Runtime: 87 minutes
Directed
by: Philippe Mora
Starring:
Reb Brown, Annie McEnroe, Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning
From:
Hemdale
Now,
here's a movie I've heard about for years but I have never checked
out, until it was on an Encore channel Monday night. Encore Action,
to be exact. Yeah, pretty odd for a horror film. It doesn't matter if
you've seen any of the sequels to the orignal The Howling; heck, you
don't need to see the original, even though this is the only sequel
that has anything of consequence to do with the original, retconning
aside. All you need to know is that Reb Brown is the brother of the
lead girl in the first (Dee Wallace Stone), and she dies at the end
of the first. Last year, I talked about what was the final film in
the franchise at the time, Howling: New Moon Rising. Now there is one
of the worst movies I've ever seen, no exaggeration. You can just
read that review to find out why. Late last year The Howling: Reborn
came out. I heard nothing but bad things about it, mainly in that
it's like a Twilight-esque tale.
As
for this film... WOW. Like I said I had heard things but I really had
no idea how bizarre and out-there this was. The plot is that Ben
White (Brown) and one of the pals of his sister (McEnroe) meet up
with Stefan (Lee) who tells them about werewolves and how there is a
leader known as Stirba (Danning) who resides in “The Balkans”
(this was mainly filmed in what was then Commie country and currently
is the Czech Republic). They head on over there, and what an
experience they had.
This video from the Watercooler films YouTube account explain things
rather well. You should watch that 8 minute clip before continuing
on. Yes the movie actually starts with Christopher Lee reading from
The Bible as there's a space background, then you get a bitchin' title punk/new wave title song from the band Babel as the credits are
in neon pink. It's no surprise that the original title of this was
Howling II: Stirba-Werewolf Bitch and the movie's poster promised
“The Rocking Shocking New Wave of Horror”. That's why you see a
scene in a punk/new wave club with an appropriate band and that's why
Christopher Lee enters the club and he has on a brown leather jacket
and then he puts on slim white new wave glasses... an incredibly
surreal sight, to say the least.
That
video only hints at all the strangeness you see, from how the plot
seems to progress from random point to random point and bizarre
moment after bizarre moment is thrown on the screen, from the
80's-riffic special effects and special powers Stirba has to the
dwarf's eyes exploding, from a werewolf magically appearing in
someone's car to werewolf orgies... it's all so strange. On a
technical level this is an atrocious movie. There are often bizarre
screen wipes to transition between scenes (a la Star Wars) and
they're so comical you can't help but laugh. I did laugh quite often
at this movie for being so bad and yet so odd and unexpected
throughout it's hilarious. If you love bad movies this is a must-see.
I'll be back tomorrow night.
No comments:
Post a Comment