After Karen White's (Hana Ludvikova) death her funeral is attended by her Montana rancher brother Ben (Reb Brown) and her colleague Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe). The two are approached by supernatural investigator Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee) who unsuccessfully tries to tell Ben his sister was a werewolf and a victim of a larger secret society of werewolves lead by Stirba (Sybil Danning) that is approaching a once in a millennium ritual. While Ben is initially skeptical, the truth is soon revealed with both he, Stefan, and Jenny, traveling to Transylvania to stop Stirba's plan.
While The Howling was a box office hit, due to Avco Embassy's shaky financial situation the company offset several unrelated costs against The Howling's box office grosses meaning that producer and rights holder Steven Lane never saw any money from its success. Due to the nature of the agreement with Avco Embassy, Lane still had sequel rights to the film but could not use any directly traceable elements to the first film as those were exclusively reserved for Avco Embassy (who with the recent purchase by Norman Lear was uninterested in producing the genre fare it previously dabbled in). After shopping a sequel concept around Lane managed to get the film setup at Hemdale only to find once he'd done so that Hemdale greatly misrepresented they financial standing leading to a stop/start production which was re-written while the movie was being produced. Due to cash flow issues with Hemdale, Howling II would often start production in one area only for money to run out and necessitating relocating production in another area. This would also have an impact on the film's werewolf effects which according to effects artist Steve Johnson were shot months after filming had wrapped hence why they often feel so detached from the context of what's going on. Howling II has all the hallmarks of a troubled production held together with duct tape and hope, but while it lacks the novelty and craft of its predecessor it does become amusing in how much of a trainwreck it is. In terms of story Howling II is crudely assembled at best (with strange things like making Titanium their weakness or mining vampire lore for the werewolves) and often action and reason are mutually exclusive when discussing what actually happens here.
From the opening that features Christopher Lee floating in a void reciting from the section of the Book of Revelations (somewhat clumsily setting the stage for analogues to Stirba), we then segue into our first major signs that something's amiss with an open casket funeral for previous protagonist Karen White who is not only not played by Dee Wallace, but the camera gets close enough to instill that fact in the audience (possibly an unfortunate effect from the contractual prevention of direct references back to the original). We take a major step down in terms of protagonists with C-movie action staple Reb Brown whose acting ranges from his trademark over the top yells to barely mustering an octave of emotion when discussing his dead sister (which he doesn't seem to care that much about) and Annie McEnroe's Jenny is only slightly less wooden. Christopher Lee somehow manages to bring some level of dignity here even when discussing ludicrous elements like magic earplugs or dressing in 80s punk attire that almost feels like a prototype of the "How do you do fellow kids?" meme, but given that Sybil Danning is our main villain you've probably gathered that acting isn't a strong suit of this movie. In terms of story Howling II is crudely assembled at best (with strange things like making Titanium their weakness or mining vampire lore for the werewolves) and often action and reason are mutually exclusive when discussing what actually happens here.
In terms of providing the selling points of a werewolf movie, Howling II has some legendarily poor effects work on display with the werewolf effects show either as very basic costumes in chaotically edited action scenes or existing in weird black voids for close-ups and reaction shots due to the production often running out of money meaning a majority of these effects sequences were added in months after the fact. Major set pieces just feel confusing and disjointed but I will say that the film is filled with lots and lots of nudity and sex (some not all that sexy like the werewolf threesome) so take that for what it's worth.
While I don't think Howling II can be called the worst werewolf movie especially with the existence of something like Tony Zarindast's Werewolf, it's certainly far from being a good werewolf movie or a good movie in general. Howling II is bad, but it's at least watchably and memorably bad. Also the Howling Club Mix by Steve Parsons & Babel that is reused several times throughout the movie is quite catchy.
While The Howling was a box office hit, due to Avco Embassy's shaky financial situation the company offset several unrelated costs against The Howling's box office grosses meaning that producer and rights holder Steven Lane never saw any money from its success. Due to the nature of the agreement with Avco Embassy, Lane still had sequel rights to the film but could not use any directly traceable elements to the first film as those were exclusively reserved for Avco Embassy (who with the recent purchase by Norman Lear was uninterested in producing the genre fare it previously dabbled in). After shopping a sequel concept around Lane managed to get the film setup at Hemdale only to find once he'd done so that Hemdale greatly misrepresented they financial standing leading to a stop/start production which was re-written while the movie was being produced. Due to cash flow issues with Hemdale, Howling II would often start production in one area only for money to run out and necessitating relocating production in another area. This would also have an impact on the film's werewolf effects which according to effects artist Steve Johnson were shot months after filming had wrapped hence why they often feel so detached from the context of what's going on. Howling II has all the hallmarks of a troubled production held together with duct tape and hope, but while it lacks the novelty and craft of its predecessor it does become amusing in how much of a trainwreck it is. In terms of story Howling II is crudely assembled at best (with strange things like making Titanium their weakness or mining vampire lore for the werewolves) and often action and reason are mutually exclusive when discussing what actually happens here.
From the opening that features Christopher Lee floating in a void reciting from the section of the Book of Revelations (somewhat clumsily setting the stage for analogues to Stirba), we then segue into our first major signs that something's amiss with an open casket funeral for previous protagonist Karen White who is not only not played by Dee Wallace, but the camera gets close enough to instill that fact in the audience (possibly an unfortunate effect from the contractual prevention of direct references back to the original). We take a major step down in terms of protagonists with C-movie action staple Reb Brown whose acting ranges from his trademark over the top yells to barely mustering an octave of emotion when discussing his dead sister (which he doesn't seem to care that much about) and Annie McEnroe's Jenny is only slightly less wooden. Christopher Lee somehow manages to bring some level of dignity here even when discussing ludicrous elements like magic earplugs or dressing in 80s punk attire that almost feels like a prototype of the "How do you do fellow kids?" meme, but given that Sybil Danning is our main villain you've probably gathered that acting isn't a strong suit of this movie. In terms of story Howling II is crudely assembled at best (with strange things like making Titanium their weakness or mining vampire lore for the werewolves) and often action and reason are mutually exclusive when discussing what actually happens here.
In terms of providing the selling points of a werewolf movie, Howling II has some legendarily poor effects work on display with the werewolf effects show either as very basic costumes in chaotically edited action scenes or existing in weird black voids for close-ups and reaction shots due to the production often running out of money meaning a majority of these effects sequences were added in months after the fact. Major set pieces just feel confusing and disjointed but I will say that the film is filled with lots and lots of nudity and sex (some not all that sexy like the werewolf threesome) so take that for what it's worth.
While I don't think Howling II can be called the worst werewolf movie especially with the existence of something like Tony Zarindast's Werewolf, it's certainly far from being a good werewolf movie or a good movie in general. Howling II is bad, but it's at least watchably and memorably bad. Also the Howling Club Mix by Steve Parsons & Babel that is reused several times throughout the movie is quite catchy.