low budget, it looks okay to these eyes.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 and is enhanced for 16x9 TV sets.

English mono audio is not as clear and I'd have hoped, being somewhat muffled for the most part. Still, it's clean and free from hiss or pops. There are no subtitles.

A boring static main menu page leads into similarly uninspired static scene-selection pages that allow access to THE HOWLING 2 via 8 chapters.

There are no extras whatsoever on the disc. Not even, sadly, the hilarious trailer that used to turn up on video in the 80s (you know the one, which kept repeating the scene where Danning exposes her puppies, over and over - a trick that Mora also pulls over the film's end titles).

A terrible film that is endlessly watchable either because of, or in spite of, its awfulness. I'm still not sure which is more accurate. Danning's tits are the only reason for those with an aversion to bad cinema to watch this turd, but aside from those everyone else can enjoy some wonderfully tacky MTV-type production designs, atrocious FX, piss-poor dialogue and the worst acting this side of "Hollyoaks". Great. Oh, it's uncut too.

Review by Stuart Willis