Howling II: Werewolf Bitch, Please.

There have been some pretty crappy "Part 2" movies in the history of sequeldom. "Exorcist II - The Heretic". "Poltergeist II". "Jaws 2". "Piranha 2: The Spawning". "Troll 2"...well OK, was "Troll" really all that great? My own personal favorite Terrible 2 is "Howling II". The appropriate subtitle of the movie depends on where you lived when the movie was released. It was known in various places as "Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf", "Howling II: Stirba, Werewolf Bitch", and "Howling II: It's Not Over Yet". No matter where you lived, however, "Howling II" was definitely known as a rotten, stinking crapfest of a movie.

Tell me the truth...do these glasses make me look conspicuous?

The first time I saw it was when I rented the big clunky VHS from our local mom & pop video rental store (except I think it was actually a mom & mom outfit). I took it home, watched it, and couldn't f'ing believe that this...this...thing...was the sequel to "The Howling". I mean, the original was one of the most totally awesome werewolf movies in the history of anything, and it was always my opinion that it was a thousand times better than "An American Werewolf In London". So why was the sequel like some sadistic movie producer's revenge on an unsuspecting moviegoing public? I do my best to love bad movies, though, so I ordered me up some "Howling II" on DVD via Netfux. Well ya know what? It's still a bad movie. But now that I am a few decades past my initial disappointment, it's a bad movie that I can really dig.

It's always about the hand with her.

Serious props must be given to those without whom this movie would not be digable at all. I'm talking, of course, about Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning, and Sybil Danning's boobs. If I had been into chicks, I would have never cared that "Howling II" sucked, because it has Sybil Danning in it and she wears a rip-away bra in the movie. She also has some of the most outrageous costumes this side of She-Ra. And even though I'm not into boobs, I am not blind, and I know when a woman has nice boobs, and Sybil Danning's got em. At least, she did when this movie was made. The producers of the movie knew it, too, because they take a scene where she rips off her bra and they repeat it about 25 times over the end credits. No, really. They do.

Why don't I get a decent transformation like Picardo did in the first one?

The genius producers of the film also knew not everyone is into boobs, so they got Christopher Lee to be in their stupid movie. It's amazing that he agreed to do this, but there he is. As a reward, the director lets Chris wear a far out pair of wraparound sunglasses while spying on a group of werewolves in a "punk" club. You'd think Christopher Lee would stand out, seeing as he's a 60-something gray haired man in a middle of a club where the average age is 25 and everyone has hair that looks like it was run over by a lawnmower, but the shades really lend an element of disguise to his getup.

The film's story involves the brother of Karen White, Dee Wallace's character from the original movie. At Karen's funeral, Christopher Lee shows up and tells brother Ben that his sister is a werewolf. After much protest, Ben realizes that Chris is 200% correct, and with his TV-news reporter girlfriend in tow, he joins Chris on a trip to Transylvania to do battle with Stirba, queen of the werewolves. Sybil Danning plays Stirba, who has got to have a damned good Transylvanian hairdresser tucked away in her castle somewhere. Early on in the film, she has a menage-a-trois with two other werewolves, and here is where we first discover the movie's biggest problem: it doesn't know what a werewolf is. "Howling II" believes that if you sprout hair all over your body and put on a Planet of the Apes mask, then you're a werewolf, and it proceeds full speed ahead with this concept. Of course "The Howling" had KICK ASS werewolves, so right away we see a big problem with this sequel. Obviously the filmmakers knew this, because they have their werewolves do things like roll around in bed snapping at each other and clawing one another.

Stirba demonstrates the internationally-recognized gang hand sign for werewolves

The 'good guys', with Chris Lee and the other two imbeciles on their side, gather in the village and then set out to raid Stirba's castle, while Stirba calls a meeting of werewolves. At first she indulges them in an orgy, then sends them off to do battle against Chris Lee and his four other warriors, who are armed with titanium bullets. You'd think that 30 werewolves wouldn't have any trouble taking out five human beings walking through a dark forest, but these damn wolves don't have all their dogs barking. They just lurk in the bushes a lot, then lunge at the people one at a time. With that kind of an army backing her up, Stirba might as well have walked down into town waving a white flag. But lo and behold, we find out that Stirba and Chris Lee's character are actually brother and sister, and Stirba wants him to become her lover. If she had succeeded in seducing her brother, she would have smashed the taboos of bestiality AND incest in one fell swoop, but instead she gets stabbed in the heart. All that, and all he had to do was walk up to her and stab her? We don't know how she ever got to be Queen of the Werewolves, unless she lucked into it when her predecessor died of heartworm.

"Howling II" is one of those bad movies you just kinda have to see to understand. I can't imagine anybody thinking it's a "good" movie, but I doubt you'll realize just how weird and strange things can get in a "part two" sequel before you see Sybil Danning rip her bra off nineteen times in a row.

The Baby (1973): Dig it, baby!

By today's soulless standards, the glorious 70s were mostly tacky and cheap, but oh did they have style to burn. Never have I seen this represented in a horror film quite as well as I have in an obscure little gem I just discovered. I intend to ramble on for a moment or three about a repulsive, seductive, and absolutely essential 1973 descent into insanity titled The Baby.

Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) is a pretty social worker who takes on a new case when she visits the oddball Wadsworth home. Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman) lives with her two strange daughters, Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Susanne Zenor). There's also a son in the home: the 21-year-old Baby (David Manzy). There is no man in the home, and Mrs. Wadsworth doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of them. Well, what am I saying, Baby is a man if he's 21, right? Well, no. Baby is kept in an infantile state by the rest of the Wadsworths, who dress him in diapers and oversized baby clothes, make him sleep in a crib, and never teach him to talk or walk. Although Ann doesn't catch onto it right away, the family inhibits his development through negative reinforcement, such as zapping him with a cattle prod whenever he does something that a baby wouldn't do.

Bringing up Baby.

Ann immediately accepts Baby's situation, as does seemingly everyone else in the movie. Nobody ever seems to stop and say "Hey wait a minute, why is this man acting like an infant?", a fact that becomes twenty times more astonishing after a scene where the strange family has a house full of party guests who also accept the fact that her 21 year old son acts this way. Ann is no different, as she talks baby talk to him and raves about how 'cute' he is. Actually, he is extremely creepy and looks like he's acting more like a dopey dog than a baby. Mrs. Wadsworth is a tough lookin broad who reminds me a lot of Suzanne Pleshette, especially when she talks. At first she seems to like Ann, but when Ann starts hanging around a lot more than she has to, the whole family gets suspicious of her.


Ann herself isn't exactly playing with a full deck, it seems. She lives in a big, beautiful house with her mother-in-law, and even Germaine wonders how Ann affords her beautiful wardrobe on a social worker's salary. Her husband is nowhere to be seen, and Ann can't seem to figure out if he's alive or dead, since she tells different people different things. When Ann starts talking to Mrs. Wadsworth about putting Baby in a school where he might learn how to develop past the infant stage, she immediately pulls the plug on Ann, calling her supervisor and getting her thrown off the case. Ann reacts with her own fury, declaring war on the Wadsworths and vowing to 'rescue' Baby.  You might think you can see the twist ending coming, and you may be on the right track, but I doubt you'll totally get it until the weird, wonderful and unquestionably bizarre final moments of the film.



I guess The Baby is technically a horror movie, although it's definitely the psychological type as opposed to more typical horror elements. There is a disturbing tone running through the whole thing, including themes of incest; not only does a babysitter wind up in a sexually provocative situation with Baby, Germaine is seen going into Baby's room and getting into bed naked with him. There are a few scenes of graphic violence, but they aren't going to please any gorehounds. The Baby reminds me a lot of one of my other favorite 70s Doom flicks, Don't Look In The Basement, crossed with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. There are elements of other movies here too, including a party scene that echoes Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with its crazy lighting and far out music.

Beyond the Valley of the Baby

Aside from having a great script, The Baby also benefits from a solid cast full of cult movie favorites. Fans of obscure horror films will recognize Marianna Hill from Dead People (aka Messiah of Evil). Alba is played by Suzanne Zenor, and some of you might recognize her from the 70s TV revenge comedy The Girl Most Likely To. I'm not sure of the actress's name who plays the babysitter, but she's a dead ringer for Joy Bang, also from Dead People. Michael Pataki appears as a swingin' guest at Baby's birthday party, and Ruth Roman is absolutely showstopping as Mrs. Wadsworth. She's as scary as Mommie Dearest, and you wouldn't want to cross her, would you?

The sets and art direction are top notch. Kitsch is king in The Baby, with all sorts of wild period clothing, furniture, and lighting dominating the movie. The music is memorable too, coming off as cheesy at first, but really getting under your skin the longer the movie goes on. The uncomfortable themes in The Baby might turn off some viewers. But if you're in the mood for something really strange that you've never seen before, you can't go wrong with this one. It's absurd. It's insane. And it's absolutely classic, unadulterated 70's Doom!!

Messiah of Evil (1973): I see "Dead People".

Originally released in 1973, Messiah of Evil was directed by Willard Huyck and written by Huyck with Gloria Katz. Huyck and Katz wrote American Graffiti, as well as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Like so many of my 70s favorites, Messiah of Evil was issued under a slew of alternate titles. 

The film opens to a haunting love ballad sung in a minor key. This one warns "Hold On To Love", and it features such lyrics as "Hold on to love, but beware of men who became beasts of prey / how many are they? / their one hungry goal: to tear your life apart / they are without shame / this is not a game / from them stay away, for you could become one, I say". Hmm, what could she singing about here? If you said "zombies", you're correct. Sealing the fact that this is a 70s doom song, the visual depicts a man running in terror from something and being comforted by a pretty girl, only for her to slit his throat with a razor blade for no apparent reason.

Then we meet our heroine, Arletty (Marianna Hill), a groovy chick who just happens to be confined to a mental institution. She narrates the film in voiceover, which helps to explain the oftentimes incomprehensible script. It seems she ran into some trouble in a small California town called Point Dune. Well, it used to be called "New Bethlehem" until the moon turned blood red, but never mind. Point Dune is where Arletty went to find her father, who had suddenly cut off all communication with her before warning her to stay away. Since when did THAT ever work?

Arletty's father is an artist, and a rather far-out one at that. He has a wild art studio in his seaside home, where the walls are all painted with giant murals of people, escalators, and lots of clouds. He also apparently was a trapeze artist in another life, because he sleeps on a platform that hangs from the ceiling by chains. This is where he keeps his turntable, too, which makes me wonder if he'd keep his record player on a waterbed if he had one. Oh, those artist types.

After stopping at the local gallery, which is run by a blind woman, Arletty runs into a trio of swinging hipsters who are in town for some unknown reason: Thom (Michael Greer), Toni (Joy Bang), and Laura (Anitra Ford). Yes, THAT Anitra Ford, one of Bob Barker's original "Price Is Right" babes and star of "Invasion of the Bee Girls". As you can see here, she has quite a way with a blow dryer. Thom is a rich kid, while Toni and Laura are apparently just two chicks along for the ride (not to mention the sex and drugs). Thom collects legends, and he's traced one to Point Dune, something about the moon turning to blood. Hmmmmm...could that be what Arletty's father was talking about in the extensive, delirious diary pages he left behind in his sketch book? The local drunk (Elisha Cook, Jr) tries to warn Arletty about what's going on -- he advises her to burn her father to death if she sees him -- but he's soon murdered for his trouble, his body found "as if it had been torn apart by animals". That's how half-eaten corpses are explained away several times in Point Dune.

Eventually Arletty meets her undead father, who offers some much-needed exposition about what the eff is going on in Point Dune. The residents are turning into flesh eating zombies due to the imminent return of the "Messiah of Evil", a sinister figure who is something of an evangelical cannibal. He got his taste for human flesh when he was part of the Donner party -- apparently eating people will curse you and you'll never be able to stop. You'll also bleed from your eyes a lot. The MoE's crusade turned all of the locals into zombies, at which point he disappeared, promising to return in a hundred years. Point Dune's current culture of cannibalism compels the residents to burn fires on the beach waiting for the Messiah of Evil to emerge from the sea, where he is presumably convincing common sea creatures to eat their own species.

Cleanup needed in the meat cooler aisle, pronto!

Although Messiah of Evil is often described as a zombie movie, it isn't what anybody would really expect. It's often too abstract to really be frightening (unless ultra 70s hairstyles and decor really scare the shit out of you), with only two main murder scenes providing some suspenseful moments. There is blood, but there's nothing too explicit and it would have only been considered shocking in 1973. The "zombies" are not exactly walking corpses. Everyone who is a zombie here moves and speaks just like an ordinary person, although they do tend to bleed from the eyes. There are precious few moments in the film that can be taken literally, and stuff just doesn't make sense. At one point Toni goes to the movies and doesn't find anyone working at the concession stand, so she just helps herself to a carton of popcorn. Then she sits there munching on it for what seems like hours, and it never empties. Eventually she dumps it out and there's STILL more popcorn in there. It's too bad the zombies got her, cause Toni could have solved the world's hunger problems had she lived.

Toni finds out why the movie theater offers free popcorn.

The loose narrative loses its way towards the end, but the main problem is that we have expectations about movies where people are dead and eat human flesh, and they are mostly defied here. Messiah of Evil also never bothers to explain itself, just giving us subtle hints and visual clues about what is turning these ordinary-looking people into the murderous undead. The movie almost seems unfinished, it leaves out so much. The lack of explanations makes for some strange moments, like Arletty freaking out as if she's on a bad acid trip and discovering bugs in her mouth.

Messiah of Evil is best for its quiet, doomy atmosphere. Everything in it is just so damn weird, and the way the characters behave is dreamlike. The visual look of the film is very colorful and unusual, full of odd sets and truly strange moments. Make sure to seek out the official DVD release...the crummy low budget video transfers that are available do not do the movie justice at all, due to the washed out colors, the print damage, and the harsh full frame crop. But even in the worst home video presentations, the style of the film is hard to ignore, as when Arletty confronts her father and he winds up covered in paint, his face and hands turned a shocking blue. Since it was filmed in the early 70s, everything that's depicted in the movie has an ultra-retro look to it. The lighting and design of the film is a little reminiscent of both Suspiria and Creepshow although it predates them by a number of years. The scene where Toni is mobbed in the movie theater reminded me of The Birds, with a steady parade of undead movie patrons filing into the theater and taking seats behind her, until she turns and realizes the theater is full of zombies.

Arletty's father expresses his disappointment after being rejected by the Blue Man Group.

Although Messiah of Evil is the most common title by which the film is known, it was re-released a number of times, most notoriously in 1979 when its then-distributor attempted to present it as a sequel to George Romero's films by calling it Return of the Living Dead, ripping off the poster from Night of the Living Dead, and using the tagline "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth" from Dawn of the Dead. Romero got a court order and put a stop to it, and the film reappeared as Revenge of the Screaming Dead and Night of the Damned. It was re-released again in 1981 under the title Dead People.