Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)

One of the worst sequels in horror history and probably one of the worst movies ever made, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werwolf bears no resemblance to the original Joe Dante/John Sayles collaboration, other than the fact that they both have werewolves. Well, even that might be pushing it. The original had wonderfully done transformation scenes with incredible make-up work; the sequel has what appears to be guys in bear suits. And not even realistic bear suits. This time around reporter Annie McEnroe and supernatural expert Christopher Lee aid Reb Brown in finding his sister's killer, who, of course, turns out to be a werewolf. Which leads them Translyvania (hey, isn't that vampires who live in Transylvania) and an encounter with Stirba, some sort of bizarre, super horny werewolf queen.

But these are no ordinary werewolves. Oh, no. Silver bullets aren't enough to stop them. Titanium bullets must be used. I guess titanium is good for something else other than unbelievable huge golf-club heads. In fact, it seems that the makers of Howling II got their folklore pretty mixed up. They've got the full moon (which was dismissed as an untrue legend in the original), but they also have garlic to ward off evil and the old stake through the heart. That's vampires, you dunces.

There are so many things that make this movie monumentally bad it's hard to find a starting point. But the acting is an obvious place, for it is almost laugh inducing. It's a tough call as to who the worst actor in the movie is, McEnroe or Brown, but both are downright awful, spouting off some the worst dialogue you'll ever hear. This isn't Lee's finest hour either. I hope they at least paid him well.

Other than a cool shot of a guy's eyes popping out of their sockets and blood spewing out, there isn't much gore and the werewolf transformation scenes, usually the best part of a werewolf movie, are pretty much non-existent. The werewolves are usually shown kind of half-changed, and they ended up looking like leftover extras from a Broadway production of "Cats." The entire movie reeks of incompetence. The lighting is horrendous, half the time it's hard to see what the hell is going on because it's too dark and the film cuts so quickly. The movie is also filled with an inexplicably high number of random inserts, from shots of castles to shot of owls. I guess they had to pad the 86-min running time.

But this one falls on the side of "so bad it's good" horror. It's got some of the worst 80s music I've ever heard (Oingo Boingo would cringe), a knife-wielding dwarf tossed through a window, a werewolf puppet show and pointless werewolf sex (as opposed to what, necessary werewolf sex?) including a werewolf orgy during a rock concert and a three-some between Sybil Danning, black werewolf Marsha A. Hunt and Judd Omen (who played Mickey in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.)

Pretty much the best part of the movie is the Sybil Danning breast shot. Apparently the filmmakers agree. In the musical montage that accompanies the final credits, they re-show the scene where she randomly tears off her dress 10 (yes, I did say 10) times.

Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (also known as Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch) completely disgraces the memory of its predecessor, one of the films that helped revitalize lycanthropy as a viable genre in the 80s.

That's the funny thing about the horror genre. In the last two decades, in which sequels to successful movies have pretty much become a mandate, it has become the vogue to make the sequel bigger, more expensive and more elaborate than the original. Horror has always seemed to take the opposite approach. People already want to see the movie, so make it as cheaply as possible. And that they certainly did with Howling II.