"Howling II? Do we need to see Howling I?"
"I think it's like Troll II."
"But this one is specifically good?"
"This one is infamous apparently."
Werewolf movies are rarer than vampire movies but this movie did manage to get their hands on a vampire in the form of Christopher Lee. He's an occult specialist who attends the funeral for some guy's sister and very cryptically tells him that his sister is a werewolf and gives him his card. The brother and a coworker of the dead girl go to his creepy house where he explains the plot: there's a werewolf girl who is going to visit a werewolf queen and we have to kill them all. They go to "Transylvania" where the werewolf queen, Stirba, is having black masses and orgies. Lee assembles his red shirt army, the brother and the coworker start boning, and there's a delightful festival in the small town of "full of wolves." Ultimately evil is defeated and Lee and Stirba burn together because apparently they're siblings. The title really doesn't lie. TWO sisters were werewolves.
What makes this movie a worthy watch is hard to capture in a plot summary. There are a lot of lines and acting moments that imply that second takes weren't really an element of this film. The special effects are horrifying to look at, but this is at least partially the result of the movie being made in the 80s. Still, the choice to put the actors in suits that just look like regular human hair grown out as opposed to fur suits gives the werewolf sex an especially unnerving quality. There's unnecessary nudity, plot points that are explained after the fact, and the same rock song played on at least seven occasions including at the very end while edited with scenes from the film (and specifically a shot of Stirba ripping off her clothes at least 18 times). The fact that all of this is juxtaposed with Christopher Lee's gravitas and actual acting ability, makes it even better.
Spoon Rating: 5.5
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