The Howling is a great Werewolf movie, but at its core it has a strange surreal feeling surrounding the entire film. From the beginning in the peep show, to the colony with the werewolves, it is a strange, but great horror movie. I did a review of the movie last year, which you can read here. Retro Review: The Howling (1981),
You have to know there is a book series the films are based off. The movie is nothing like the books. Return of the Howling, we see Karen come back into the story, which couldn’t happen as they went a different way in the first film.
Howling II picks up at the funeral of Karen White, Dee Wallace’s character from the first film. During the funeral we see a strange man standing at the back fo the church, it is Christopher Lee. He informs a co-worker of Karen that she was in fact a werewolf. Lee’s character Stefan seems to be a werewolf hunter as he later informs Karen’s brother Ben that he is going to guard her corpse and that she will never rest in peace. Ben realizes Stefan means to kill her for good. They have an altercation at her tomb, but it is revealed Karen is a werewolf. Stefan gets information from a wounded werewolf on where Stirba is hiding. The go to…Transylvania of all places.
When we finally meet Stirba, she is played by the powerful looking Sybil Danning. She has this presence about her, she commands this tribe of wolfs. Stefan and the others finally get to Transylvania and Karen’s co-worker Jenny and Ben just suddenly are in love. It is forced and awkward. Stefan also has agents working for him who are ready for battle. Jenny is captured and the group goes to rescue and kill Stirba. There is a big werewolf orgy happening, because this movie is very sexual.
It seems they delve deeper into witchcraft. Stirba has powers and her and Stefan both recite different spells in the movie. When she meets her end, there is the light the comes from her body and she says something about her and Stefan marrying. They are brother and sister…
The end is so strange, all I can say, it reminds me of The Dunwich Horror mixed with some Dario Argento Three Mothers Giallo and I will go ahead and throw some Hammer horror in there as well. Howling 2 is so bizarre and the ending is so bad. I don’t really know what to say about the movie. It is strange and hard to explain.
There is a song played throughout the movie and it is another strange thing, I am so confused by Howling 2. That the best way to describe it. It was laughable, poorly written and not a good sequel to the first Howling movie.
IMDB.com rates is at 3.4
Rayzor’s rating is at 4.8
