(re)Search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="592" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="592"> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> </table>  <table border="0" cellspacing="0" align="left"> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"><img border="0" src="../stills/phantom5x5.gif" width="5" height="5"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"><img border="0" src="../stills/phantom5x5.gif" width="5" height="5"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> </table> <p>At the funeral of his sister Karen (Hana Ludvikova), Ben (Reb Brown) meets Stefan (Christopher Lee), who tries to convince him and his colleague and eventual lover Jenny (Annie McEnroe) that Karen was a werewolf, and since the silver bullets that killed her were removed from her body, she has to be stabbed with a titanium dagger to be properly killed. And while Jenny's interest is at least somewhat aroused, Ben is having none of it, not even when Stefan shows him a video of Karen turning, and he tries to prevent Stefan's ritual stabbing of Karen that night - to not only see her turned before his very eyes, but he, Stefan and Jenny also see themselves attacked by a pack of werewolves at the cemetary, an attack they can ward off though. Stefan tells Ben and Jenny he's off to Transylvania to kill Stirba (Sybil Danning), the werewolf queen, and naturally Ben and Jenny are quick to agree to tag along. But of course, killing a werewolf queen sounds a lot easier than it turns out to be, as once in Transylvania our heroes are separated, and Jenny's taken captive, about to be turned - which means our heroes are short on time to storm the werewolf castle while Stirba has an ever-growing army of minions ...<p> <p>Now <b>Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch</b> is admittedly not a deserving sequel for Joe Dante's original <b><a href="howling(1981).shtml">The Howling</a></b>, as where the earlier film subverted genre expectations this one really reverts to werewolf clichés and instead of following the original film's mythology creates its own out of a myriad of almost antiquated genre mainstays, including of course its Transylvania settings. Plus it adds camp and sleaze to the formula, both of which the first film successfully avoided, and the werewolf effects simply don't live up to the original. That all said, <b>Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch</b> is actually not as bad as many make it out to be, while surely it's not a worthy sequel, it's a fun piece of trash that's put together very competently, it's atmospheric with all the shocks in all the right places, many effects as well as Sybil Danning's many outfits are wonderfully 80s-style, and the title tune that's played repeatedly throughout the movie is actually a pretty catchy rock song that stays with one. So no, no masterpiece at all, but pretty good, campy fun nevertheless. </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2022"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>