13 Nights of Shocktober: Howling II …Your Sister is a Werewolf (AKA: Stirba—Werewolf Bitch)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 6: Werewolf Party Night! 

“For it is written: the inhabitants of the Earth have been made drunk with her blood. And upon her forehead was written: "Behold I am the great mother of harlots and all abominations of the Earth."

Howling II …Your Sister is a Werewolf (AKA: Stirba—Werewolf Bitch)

Good werewolf movies are few and far between; great ones are even rarer. There are a lot of ways for a werewolf movie to go wrong. The Howling (1981), directed by Joe Dante, is a good and solidly entertaining werewolf movie. Howling II …Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985), directed by Philippe Mora, goes wrong in so many ways that it goes hilariously right. Beginning with the subtitle “…Your Sister is a Werewolf'” you know you’re in for a less than serious movie. The original title, which the Canadian and Australian releases kept, was somehow even more outlandish: Howling II: Stirba-Werewolf Bitch. This isn’t just a “so bad it’s good” movie. This is a “so bad it’s awesome” movie. Awesome to the max.

Howling II picks up after the events of the first movie. At his sister's funeral, Ben White (Reb Brown) is approached by an occult investigator, Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee). Stefan tells him that his sister was a werewolf and a ritual must be performed before her body is taken by members of a werewolf cult. Ben thinks the man is crazy but is urged to hear him out by his sister’s friend, Jenny (Annie McEnroe). It turns out Stefan is right, of course. After fighting the werewolf cult members in Los Angeles, they travel to Transylvania to kill the evil werewolf queen, Stirba.

By the time Howling II was made in 1985, the 80’s New Wave craze was in full effect. One of my favorite highlights of this crazy movie happens when Christopher Lee follows a suspected werewolf to a nightclub and wears those skinny, elongated New Wave sunglasses to blend in. The punk/new wave band performing on stage is Babel and the song they play is appropriately called “Howling.” They make another appearance at the climactic werewolf-orgy-costume-party in Transylvania and then appear again back in Los Angeles at the very end of the movie. It’s unclear if they are also werewolves or just really willing to play any gig.

The script seems to have gotten werewolves confused with vampires. By this point in his career Christopher Lee was already a horror icon for playing Dracula in numerous films for Hammer. Howling II casts him as a Van Helsing figure, but still wants to cash in on his Dracula fame. Not only is Transylvania home to werewolves, but Stefan kills werewolves by stabbing them in the heart with a metal stake. He explains that silver will work on certain werewolves but powerful werewolves can only be killed by titanium (because it’s the 80’s and everything has to be extreme). The battle in the woods of Transylvania with Lee and Brown fighting off werewolves with guns and daggers and swords has elements of 80's action movies and is pretty entertaining.

Sybil Danning plays Stirba, the werewolf queen, who turns out to be Stefan’s sister; that’s not really a twist since when it’s revealed it doesn’t change anything about the movie. Her performance is broad and so is her line delivery but in fairness all the dialogue in the movie is ridiculous. Her performance is right in line with everything else. She spends a lot of the movie in leather bondage gear, which seems to be the preferred choice for the werewolves.

Everything in Howling II is gratuitous. The action feels excessive and shoehorned in, though still entertaining. Yes, werewolves are traditionally killed by silver bullets (in this case titanium bullets) but the scenes of werewolves being blasted away are over the top. There is a lot of nudity and sex but it all feels either too gross or too ridiculous to be titillating. Aside from Stirba presiding over the werewolf orgy from her throne (some werewolves have transformed, most are humans, all are vaguely writhing around), there is also a werewolf threesome which is furry and silly and gross and seems to go on for a full day. It's something you never knew you never wanted to see.

There are some cheesy looking special effects but also some good, gross effects. Scenes of a disembodied werewolf arm clawing at someone look like an actor being hit with a fake monster arm. Some of the werewolves look like vaguely monstrous apes. Allegedly, this is because the production received leftover costumes and masks from the Planet of the Apes movies instead of werewolf costumes. Also, allegedly, Lee improvised a line of dialogue explaining that part of becoming a werewolf is to “de-evolve” to explain the ape faces. 

Christopher Lee is the best thing in Howling II. His deep commanding voice gives weight to just about anything he says, no matter how ridiculous. Lee was the kind of actor, like fellow horror film legends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, that always found a way to give a solid performance no matter what kind of movie he was in. Even when his dialogue is ridiculous, or he’s in new wave gear, Lee himself never comes off as ridiculous.

Without a doubt the most memorable and bizarre sequence in Howling II is the closing credits. Footage of the new wave band is intercut with random shots from the movie and presumably outtakes. A shot of Sybil Danning ripping her top off is repeated again and again to the point of absurdity. At a certain point it becomes like an exercise in montage theory. We see reaction shots from different characters at different points in the movie cut to make it look like they are reacting to Danning’s nudity. She rips her top off, cut to a shot of a character’s eyes exploding out of his head. She rips her top off, cut to a shot of Lee chuckling in a church. It’s exploitative to be sure, but it is also so ridiculous and perplexing that the shot of Danning ripping her top off loses its sex appeal. It’s a bonkers closing credits sequence to a bonkers movie.