I have always been somewhat underwhelmed by Joe Dante's original THE HOWLING (1981)  so I wasn't particularly interested in checking out any of its sequels; some time ago, I did catch HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS (1987)  by the same director as this one  and found it to be watchable but nothing special.

The second instalment, however, has quite a bad rep and I knew I'd have a good time watching it  if mainly to wallow in the sight of dear but pompous horror icon Christopher Lee squirming in the midst of it all (the gracefully-aged star has pathetically asserted a number of times in interviews that he hasn't appeared in horror-oriented fare since his last picture for Hammer Films back in 1976!). Anyway, this film should have borne the subtitle "Your Movie Is A Turd"  being astoundingly inept in all departments (beginning with the all-important werewolf make-up)! 

The plot (and dialogue) is not only terrible, but it has the limpest connection with Dante's film  strangely enough, the author of the original novel Gary Brandner co-wrote this himself! Still, one of the undeniable highlights (er...low points) of the film is the pointless elliptical editing  which tries to give the whole a semblance of style, but only serves to accentuate its embarrassment factor! Similarly phoney (and grating) are the hokey transitions between scenes, the inane punk-rock theme song, and the cheapjack special-effects at the climax! 

What about the characters, then?: Lee is the werewolf expert, naturally, whom everybody thinks a crackpot  until they come into contact with the monsters, that is; at the very least, though, one has to admire the makers' ingenuity (or gall) in devising a stupid subtitle with a dual meaning! Incidentally, Sybil Danning (as Stirba, Werewolf Bitch  the subtitle by which this is known in the U.K.!) is quite fetching in an assortment of outrageous S&M outfits...but her character is virtually given nothing to do (except preside over her brood of followers and engage in the occasional hilarious three-way lycanthrope sex!); her two snarling lieutenants (one of them a sluttish black girl) are especially irritating.

Aiding Lee on the side of good are the two yuppie heroes (he being the brother of the Dee Wallace character from the first film and she a colleague of hers) and a ragged guerrilla-type band of Transylvians (still, they generally manage to effortlessly overcome Danning's rather dumb werewolves!). Notable among them is a knife-throwing dwarf who gets a particularly nasty (but, at the same time, side-splitting) demise; he's later revived, under Stirba's control, in order to lure Lee (by making childish taunts at him all through the village streets) into a trap. The latter scene has to be a career nadir for the distinguished and imposing actor  well, either this or the early sequence in a discotheque where Lee is made to don a pair of ultra-cool sunglasses so as to appear inconspicuous among the partying youngsters!

In the end, if I were forced to mention elements in this which weren't entirely displeasing, I guess I could say that the ossuary set (in which the heroine is to be sacrificed) is interesting, or that the hybrid werewolf/bat creature (Danning's pet who likes to 'inhabit' the body of its victims) is just too weird to be despised...

Sentiment: negative