Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch
Short description
Ben White's sister, a journalist, has died under violent circumstances. At her funeral, a stranger named Stefan Crosscoe approaches him with an explanation: she had fallen under the werewolf curse. Ben is skeptical at first, but when he witnesses his sister's transformation, he accepts what Crosscoe tells him and agrees to travel with him and Jenny Templeton to Transylvania. There they intend to confront Stirba, the leader of a werewolf group, before the next full moon.
Philippe Mora directed the film, which sits between Mad Dog Morgan and The Marsupials: The Howling III in his filmography; he made four features before it. Christopher Lee plays Crosscoe, with Reb Brown as Ben, Annie McEnroe as Jenny and Sybil Danning as Stirba, among a credited cast of 37. Gary Brandner, who wrote the novel the first film drew on, and Robert Sarno wrote the screenplay, and Steven A. Lane produced. It was made for a modest budget of about two million dollars and runs 91 minutes, mixing horror and thriller material with comedy.
The film has found little favour. On IMDb it holds a rating of 3.8 from around 9,200 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 4.9 from roughly 242 votes. A critics' score of 3.9 from 14 reviews places it in much the same range as the audience responses rather than above them.
What's left behind the scenes
- Christopher Lee stated in an interview during the film's release in the US that his reason for appearing in this installment was that he had never before appeared in a film about werewolves.
- When Christopher Lee was invited to "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990), one of the first things he did was apologize to director Joe Dante, who had directed the original "The Howling" (1981), for appearing in that film.
- The film was shot and released approximately four years after the original "The Howling" (1980).
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