1984
Starring: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt, Sybil Danning
Finally, I'm watching the sequel to a movie after watching the original. But from the start of Howling II, I was confused if it had anything to do with the original Howling. The title sequence says it is based on the book Howling II but that doesn't help explain what is supposed to be happening.
It begins with Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee) floating in space with a skeleton. He is explaining something about werewolves perhaps. It was unclear to me, but it is later revealed that he is a werewolf hunter.
Los Angeles ~ City of Angels (actual screen text)
Mariana (Marsha A. Hunt) goes to a new wave/punk club and lures a couple punks to an abandoned warehouse where she turns into a werewolf and kills them all.
Jump to a cemetery, it's the funeral of the Karen White, the Dee Wallace character from the first one, even though it's not played by her this time. The funeral is attended by her brother Ben (Reb Brown) who is very upset that his sister was shot to death after turning into a werewolf during her newscast. One of Karen's coworkers Jenny (Annie McEnroe) is also in attendance. After the funeral, Stefan takes Ben and Annie aside and tells them that Karen isn't really dead, she will rise as a werewolf again because she wasn't shot with silver bullets. Ben in enraged and doesn't believe that his sister is a werewolf, even though everyone saw it happen on live TV. Karen does come back to life but Stefan is there to stab her with a thin silver spike. Mariana and another werewolf were also on the premises, the man is killed but Mariana escapes to Europe to meet up with her Queen.
Somehow Stefan convinces Ben and Jenny to come with him to Europe to destroy the Queen werewolf. Even though they seem like they would be of no help to him, they come along anyway.
Suddenly we jump to somewhere in Europe. I say somewhere in Europe because there is both some Eastern European peasants and a group of hiking Germans, so I'm not sure exactly where they are supposed to be. The small village that they stay in is having a festival with lots of weird masks and dancing.
Meanwhile in a nearby castle, an ancient ritual in underway. We meet Stirba (Sybil Danning) but she is old crone. A young woman is brought in and Stirba begins the ceremony where she sucks the youth out of the woman and Stirba is once again young and voluptuous. With her revitalized body she has a werewolf threesome with Mariana and Vlad (Judd Omen). She also hires the same band that played in LA to come play a show at her castle.
Ben and Jenny who are terrible at everything decide they like each other and have sex, it's very dull. Stefan is trying to find where Stirba is so he gets assistance from a local dwarf. Stirba continues to gain power, but mostly she just takes off her clothes a lot. Jenny is kidnapped by the werewolves and is set up to be a part of a ritual and she is covered in blood, it doesn't effect her much.
They all wander around a bunch until they gain access to Stirba's castle and manage to destroy her. Stirba does have a cool bat/dragon staff that comes to life to attack her enemies.
Nothing makes sense about what is supposed to be happening in this movie. The cuts are so strange. It seems like the editor just got a new transition program because every type of transition is used: spiral wipe, square wipe, time wipe, rainbow wipe, you name it and it's used.
It ends with a mind blowing montage of scenes from the film intercut with the same scene of Stirba ripping her top off all with the same new wave band from the club scene. There is also an amazing scene where the Dwarf helper's eyeballs explode. The quality of the film is much lower than The Howling, it seems like this was made in the early '70s but it was made in 1984!
It's not a good movie, but it's so weird and the ridiculous montage at the end makes it worth a watch.
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