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
No comments:
Post a Comment