Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Review: Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985)

The Howling (1981) is one of those seminal horror films. Something so unique and so good that it’s hard to see how it could be bettered. Gary Brandner’s superb novel about a colony of werewolves was translated brilliantly to the screen by Joe Dante, and with make-up effects courtesy of Rob Bottin, the final film is just sublime. With this effort, however, you distinctly get the feeling that it was a different film entirely, and they just slapped the Howling moniker on it to cash in on the original … but then you realise that Brandner has a co-credit on the screenplay, and start to wonder what on earth happened!

Howling II seems to have a few subtitles. Your Sister is a Werewolf is the one on this Arrow release, but IMDB favours Stirba – Werewolf Bitch which is possibly more accurate. Whatever you call it, the film is a mess from start to end. Nominally it’s following the story of Ben White (Reb Brown), brother of Karen White from the first film. But the shots we see of Karen are a different actress to Dee Wallace in the original, and even the clips we see of Karen transforming in a TV studio look totally different and are not as good as the original. Anyway, Ben is investigating his sister’s death, and in the melee of ideas there’s more werewolves, a Queen Werewolf called Stirba (Sybil Danning) who wolfs-up and spends much of her screen time in bed with two other werewolves having wolfy sex, there’s black magic, forbidden books, all sorts of lore about killing werewolves by stabbing them in the heart with silver (mixing up vampire lore there too), there’s dungeons and orgies, and kidnappings, and one of the worst performances of all time from Annie McEnroe as a reporter called Jenny, who drifts through the film being weak and hopeless as all the carnage erupts around her.

It’s hard to know where to start pointing out the faults – the whole film is a fault! Lots of it seems jumbled in together with midgets being possessed and having their eyes popped out, old women transforming into Sybil Danning, and Danning strutting around wearing a black leather and copper swimsuit, along with overlarge chaps and shoulder pads … It’s a camp nightmare! Even the scene where she rips open her cloak to reveal her breasts is reportedly repeated seventeen times during the closing credits!

And striding through all this, there’s Christopher Lee! Wandering through the madness and looking as though he’s wishing he’d taken another film – any other film – than this one.

Basically it’s about as bad and as crazy and as inept as any low budget eighties horrors. There are films out there far more worthy of your time and money.

ARROW FILMS: Release Date: 14th November 2016

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
 
  • Brand new digital transfer
  • High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
  • Original Mono Audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Audio commentary with director Philippe Mora
  • Audio commentary with composer Steve Parsons and editor Charles Bornstein
  • "Man, Monkey, Wolf"! - an interview with Philippe Mora
  • Leading Man – an interview with actor Reb Brown
  • Queen Of The Werewolves – an interview with actress Sybil Danning
  • A Monkey Phase – interviews with special make-up effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler
  • Behind-the-Scenes Footage
  • Alternate Opening and Alternate Ending
  • Still Gallery
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
 
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Blyth

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