Monstervision's Joe Bob Briggs looks at

Howling 2:Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985)

The first thing you need to know about the Howling movie series is that it all started with a big-budget, all-star 1981 movie directed by Joe Dante of Gremlins fame. The second thing you need to know is that all the sequels are drive-in B-movies directed by other guys, not that we object to drive-in B-movies around here. So here's what Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide has to say about the first one: wolf walking
A female TV news reporter is sent to a strange California encounter-group community to recover from a sexual trauma, unaware that virtually everyone there is a werewolf. A hip, well-made horror film, brimming with film-buff jokes (almost every character is named after a werewolf movie director) and Rob Bottin's amazing wolf transformations...Coscripter John Sayles has a funny cameo as a morgue attendant. Followed by several sequels
Cast: Dee Wallace (later Dee Wallace Stone), Patrick Macnee (Avengers, Battlestar Galactica), Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski, Kevin McCarthy (of Body Snatchers fame), John Carradine (horror star extraordinary), Slim Pickins (Dr Strangelove, Blazing Saddles), Elizabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo (the doctor in Star Trek Voyager), Noble Willingham, Kenneth Tobey, Dick Miller, Meshach Taylor
Rated R

Leonard didn't like "Howling 2" quite so much:
BOMB - Ridiculous sequel is set in Transylvania where unlikely siblings Sybil Danning and Christopher Lee head up a family of werewolves. Attempt at sending up the genre falls flat.
Additional cast: Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt, Ferdy Mayne. Rated R

Now let's see what Joe Bob Briggs says about it:
(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide)
The lamest sequel parade of any horror series begins with Sybil Danning as Queen of the Werewolves, appearing in a kinky swinging-nekkid-werewolf scene, then exposing her breasts 13 additional times during closing-credit "instant replays." Most of the flick consists of Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe walking around Czechoslovakia staring at a bunch of tap-dancing jugglers and magicians with bad teeth and saying things like "Do you see that dwarf staring at us? Should we follow him?" They're trying to find out why a bimbo TV reporter in El Lay turned into a slobbering wolf-woman right before she died. An added bonus is Christopher Lee, as Stefan the occult investigator, stumbling around under the full moon trying to find Sybil's hideout so he can bust up the Werewolf Sabbath, drive a titanium stake through her heart (silver doesn't work anymore), and demonstrate some special effects that look like somebody took a green Crayola and painted a gravity field around him. In their final battle to the death, Christopher and Sybil perform Duelling Poses for the Hollywood Wax Museum.
32 breasts, 28 of them Sybil's.
18 dead bodies.
32 dead werewolves.
Four werewolf attacks.
Werewolf Sex Army.
Face-eating attack bat.
Intestine disgorgement.
Extras from "Bachelor Party" attacked by gorilla suits.
Hit-and-run werewolf.
Hand rolls.
One speaking midget.
Additional midgets in midget parts.
Exploding midget eyes.
Exploding werewolf.
Dwarf-on-a-stick.
Gratuitous punk band.
Gratuitous puppet show.
Zipper Fu.
Directed by Philippe Mora, who somehow continued to get jobs after "The Return of Captain Invincible." One and a half stars

© 2000 Joe Bob Briggs. All Rights Reserved.


For more reviews by the artist formerly known as the host of MonsterVision, go to JoeBobBriggs.com


By the way, Stephen King is Joe Bob's favorite author, and King's latest in 2003 is "Rose Red," a miniseries on ABC January 27, 28 and 31, (2 hours each night) - he calls it the ultimate haunted house story. He based it partly on the Winchester Mansion on San Jose, CA, when Spielberg asked him for a possible movie script, then changed his mind. So Stevereno sold it to TV, but when they went to the real Winchester Mansion, everyone decided it wasn't creepy enough so they built their own haunted house for the cameras inside a creepy old movie studio.

"Howling 3" Monstervision review and host segments from 2/20/99

"Howling 7" Monstervision review and host segments from 2/20/99 (it was Werewolf Night)

Another fine webpage thrown up on Sci-fans

Back to Monstervision


Elvis has left the building, and he took Joe Bob with him.

Howling Quotes & Trivia (Courtesy the Internet Movie Database)

Bookstore owner: Silver bullets or fire, that's the only way to get rid of the damn things. They're worse than cockroaches.

Bill Neill: I'm looking for my wife.
Marsha Quist: Why?

Karen: There was howling just a minute ago.
Chris: It was probably somebody's stray dog.
Karen: It didn't sound like any dog I've ever heard before.
Chris: Honey, you're from Los Angeles. The wildest thing you've ever heard is Wolfman Jack. This is the country.

Trivia about The Howling
* The following characters are named after werewolf movie directors: George Waggner, Roy William Neill, Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Erle C. Kenton, Sam Newfield, Charles Barton, Jerry Warren, Lew Landers, and Jacinto Molina.

* Cameos: [John Sayles] morgue attendant, [Roger Corman] scrabbling for coins in a coin slot, an in-joke referring to his famed penny-pinching moviemaking style, and [Forrest J. Ackerman]

* In the scene where Terri is calling Christopher from Dr. Waggner's office, we see a picture of Chaney Jr., Lon on the wall. Chaney played the Wolf Man in five movies (Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945) and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Trivia for Howling 2

* Original HBO/Thorn tape release dark and unwatchable, as well as cut. Cable version bright and clear and featuring European folk music over the formerly silent end credits, but cut. Republic/Lumiere tape release bright and clear, (almost too bright in some suspense scenes), but the longest version in existence. This tape bears the retitling "Howling II - Stirba, Werewolf Bitch", while others are still titled "Howling II - Your Sister is a Werewolf"
[IMDB.com has no quotes available from Howling 2]

Fun fact:
Steven Spielberg remembered Dee Wallace from "The Howling" when he cast her as the mom in "E.T."

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