I love werewolves, greatly prefer them too vampires, unfortunately they have a much weaker presence in film. Sadly, The Howling series, seven in all, constitutes a good chunk of the films from the last twenty years. American Werewolf in London remains the best werewolf film ever. I was pleasantly surprised by the fairly recent film Ginger Snaps, its sequels much less so. It had been a long time since I had seen any of the Howling films, and I don't believe I've ever seen Howling II: Your Sister's a Werewolf, so when it showed up on TV, I decided to check it out.

I was completely not expecting this flick. It is extremely surreal. They throw all logic out the window and turn these werewolves into complete sex-fiends, the humans chasing them aren't much more normal. But that's only a sliver of what makes it so weird. The film is edited in an extremely experimental manner, at least for a fairly mainstream film that had a wide theatrical release. The film moves along normally, then they suddenly cut to a random shot from earlier in the film, usually somebody changing into a wolf, but not always. As an editor, I found it refreshing, to see a horror film try something different. It doesn't always work, but it keeps it interesting, as you never know what you're going to see next.

Ben is attending his sister Karen's funeral, who died in the first film, when he's approached by Stefan Crosscoe, a Van Helsing type character, played by the classic Christoper Lee. Crosscoe tells him his sister is in fact a werewolf, and that she'll come back to life that night. Being a rational person, Ben dismisses him as a nut, but decides to make sure later that night. He witness her changing, just before Crosscoe drives a silver stake through her heart, and they're attacked by a gaggle of werewolves. That's it, Ben is pissed. He's ready to travel to Transylvania with Crosscoe to wipe out the monsters that did this to his sister. Ben's new girlfriend, a journalist and friend of his sister, comes along for the ride. They stay in a weird little town, in the heart of werewolf country.