User reviews

"The Howling" was a horror movie that had horror in it, Howling II is a horror movie that's hilarious!! It almost makes fun of itself!! Christopher Lee was so funny, he should of won an Oscar! And as for the rest of the cast, they make "Airplane" look like a drama. You'd think they picked these guys off the streets. And as for "Stirba- the Werewolf Whatever", her character was SOOOOOOOOO funny, she made the film a comedy!! I mean, "Stirba". Every time they mentioned her name I had to stop the tape and run into the next room, crying with laughter. Yes, I own this film. Of course, I bought it because I'm a collector and to pass the time by! Usually, you wouldn't find the content of this film funny, as my father found out the hard way, but it's presented in such style that... well, it's very hard to explain. Howling II is so bad, it's funny!! And that's all there is to it!!

From the moment Christopher Lee puts on a pair of punk sunglasses and tries to sneak into a punk rock club, you know you've got a stinker on your hands! This film had potential. Beneath all of the sludge there are the remnants of what could have been crafted into a decent film, if not an interesting one. The final product is a real mess, however. Aside from the gratuitous nudity and some very attractive women, Howling II winds up being a laughable excuse for a horror film. Christopher Lee gives it a nugget of credibility, but even he cannot raise it above the level of crap.

Having never seen any of the other films in this series, this critic will be forced to accept on face value that this is a genuine continuation of the events in part one. We start off at a funeral for one of the characters from the original, and within the first ten minutes we find ourselves in Transylvania with a small group of heroes ready to battle a coven of werewolves. The film is paced fairly well, and there are not too many dead spots. The action is there; it just isn't filmed well. One bright spot is the music of a punk band called Babel. Though their song is played quite often, it is rather catchy.

The problems with this film are great in number. First off, the acting is worse than pitiful. Christopher Lee is good enough, but that's where it ends. The two leads Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe are lacking in just about everything you'd want for such characters. The writing is wretched, the editing redundant, and the direction amateurish. There are a couple nice special effect gimmicks, but the cheesy ones far out weigh them in number. Sybil Danning is nice to look at, but her acting performance is less than satisfactory. Judd Omen looks the part he plays, but his voice and acting are unconvincing to say the least. Much of the dialog is in an unintelligible language that may or may not be Latin.

I liked the general idea for the story. I always enjoy stories of true believers out to battle seemingly invincible forces of evil. One scene where a small group of good guys are trekking through a dark forest and shooting down a bunch of werewolves is even kind of exciting. Kind of. Maybe a bigger budget or a better director could have made the rest of the film a bit more compelling. 3 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Side note: As of this writing, the censors at youtube.com have still not taken down the ending credits with Sybil Danning ripping off her top several times while the Babel song is playing! Catch it while you can!

A man investigating the death of his sister, discovers she is a werewolf and part of a werewolf cult in Transylvanina. The make-up, effects, plot, acting, direction, etc. are either pretty much non-existent or down right silly, but the film is entertaining in a cheesy way and Danning rips off her clothes (again). Bonus at the end credits, that scene with Danning is repeated over and over again. 5 out of 10.

I think perhaps the most apt comment should go to Christopher Lee himself who has often described HOWLING II as his own "personal embarrassment!" Since we have the film in our own library (in BETA format of course) we are probably the only family world-wide has seen it upwards of 20 times over the last 17 years....never fails to give us a laugh...I would almost "miss" it now! We all just watched it again tonight!

El cheapo film-making any which way you want to look at it...script, acting, direction, editing, production values, fx...love the early shot of the "werewolf" where they have only given the poor guy a "furry arm" the rest is normal! But hey...this is a fun movie....how many other films do you get to see a girl rip her bra off seventeen times during the closing credits. Sybil Danning should have received a "special Oscar" for this alone!

Tries to link itself to the original with the most pathetic re-shot footage of Dee Wallace Stone's demise in the original that looks absolutely nothing like her, not to mention the "body" in the coffin. Still ya gotta love the theme "In the pale pale night of the moon above"....

Hell, give it a break!

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently as i am on a Howling marathon.

This film doesnt have any scare, there is absolutely no tension or suspense.

This one has one of the best eyeball horror scene.

And that same scene is attached to another one where Sybil repeatedly shows off her boobs. It perfectly fits there as if the man's eyes are squirting blood due to Sybil's nudity.

Do check out the end credit scene where they repeatedly (17 times) show Sybil showing off her boobs and the various characters' facial n eye reactions are a big lol.

This is a direct sequel to the 1981 film The Howling and has the brother of the deceased Karen, who along with a werewolf hunter, try to defeat a werewolf queen Stirba and stop a werewolf group's plans to conquer the world.

The film is notorious for the atrocious acting of Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe.

Danning wearing sunglasses indoors n her outfits, specially the metallic armoured outfit will definitely make today's audiences lol.

The werewolves in this movie looked more like bigfoot, monkeys n men in monkey costumes.

Gee, my first 1 rating on IMDB! Deeply idiotic movie that does a great disservice to the original (which I LOVE). Badly made, awful quality (it looks like sh*t on both video and cable), unsexy, crappy music and totally embarrassing for all involved. Christopher Lee comes out all right, but that was never hard for the Master. This must be for him what my brother and I call a "mortgage film": The mortgage was due, so he took it. Faugh. Go back and get the original.

Ben a out-of-town cop is convinced his sister was brutally killed and wants to bring her killer to justice, but he's approached by Stefan who believes his sister was a victim of a werewolf cult. So Ben, his sister's best friend and Stefan travel to Transylvania to put a end to this evil.

This is incredibly awful B-grade stuff and I wondered how it even got released. It makes the original 'Howling' look like a masterpiece. What was Christopher Lee thinking, as this has to be his worst performance I've seen.

There was a lot wrong with this real cheap-ass film, ranging from the really hammy and wooden performances from Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt and Sybil Danning (not to forgot Lee), cheesy fashion (those sunnies), cheap and lame special effects, bad use of lighting, the humour... if there was any, trashy 80s music (with some of the film just focusing on some unknown band playing), werewolf's having orgies which is a sight to see and a tiresome story with flat and annoying dialogue. I thought if it was that bad it would be awfully funny, but I was wrong.

The positives were the location and settings of the film looked great, but that's about it... actually I'll add Sybil Danning short stripping scene too.

During the end credits the band plays their crap-house song during a weird montage of scenes from the film, which I beckon the question why?

An awful piece of mess, however at least it isn't boring.

1/5

DEAR LORD WHY DID I STOP TO WATCH THIS MOVIE!? This is one of the worst pieces of crap I have see in a long time. Horrible acting, cheesy visual effects, stupid plot. Was this suppose to be scary or just a waste of money? Wait, did it cost any money? Why am I even wasting my time commenting on it? What is the point of the stupid wolf sex scenes? How was the main couple having sex with their pants on? Why did I waste my time watching this in the first place? Why did I type so many questions?

..."Howling II" is not. It is, however, a comically bad and therefore highly enjoyable film.

The plot (if you can call it that) goes something like this: Some Flock of Seagulls-looking bloke loses his sister to a werewolf attack (yet another peril of living in Los Angeles). He and this reporter chick meet up with a werewolf hunter (a deadpan Christopher Lee) at the dead girl's funeral. For reasons unclear, the trio voyage to Transylvania, where they do battle with the queen of the undead, Stirba (the frequently nude Sybil Danning). From there on, things get confusing.

There's some sort of arts fair going on in Transylvania, which I thought was vampire country but apparently has a burgeoning lycanthrope population. The Flock of Seagulls dude nails the reporter chick with his pants still on. Three partially transformed (read: hairy) werewolves enjoy a spirited, if somewhat testy, menage a trois. A dwarf's eye explodes. Much fun is had by all.

"Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf" (its alternate title, "Stirba the Werewolf Bitch" had me laughing for days) is, indeed, a terrible movie. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, and after watching it on cable the other night I can't believe how bad it was. But I'm giving it a high rating and a sincere recommendation because they just don't make horror flicks like this anymore.

The werewolf transformations are just awful. The filmmakers were definitely going for "An American Werewolf in London" (which won an Oscar for its special effects), but, ahem, "fell prey" to their own kitschiness, which permeates the entire film. There are some incredibly cheesy transitions between scenes; swipes, swirls, and spirals abound. And the script? I've seen more substance on a roll of Charmin. But it's great; how often do you get to hear lines such as, "That dwarf is staring at us"?

Compared to today's era of Macintosh-generated "special effects" (which look incredibly dated now, and will look even worse in ten years), a film like "Howling II" is a gem, a last hurrah of the last great era of horror films. You'll never see pools of blood or cheesy puppets or laughable laser rays done like this again. Get some beer, pop it in, and laugh yourself stupid. By the film's conclusion (in which Sybil Danning rips her clothes off seventeen times, all in time with a Cramps-sounding 80s band called Babel), you'll be glad you did.



"By the pale, pale light/pale, pale light of the moonglow..."

It doesn´t really bear the thought, but no, this isn´t one of the worst films of all time. Yes, it´s full-blown 80´s trash. Christopher Lee looks mortified, Sybil Danning in big puffy hair shoots lasers (?) from her finger tips, werewolves nuzzle air in their in human form (?), there´s messy SFX effects etc etc.

It´s also mercifully free from the mucky digital hell of horror which passes entertainment for nowadays. There´s candlelit churches, graveyards, dangerous forests, Transylvanian (actually Czech) scenery, and the castle of the werewolf queen, which summarizes the film´s visual style. Both tacky and grand in equal measure, Stirba's bedroom has sumptuous velvet drapes and candles, which clash not too subtly together with cheaply garish red sheets and ridiculous (albeit mercifully tame) werewolf orgy. Nothing to do with short novel Howling II by Gary Brandner - another trashy but entertaining effort - and dismissed by pretty much everybody, Brandner included.

Lee hosted the 100 Years of Horror for Ted Newsom and was talking about filmic werewolves. He said something to the effect that his only brush with lycanthropy was The Howling II, then he quipped, "The less said about that the better." Indeed he was right as this film may very well be the worst in his entire catalog of screen performances. The first Howling by Joe Dante was a groundbreaking werewolf film with its incredible special effects and its campy sense of style and subject matter. It was a film to be taken seriously. Like other good original films, filmmakers for some strange reason thought that even more campy sequels were needed rather than what worked the first time(See CHUD then CHUD II to illustrate this point). This film is miles and miles away from the first on every front. There is absolutely nothing scary about it. It looks cheap and is pitch black through most of the major scenes. Lee is the only actor in the film worth mentioning(okay, I'll cede Ferdy Mayne too). Lee looks embarrassed as he says inane dialog and does ridiculous things(check out that ending with him and Stirba). Lee looks incredibly tired and knows what dreck this is which is a tad more insightful than the two leads who leave America to go to Romania. The story isn't really worth examining here, and you can bet there is very little story worth mentioning when you have to have Stephen Parsons and his band Babel play through much of the film in the beginning and the ending with that dreadful noise. Sybil Danning is here and, yes, she disrobes once and then we get that scene showed again and again and again - one reviewer said 17 times(I counted ten - but might have been so bored out of my mind by that point). I gave the film three stars, but it really deserves a zero - the three I gave it are 1 for Lee and two for Ms. Danning's contributions. Yuck!

I watched two Christopher Lee movies this weekend, Horror Hotel (Lee at his best) and Howling II (Lee at his worst). This is definitely the low point of the man's career. You can tell he did not want to be here and I feel so sorry for him. The "film" is pretty bad...but it's funny at the same time. I almost peed in my pants when Reb Brown (Captain America himself) ran into the room and screamed "BOO!!" The man is a comic genius and it's laugh out loud funny. Equally funny are the exploding dwarf, the drunken werewolf orgy, and the use of the eighties swipe (that device used to cut from scene to scene). We get some of the corniest swipes ever; a fan, diamond, swirl, and just the classic swipe are all used. Perhaps the funniest thing comes in the credits. The scene where Sybil Danning strips her clothes off is shown 10, count em, 10 times again over the credits. This does not compensate for the crappiness of the movie though. The most unbearable quality about the flick is the lighting. You can't see anything. If there is any werewolf action going on here, you can't see it! It's so dark and sometimes very painful to watch. Howling II is worth watching only if you're a Reb Brown fan or if you want to see Christopher Lee wearing some ridiculously cool eighties sunglasses, or maybe to see some Frankie Goes To Hollywood-lookin' band sing a song about "the pale, pale light of the moonglow."

This film is really bad,so bad that even Christopher Lee cannot save it.A poor story an even poorer script and just plain bad direction makes this a truly outstanding horror film,the outstanding part being that it is the only horror film that i can honestly say i would never ever watch again.This garbage make Plan nine from outerspace look like oscar material.

I haven't read all of the user comments here - just scanned through the first 20 or so - but from what I've read no one else here noticed this huge, gaping hole in the story:

this movie was filmed on location in (what was at the time) Czechoslovakia and the story takes place in Czechoslovakia, which the story claims is (or at least used to be) Transylvania. Transylvania is a couple hundred miles away, in what is now Romania, not Czechoslovakia. That isn't some obscure little piece of trivia, it's clearly marked on most maps, even back in the 1980's when this movie was made.

Christopher Lee has one of his worst roles here, when werewolf hunters go to "Transylvania" to hunt down the last of some ancient werewolf cult, lead by the frequently nude Sybil Danning. It starts out fairly interesting, but then quickly goes downhill after about the first 15 minutes, taking itself way too seriously when the first movie was so much fun. Christopher Lee looks about as bored as he could be, and we get to hear the same god awful new wave band play the same horrible song over and over, four or five times throughout this movie, we even get an extended performance by them during the end credits- I think this movie was made primarily as a showcase for this crappy band! And while I have no problem with look at Sybil Danning topless, is it really necessary to show the same scene of her ripping off her top over and over about 15 times throughout this movie?

The effect of on location filming is the only good part of this movie, no matter how geographically incorrect it may be, but it's ruined by grimy, underexposed photography- I've just gone back and watched the Republic/Lumiere version of this, and they have corrected, to an extent, the overly dark photography, so at least you can enjoy the on location photography when you get bored to tears with the story ...

1/2 a star out of ****

Lately, I have been craving the goofiness of a well selected 80's horror, and, thanks to multiple mentions of "Howling 2" on Reddit when asked for best bad horror movies, I scored a jackpot. "...Your Sister is a Werewolf" or "Stirba - Werewolf Bi**h" is, by all means, a very bad movie and a needless sequel, but it's also hilarious and beyond cheesy.

The plot is, frankly, null, and it sort of destroys the ending of the first part - the actual solid, serious cult werewolf flick. Ben discovers his sister is a werewolf, and together with a friend and journalist Jenny, helps an occult investigator Stefan, none other than Christopher Lee, to track down a gang of werewolves in Transylvania. Nothing else besides the expected resolution will happen.

I don't even know where to start, "Howling 2" is quite the inept, bad genius movie. With the company of 80's-in-a-nutshell soundtrack, we tag along Ben (Reb Brown) and Jenny (Annie McEnroe), on an adventure with, for example, super cheesy, extra cheap, goofy and unrealistic action scenes. The head of a fake werewolf in close-up, then a guy in a shabby costume quickly doing the rest. Rinse and repeat. And costume design was whacky not only for werewolves. Also, Ben enters the room with a gun and a loud "BOO!", and runs around like a crazy man. Nearly all the performances are funny as well, for the dialogue can be real silly, and characters are required to be quite inept in order for movie to move forward. Most amusing was Christopher Lee, who may have lost a bet or something, because this movie is so, so, way below him. He fights like hell to add seriousness, but unintentionally adds even more pleasant camp. It was the moment Stefan put on punk rocker's glasses that I knew this is going to be a hoot. Besides being ridiculously silly and pretty senseless, "Howling 2" is also super sleazy and offers a great selection of breasts, as well as some extremely hairy love making scenes (although kind of awkward too). Werewolf make-up, or behavior, is a serious down-grade from the first "Howling", and most of the werewolf movies I've seen. The cheese truly has melted all over this film. The main villain, Stirba, portrayed by Sybil Danning, is pretty much reduced to just her looks, but I can agree to what she has said about "Howling 2" - "People start out hating it and by the end they come around to its charms".

Production values are low no matter where and how do You look, dialogue is always silly, direction and writing is highly flawed and, possibly, reasonably careless, but at the same time "Howling 2" is all a B flick needs to be, and also a little window into the madness of the 80's. Near the weak, huh?-kind ending, Christopher Lee dramatically stabs a werewolf while saying "IN THE NAME OF GOD", and that was awesome, I'm telling You. Oh, and part of the credits are a shot of Sybil Danning ripping of her bra over and over. Says it all. My rating: 4/10

Incredibly idiotic, senseless, and utterly sleazy sequel to the popular 1981 werewolf film "The Howling" stars Sir Christopher Lee as Stefan Crosscoe, an occult expert determined to wipe out lycanthropes, in particular those who associate with the fiendish queen werewolf bitch Stirba (Sybil Danning). He makes a point of telling Ben White (Reb Brown), the brother of the Dee Wallace character from the first film, the specifics of her "death". When Ben is unable to deny the evidence, he heads off, with reporter Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe) in tow, for Transylania, to help Stefan in his werewolf killing mission.

The story is absurd, the dialogue hilariously awful; poor Sir Christopher and Sybil have to utter some pretty dumb lines. The makeup effects are crude to the nth degree, but are delicious in their egregious lack of quality. The scene with the eyeballs exploding is pretty cool. In some ways, "Stirba - Werewolf Bitch" goes back to Gothic basics in a way by exploiting flavourful European Old World atmosphere. But it adds a lot of spice to the deal by being so damn trashy. The sexy ladies present dress quite provocatively, and Sybil is willing to disrobe and show off her ample assets. The New Wave pop soundtrack is a total hoot; we're made to listen to that priceless title theme song a number of times. Original "Howling" author Gary Brandner co-scripted, from his novel "Howling II: The Return", and maintains a very tongue in cheek approach. With the level of both cheese and trash on display, it's clear that this was never meant to be taken seriously.

Sir Christopher looks pretty serious here, though; the movie does benefit from his professionalism. Sybil is a mildly amusing antagonist. Brown and McEnroe are just sort of there as hero and heroine. Marsha A. Hunt, Judd Omen, Ferdy Mayne (who has the same character name as John Carradine in "Howling" No. 1), Patrick Field, Jimmy Nail, and Jiri Krytinar co-star.

Directed by Philippe Mora, who has the distinction of being director on two "Howling" sequels, the other being "The Marsupials: The Howling III".

The end credits are actually a highlight.

Seven out of 10.

The first Howling is a classic and the second one, is well, not so much a classic but it is still entertaining. The brother of the main character from the first one is trying to figure out what happened to his sister. He teams up with her colleague and a werewolf hunter played by horror legend Christopher Lee.

They go to Transylvania to go after the most powerful werewolf, Stirba (Sybil Danning) and craziness ensues. There is a new wave band, gratuitous werewolf nudity and dwarves. One of the main problems for me is the recreation of the broadcast from the end of the first movie. It looks like someone wearing a cheap mask and the outfit isn't even the same if I remember correctly. I'm sure they didn't have the rights to use the clip from the original but they could have made it a little better in my opinion. Overall, The Howling 2 is decent enough to watch as long as you don't take it too seriously or expect it to be as good as the first film.

This is a pretty bad movie. But not so bad as it's reputation suggests. The production values aren't too bad and there is the odd effective scene. And it does have an 80's cheezoid veneer that means that it is always kind of fun. Watch out, too, for Jimmy Nail's brief appearance - his attempt at an American accent is so astoundingly rubbish it's fantastic. Fantastic too are Sybil Danning's breasts - they make a brief appearance in the movie but the scene is repeated umpteen times in the end credits in what can only be described as the 12" remix of Sybil Danning's boobs. Has to be seen to be believed. As a horror movie it isn't scary, the effects are silly and Christopher Lee turns up to sleepwalk through his performance. I guess he was buying a new house and needed some cash for the deposit. The two central characters - the man and the woman - were so negligible that I have forgotten almost everything about them and I just watched this movie earlier tonight. The werewolves are noticeably less impressive than in the original movie, in fact, bizarrely, they sometimes look more like badly burned apes. The eastern European setting is quite good and the music provided by the new wave band Babel, while being pretty terrible, does at least give the film some added cheese.

Overall? Good for a laugh. Not good quality but did you seriously expect it to be? And, at the very least, you've always got Sybil's knockers.

There are already several plot reviews I will concentrate in the most distracting and inconsistent details that for me were the worst I suffer, apart from the plethora of the ones already written.

There is no character development. No acting arch. The leads at least one of them must be at least minimally affected for the destiny of the main character from the original movie, but, they are in the mood "count me in" Zero chemistry.

(Danning), will never ever will be material of decent acting but the looks in her zone at least. The direction is all over the place with more plot holes than the surface of the moon. The production values are almost non existent.

A soundtrack is not a song repeated to infinity and with a total lack of taste.