Howling II... Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)

The first time I saw this it was listed in the TV Guide as Howling IV. It was awesome, and it had Reb Brown and Christopher Lee. I told all my friends, and was surprised I didn't get more of a response. Then recently, the film was on Encore, listed properly. I and my buddy both TiVoed it and watched it from our respective houses, he first. The only thing he told me about it was how the credits showed the queen werewolf ripping off her top, revealing her boobs, and clips of people throughout the movie reacting to other things, but the film makers cutting it so it looked like they were reacting to the boobage. I of course gave him a ration of shit for not noticing the film had Reb Brown: and he called himself a MSTie!

Howling II... Your Sister is a Werewolf picks up where part one leaves off, at the funeral of a dead werewolf. Christopher Lee is a resident werewolf hunter, and he's there to make sure her body is disposed of properly so she won't come back to life. Reb Brown plays the woman's lover, and he and her sister want to make sure Lee doesn't defile the dead woman's corpse. When they see the truth, they join him on a trip to Romania to stop the rising of the werewolf queen. It's awesome.

As you can well imagine, after watching this recently, I know now that what I watched all those years back was not part IV, but this film, part II. And let me say, part II is too awesome for words. Christopher Lee rules, Reb Brown screams and does his whole Lump Beef Broth routine we know and love him for in Space Mutiny, there's this great punk-ish band, and some sweet werewolf sex. This movie does for the werewolf genre what Blade does for vampires... probably more.

Watching Christopher Lee in films like this demonstrates how poorly used he is by major directors like George Lucas and Peter Jackson in their feature films. We here at the DTVC love Jackson for his pre-Lord of the Rings work, so I think it's all the more disappointing that he didn't have the good sense to have Christopher Lee killing werewolves throughout Middle Earth. That would've kept me awake in the theater for the third movie. Lucas did a better job with Lee as Count Dukoo (sp?), only he wasted him for the first movie (I mean, if you're just gonna have that Darth Maul guy in for two scenes, make them at the beginning, kill him off, then have Lee for the rest of it. I guarantee more people would've liked Phantom Menace if it had had more Lee), then killed him off in the third. This movie got it. Just the scene where Lee was rocking awesome sunglasses alone was some of the best Lee ever. After everything he did something in this, I was doing the Tiger Woods "I just hit a birdie on 17 at Augusta" fist pump, because it rocked.

Speaking of Lee in this film, even though I loved him in it, he was of a different opinion. A friend of mine told me Lee worked with the director of the first Howling, and actually apologized for how bad part two was, and apologized for his having acted in it. That saddens my heart if it's true. I'll say it again, this is the best werewolf movie EVER, and it'd be a shame if one of the reasons it so good, Christopher Lee, doesn't recognize its sheer brilliance.

All you MSTies out there know where I'm going next: Reb Brown baby. It still saddens me that my buddy, who's seen Space Mutiny almost as many times as I have, didn't spot Reb in this gem. It's not like he's any different. His hair might be darker, but he has the trademark random screams that seem to get him nowhere. According to IMDb, he's only had a couple things released since his guest appearance on Hercules in 1995. But, in 2008, a movie called Sin-Jin Smyth is listed as being in post-production, and that one also has DTVC Hall of Famer Roddy Piper, and adult film star Jenna Jameson. Looking forward to that.

Another endearing trait of this movie is its 80s-ness. From the outfits, to the music, to the dialog, it's beautiful. Growing up in the 80s, it's hard to look back with my young eyes and watch that wave of coolness that was the 80s break. Maybe Nirvana killed it, or the Clinton Administration, or the end of the Cold War--whatever it was, it was too bad. It's sad now for me, not even in my 30s (29 if you're wondering), to have people in their teens and early twenties refer to Mr. Mister as "old" or "stupid" (okay, they were stupid... but a good stupid). Had things never changed, who knows where we'd be--I just know we'd be a lot better off. Taaaake, these broken wiiiings...

This movie has werewolf sex in it. It's interesting, because we know the trend in vampire flicks is this focus on seduction and eroticism, but werewolves are supposed to be too hairy pull that off. In the Jack Nicholson stinker Wolf, he gets it on with Michelle Pfeiffer, but more as a dude with some animal prowess, as opposed to a hairy wolf man. I think Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf was kind of the same idea. I have to say the latter two, as opposed to The Howling II, have the right idea: werewolves are gross when they have sex. Just too much hair and sweat going on.

You may not know it, but you need this film. You got to have it. Center a bad movie night around it if you haven't already. This is a classic, plain and simple. Even if you're not a horror buff, and dig the DTVC for the bad action reviews, don't pass on this bad boy: it's so worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089308/

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