Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch ** (1985, Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Sybil Danning, Marsha Hunt, Ferdy Mayne) – Classic Movie Review 10,006

‘And upon her forehead was written Behold I am the great mother of harlots and all abominations of the Earth.’

Christopher Lee stars in director Philippe Mora’s 1985 cult horror thriller sequel Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch [Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf], a partly successful bid to follow up the 1981 hit The Howling by both delivering the scares while parodying horror movies. Though it was much maligned and failed to match the success of the first film, Howling II has since acquired a cult following, helped by the presence of cult actors Sybil Danning, Reb Brown and Christopher Lee.

In it, a werewolf expert cop called Ben White (Reb Brown) attends the funeral of his sister Karen, and meets Karen’s colleague Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe) and mysterious vampire hunter Stefan Crosscoe (Lee), who tells him Stirba killed his sister and turned her into a werewolf. Crosscoe convinces Ben and Jenny to accompany him to Transylvania to destroy the immortal queen of all werewolves Stirba (Sybil Danning) and her pack of scary creatures. They meet lusty werewolf Mariana (Marsha Hunt) and her minion Erle (Ferdy Mayne).

This time it falls into the gap between being horrific and funny, though it has its moments and interest, and the Czech locations and the acting help, especially the performances of Lee, Brown and Danning. And it seems to have little connection with The Howling, though it follows the first movie’s events and co-writer Gary Brandner wrote the original 1977 source novel for The Howling.

It is the only Howling movie to feature Brandner’s input, co-writing the screenplay with screen-writer Robert Sarno, though the movie is not actually based on Brandner’s 1979 novel Howling II: The Return. Brandner also wrote the unfilmed 1985 novel The Howling III: Echoes.

Brandner was critical of the original 1981 film, a very loose adaptation of his 1977 novel, and so some elements of this sequel may have diverged deliberately from the first film, though some may be accidental, such as the retroactive continuity of the worldwide revelation of the existence of werewolves.

It is part British financed (by Hemdale Film Corporation) and mostly made in Czechoslovakia, on location and at Barrandov Studios, Prague, though some scenes were shot in Los Angeles.

Obviously shooting in Soviet-controlled Prague was tricky. Mora said he had to ‘literally import trash from America to clutter the clean communist streets’. Police and military arrived when 1,000 people arrived after casting call for punks, and a colonel told Mora: ‘You can finish shooting the scene, but they’ll have to leave in groups of no more than three.’

Howling III: The Marsupials followed in 1987, the first of many sequels: Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988), Howling V: The Rebirth (1989), Howling VI: The Freaks (1991). Howling: New Moon Rising (1995), and The Howling: Reborn (2011). None of these is related to Howling II.

Also in the cast are Annie McEnroe, Marsha Hunt, Ferdy Mayne, Judd Omen, Patrick Field, Jimmy Nail, Steven Bronowski, James M Crawford, Jiri Krytinár, Ladislav Krecmer, Jan Kraus and Peter Stark.

Hemdale Films released it in France and England in August 1985, before its US release in December 1985.

Mora recalled that the scene with Sybil Danning revealing her bare breasts is repeated 17 times during the end credits screen crawl. For most other scenes she is either covered with hair or wearing a metallic armoured outfit and sunglasses. Roger Ebert claimed: ‘No one presides over a ritual quite as well as Sybil Danning.’ He said the scene where she rips open her dress is repeated twice during the closing credits, ‘providing the movie with its second and third interesting moments.’

The cinema release version runs 87 minutes. The re-edited TV version runs 91 minutes, and includes a new scene before the end credits, plus a new end credits sequence to replace the topless shots of Sybil Danning.

Howling II original cinema release poster.

The cast are Christopher Lee as Stefan Crosscoe, Annie McEnroe as Jenny Templeton, Reb Brown as Ben White, Marsha Hunt as Mariana, Sybil Danning as Stirba, Valerie Kaplanová as old Stirba, Judd Omen as Vlad, Ferdy Mayne as Erle, Jimmy Nail as Dom, Patrick Field as Deacon, Ladislav Krečmer as Father Florin, Ivo Niederle as Grigorie, and Jan Kraus as Tondo.

Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch [Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf] is directed by Philippe Mora, runs 87 or 91 minutes, is made by Cinema 84, Euro Film Fund, Granite Productions, Hemdale Film Corporation and Greenberg Brothers Partnership, is released by Hemdale Film Corporation (1986) (US) and Thorn EMI (UK), is written by Robert Sarno and Gary Brandner, is shot by Geoffrey Stephenson, is produced by Steven A Lane, is scored by Stephen Parsons and Robert Randles, and designed by Karel Vacek.

Lee and Hunt previously together appeared in Dracula AD 1972. In 1990, when Lee was cast in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, he apologised to director Joe Dante (who directed The Howling) for being in this film.

Brandner published more than 30 novels and 100 short stories. He lived with his wife and several cats in Reno, Nevada, and died of cancer on 22 September 2013, aged 83. Howling IV: The Original Nightmare is the closest adaptation of Brandner’s original novel. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 horror film Cameron’s Closet.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,006

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