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namesisfortombstones · 9 months

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Howling II: ...Your Script Needs Work

I am fascinated by the insane sequel Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (U.S. title—Howling II: ...Your Sister is a Werewolf). The movie is a train wreck, like if a jet full of mimes crashed into a bus full of clowns. And its behind the scenes story is every bit a train wreck with mishap after mishap after mishap happening to stymie the filmmakers at every turn. Hearing everything that went wrong with the movie, watching the final product makes one think it may have been something entirely different. And logically so, I had always wanted to read the screenplay for the film to find out just what it was originally supposed to be, but all attempts to do so met with failure.

Howling II: Choose Your Own Adventure!

Here is what we know as facts from eyewitnesses who participated in the production of the film; The Howling novel author Gary Brandner was enlisted by the Howling producers to write the screenplay for the sequel and what he did was adapt his book sequel The Howling II (aka The Return of the Howling). When he was done, he turned it in and the producers said "Gary, this is really good, but we have some money in Mexico. Can you set it down there?" Brandner was all "Sure!" and off he went on a re-write. When Brandner turned that in, the producers said, "This is really good, but now we have money from Spain, so can you re-write it to be set in Spain? And the producer's a friend of Fernando Rey. Can you write a part for him?" Brandner was like "Fine" and off he went on another re-write. When he turned that draft in, the producers said, "This is really good, but the Spanish money fell through, so now we're gonna shoot the movie on the cheap in Yugoslavia." Now that Brandner had a book deadline approaching, he basically told the producers, "I gotta go. Do what you want with it" and off he went to go write his next book. Enter a writer named Robert Sarno, whom the producers enlisted to polish up Brandner's work. But what does he do? He throws out most of what Brandner wrote and re-writes an unproduced vampire screenplay he'd written, turned the villains into werewolves, and passed it off as The Howling II.

Seen here: not the person at fault for Howling II. Director Philippe Mora, who says he never read anything but the Sarno draft when he came on board the movie, says that he shot a campy, silly movie. This is almost in line with Joe Dante's original The Howling. That movie played its events dead seriously, but with a tongue-in-cheek tone as if to say, "Yeah, it's scary sometimes, but you can laugh at it too." But Robert Sarno and Philippe Mora aren't John Sayles and Joe Dante. At any rate, Mora reports that after he created his edit of the film and left to go shoot his next movie, Death of a Soldier, the producers got cold feat about having a funny horror movie and decided they wanted a scary horror movie. As such, the producers had the movie re-edited without Mora's knowledge or input and it became the movie it is today. Logically, this would lead one to believe that at one point, Howling II was a completely different movie.

Still probably too much of this guy, though. A few months ago, I was watching the now "lost" TV version of Howling II to see if there were any differences between it and the normal version of the film (and in addition to the new end titles montage, there were a few here and there). But watching the movie with closed captions, I noticed when they announced Christopher Lee's character's name, it was spelled as "Stefan Krosko." Now, since I saw the movie back in... 1989 or 1990 (?), I presumed his name was "Stefan Croscoe" with one 's' because that's how all the Croscoes I've known spelled their name. With the advent of the internet, however, everyone online seems hellbent on spelling it "Crosscoe," which to my knowledge is not a legitimate name. At any rate, I did a few searches for "Stefan Krosko" and there were some hits from some eastern European websites and I subsequently discovered "Krosko" is a real European surname.

What is your name, man?! And what is your deal?! So what is the character's name? I decided we needed to find a damned script then and there to find out. And somehow, I happened to manage upon a site selling a Howling II screenplay and immediately snatched that sucker up. After waiting just shy of a month's time because of the site owner being in the hospital, the script arrived and I finally got to see just what the hell they were dealing with from the get-go. And the results are a disappointing mixed bag. Firstly, I have no reason to doubt anything said by anyone who made the movie. There is a literal laundry list of things that can go wrong with any movie. It's hard work to make a bad movie. A great or even a good movie is a miracle to pull off. However, while there are many differences to get into, this screenplay is more or less the final movie. By and large, everything that happens in the movie is here. Some of it is a little more in depth, but not much. Does the screenplay do anything to explain just what the hell is really going on in this story? The answer is a gritty, in-your-face "no."

“What do you mean it was like that already?!” The draft of the script I have is merely entitled "The Howling II." No subtitles. It's marked as "Revision Draft: May 1, 1984" and "Further Revised: June 20, 1984." It's about 89 pages long with a 4-page "optional" prologue. This is the first time I've ever encountered a writer bothering to craft something that could specifically be discarded. But why did I think anything about this movie would be standard? The prologue opens in L.A. where a couple named Gary and Joann [sic] are trying to get home before the latter's father realizes she's out. When they miss the bus, Gary thinks he's got a great shortcut— through the cemetery. Of course Joann is spooked the entire time, especially when they begin to hear "hideous laughter" that is not coming from Gary. As they flee in terror, a cemetery guard cackles to himself "Bet they'll never take this shortcut again." Scared senseless, the couple takes refuge in a church they run upon. Inside is a casket of one Karen Marie White (the protagonist played by Dee Wallace in The Howling). As they try to go out the back of the church, the coffin's lid opens and Karen emerges as a rotted zombie werewolf. Cue screams and the main titles. And after that bit of standard horror business is dealt with, the script moves on to Karen's funeral scene that opens the movie.

Dame Not-Appearing-In-This-Film The most peculiar thing about the screenplay, however, is the obscene amount of Hispanic character names, even when the story changes to Transylvania in Romania! Somehow, I don't think there are too many Carloses running around Romania. Frankly, Ben White and Jenny Templeton are the only characters whose name made it from script to screen. So do we finally get to discover what the true spelling of Stefan's surname is? No. Because in this script, his character name is Luis Romo. Now, I've seen damnably British Christopher Lee convincingly portray Chinese and Pakistani characters before, so I have no reason to doubt that I could buy him as a Spaniard. But on paper, it just looks silly (slightly less silly than "Stefan Croscoe/Krosko" I suppose). The proprietor of the Transylvanian hotel is named Carlos. The number two (three?) werewolf-in-command is named Vittorio (?!). Vasile the dwarf is Emiliano. And last but not certainly least, there is no Stirba. Well, there is, but she is only known as "La Bruja" ("The Witch" in Spanish) here. She has no true name other than "La Bruja," which is what Stefan/Romo refers to her as, as well (I'm going to use the film and script's character names in order to curtail confusion). This of course further betrays the story's vampire origins as, while La Bruja doesn't behave like a vampire, she's never really written to behave like a werewolf either. Stirba of the film does once or twice transform into a "werewolf bitch," but that's the extent of her werewolfery. Stirba in the finished film just seems to be a sorceress that can randomly grow body hair.

Fernando Rey as... Luis Romo??? This La Bruja business actually tracks to me because of the origin of Stirba's name. "Stirba" (properly pronounced by Christopher Lee and Judd Omen as "Still-buh," although Lee may be saying “Shtill-buh,” which is more correct) is derived from the German word "sterben" (still-ben/shtill-ben), which means "die" or "to die." And I don't believe for a second Robert Sarno was clever enough to come up with that. Maybe Philippe Mora (who alternates between being a genius and an absolute madman depending on the moment you're talking to him). But I'd bet dollars to donuts that Christopher Lee came up with that name, him being fluent in German.

Mora, you magnificent bastard... Probably the most interesting name-related bit from the script is that Mariana, portrayed by Marsha Hunt of Dracula A.D. 1972, in this script is Marsha Quist of the original Howling! Marsha was portrayed by Elisabeth Brooks in the first movie, but—like Dee Wallace—she refused to appear in the sequel. There are conflicting accounts as to why. At any rate, Marsha plays the same part and story function that Mariana does in the final film. Additionally, Marsha/Mariana's sidekick in the early parts of the story is Erle, originally portrayed by John Carradine in the first Howling but portrayed in Howling II by the fine character actor Ferdy Mayne [billed here as Ferdinand Mayne, who reportedly only did the movie because Christopher Lee was in it]. However, the script never seems to acknowledge that Marsha and Erle are returning characters and they are introduced in the text just like every other character, as if we hadn't seen them before.

Seen here: Elisabeth Brooks escaping from the raging tire fire that became Howling II.

I prefer continuity, but eh, we did okay.

Shit no, Ferdy! Nobody’s gonna notice you’re not John Carradine! Or... Martin Landau? So, as I said before, the script more or less unspools exactly as the movie does. No sillier, no more serious. It's the movie. What is different? Well... Ben White is written to be slightly less stubborn and disbelieving in this script than Reb Brown portrays him in the movie. Ben and Jenny don't know each other at all at the beginning. And Stefan/Romo is written as a bit of an aloof goof, at one point falling asleep in front of Ben and Jenny after giving them the lowdown on La Bruja and her evil plans. In the film, Christopher Lee imbues Stefan with a bit more personable humanity and never once does he come off as tired.

”It is her immortal soul which is in very grave danger.” “Please, eat my ass with a bag of skittles, Stefan.” “Now was that so hard? Good day, sir.” In the punk club scene, alas Stefan/Romo is not present in punk clothes and wraparound shades.

UNACCEPTABLE!!! Marsha comes in, picks up some annoying riffraff victims, and off she goes to the warehouse. I had noticed an odd name in the movie's end credits, "Moon Devil." All these years, I assumed this referred to the helmeted guard outside Stirba's castle. Apparently, Moon Devil was supposed to be one of the jerks at the club and subsequent warehouse victims! He absolutely does not live up to that cool moniker.

You’re gonna sit there and tell me this isn’t the “Moon Devil,” script??!?!? The whole slaughter in the warehouse is written to be quite a bit scarier than it comes off in the film. You're let in from the get-go that Marsha/Mariana has brought these people here to feed her werewolf friends. However, whilst Marsha/Mariana does appear naked to lure the men to their deaths, she doesn't seem to be hanging around partially transformed, listening to her werewolf brethren devour people. Once the attack begins, she disappears. Hell, she may be one of the attacking werewolves. However, at the very end of this scene, there is Stefan/Romo outside the warehouse (presumably in his normal clothes, but it'd been a lot cooler if it were that punk outfit), hanging around, "investigating outside" the script says, and doing absolutely nothing to help those poor people being eaten alive.

“Fuck those kids.” The scene where Stefan/Romo explains werewolves to Ben and Jenny happens right after the previous scene in the middle of the damn night, rather than more sensibly the next morning as in the movie. Stefan/Romo is written with explicit text that he is "giddy" and "excited" as he lays down the wolf lore here. There is about two-thirds of a page description of Stefan/Romo's home (a place we never see again) that more or less amounts to "it's gothic and messy." It's said that he has just stuff thrown all over the place with a combination work table/work bench right in the middle of the living room! What it's for goes without explanation. In the final film, Stefan’s house is shot at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House, notably used in The House on Haunted Hill (1959).

Seems a little... I dunno... big for one person? The tape that Stefan/Romo has seems to be trying to describe what's onscreen in reference to what happened at the end of the first Howling. However, here too, Karen is described as being a roaring, ferocious animal with bared fangs and blood red eyes filled with murderous rage. And of course in The Howling, Karen transforms into a weeping were-poodle that doesn't look frightening because she's "innocent" and hasn't murdered anyone. Sarno eschews all that in favor of cheap horror movie thrills. But at least it all comes off better than whatever the hell was on that tape in the movie. Yeesh.

I think somebody sold Stefan a copy of The Howling as recreated by those kids that remade Raiders of the Lost Ark in their spare time. Stefan/Romo shows Ben and Jenny pictures of Marsha/Mariana and Erle on a slide projector, rather than blown-up photographs. He still explains that Marsha has become immune to silver bullets and only titanium will kill her, but also adds a perplexing bit that if one were to shoot her with silver bullets, it would transform her into a "more dangerous mutant"!

SHIT. It's important to point out a couple of things here. According to the audio commentary on the Shout Factory Blu-ray, Philippe Mora reveals that they shot this scene on location over in Czechoslovakia. However, when the film came back, it was all dark, which forced them to reshoot the scene once they got back to L.A. In the song, "Your Sister is a Werewolf" written by Steven Parsons on the Howling II soundtrack (but not used in the film), the song's lyrics are solely pieces of dialogue heard in the film. All except for "Hear me; in three weeks time, at the next full moon, on the midnight hour of that fateful day, all werewolves—all—will reveal themselves. Each and every human being will be devoured by her lustful disciples." I assumed this might have been a line that was in that original Czech version of the scene but didn't make it into the U.S. reshoot. And that line is indeed here in the script (what Lee says in the final film is "At the next full moon, it will be the tenth millennium of Stirba's birth. At midnight on that day, all werewolves will reveal themselves—ALL. The transformations have already begun... Process of evolution has reversed. There are many stages before man becomes a beast.")

“ALL, motherfucker.” Additionally, you know that bizarre pre-title bit where Christopher Lee is floating in space, reading from a book, with a skeleton slowly fading in behind him? "The great mother of harlots and all abominations of the earth"? That bit is here! And while he is reading it, for some reason, thunder and lighting are going on outside (just like the unwarranted thunderclap over the title card). I suspect maybe this was shot in Czechoslovakia and was perhaps the only usable footage from the sequence. And Mora just threw it in at the beginning of the movie to 1.) ape Dune (1984) and b.) I dunno... baffle everybody? At any rate, the scene ends with Stefan/Romo falling asleep in a chair and telling Ben and Jenny to show themselves out.

That look says it all. So who exactly is Stefan/Romo? Who did you think he is? Because whoever he was in your head is who he will have to remain. There is absolutely no backstory on the character. There is no indication that Stefan/Romo is himself a werewolf or a witch or if he is in fact 10,000 years old like Stirba. Watching Howling II, you have questions. The film nor the script has any answers and Sarno seems infuriatingly uninterested in exploring whatever mythology he had cooked up for this story.

Stefan, we hardly knew ye. Sorry your creator couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. The whole sequence at the cemetery is far more involved than in the movie, starting with Ben and Jenny discovering the fence has been yanked wide open so something could enter. In the film, it looks like they're flabbergasted that someone used bolt cutters on a chain. There are four werewolves during the attack, presumably Marsha/Mariana, Erle, and two others. Stefan/Romo is not doing last rites over Karen's body like in the film, but instead is just loitering around waiting for Ben and Jenny to show up. When they try to flee into the crypt, one of the werewolves is up on the roof waiting to pounce, but gets shot for its trouble but when that doesn't work, Ben throws a flashlight at it. Maybe the flashlight was made of titanium casing? At any rate, once Jenny and Ben are in the crypt, Stefan/Romo seems to invoke the occult by drawing triangles around Karen's casket, though it says he does mutter a prayer in Latin. This, of course, pisses off Ben to no end and he threatens to "blow [his] nutsy head off!" Jenny tries to step in between the two to calm things down, but Karen-wolf bursts out of her coffin and grabs Jenny's wrist. When Ben tries to shoot Karen, Stefan/Romo stops him, claiming "Not yet! They are coming!" Karen-wolf proceeds to shred the lid of the coffin whilst still hanging onto Jenny. At this point, Ben loads his rifle with titanium bullets and pumps Karen full of lea—er, alloy?

Also not found in the screenplay, “BLAAAH!!!” Stefan/Romo blesses Karen, but then smiles and remarks, "Here they are," and sure enough the four werewolves are in the crypt with them. While Ben is busy shooting the monsters, Stefan/Romo "chants a strange Latin chant” [sic] and hurls holy water at the werewolves. And it works. One flees and another follows after it. The last werewolf helps the one blasted by Ben back to its feet and out of the crypt. For some reason, the four werewolves are on the run, fleeing for their lives from the cemetery as the wounded one lags behind. Now, in the film, Ben asks at one point, "Do you think Stefan's going to the cemetery tonight to set traps?" and there's no real payoff for it. Here, actual traps are mentioned being in Stefan's home and then, the wounded werewolf trips one and is caught in... a net. The other werewolves ditch him and our ersatz heroes catch up to Erle, who has transformed back into a human. We get the exchange in the movie "Where is La Bruja?!" "Dark country..." Stefan/Romo stabs Erle and kills him. Rather than Mariana, the security guard from the prologue has apparently been watching all this and remarks, "I gotta stop drinking."

Not gonna lie: this does work better. Stefan/Romo announces he's going to "do battle with La Bruja" and Ben demands to come with. When they ask where the "dark country" is, the response is "Transylvania... where else?" Where else, indeed... if you were fighting vampires! Christopher Lee's response in the movie works a lot better. "Where do we have to go to find 'Stur-buh'?" "To the dark country... to Transylvania." Ben then wonders if it's safe to drink the water... which works for when the story was to move to Mexico, but makes no sense referring to Romania.

You know Mexican architecture when you see it. At any rate, somehow Marsha/Mariana beats the heroes over to Transylvania and the script claims the town they're in is "Santa Marta," rather than "Vlk." Vlad here is named "Vittorio" and he meets Marsha/Mariana at the train and takes her to the castle. There's the scene with the hitchhikers, which seems to be played for terror rather than laughs. And then, we go to La Bruja's castle. The rite here is far more involved, starting with the little girl—said to be hypnotized and 14 years old—being prepared. The script says the rite is being witnessed by a coven of 12 disciples and that many of them are villagers of Santa Marta, even though we haven't met any of them yet! The little girl is taken and rested on a huge pentagram that has been drawn on the castle floor. It is at this point that Stirba/La Bruja makes her entrance into the story and she is rather rudely described as being "an incredibly old hag” [in all caps for emphasis]. The script does, however, describe what the hell the staff she has for the whole movie is—"some hideous gargoyle with folded wings and long fangs." So if you were wondering what it was, there it is.

Sarno’s mean. Stirba/La Bruja takes a "wickedly serrated dagger" and beheads a chicken over the little girl, pouring blood onto her face while mumbling "indecipherable magical words," and then the script proceeds to write them out! If you can discern them, they aren't indecipherable now, are they? In the movie at a later point, Stirba casts the Eko Eko Azarak protection spell against Stefan, and here, the words spelled out appear to be the black magic spell Exorcism of the Bat. At any rate, instead of the batshit crazy montage that is randomly edited into the scene, the script just describes a bunch of batshit crazy things going on at once: Stirba/La Bruja leans down inches away from the girl's face and "draws in air with a sucking sound." The little girl begins convulsing. The disciples writhe about "in orgasmic ecstasy" (which sounds repetitive to me) as they look on, the headless chicken is still flapping its wings, Marsha/Mariana watches "with intense pleasure," and Stirba/La Bruja kisses the little girl on her lips. The rite is apparently successful and Stirba/La Bruja is a young woman again. The little girl, though, has become desiccated and is dead. Stirba/La Bruja beckons Vlad/Vittorio and two handmaidens to her bedchamber.

Oh, gawd, yes! The two women dress the "werewolf" queen, but the script does not describe in what. She shoos them off and turns her attention to Vlad/Vittorio who can just barely keep his hands off her. Marsha/Mariana is brought in and she kisses a ring with "a strange design" Stirba/La Bruja is wearing Godfather-style. The scene continues as in the movie, though as Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana begin "making love" on her bed (the script rather prudishly constantly uses the phrase "making love" rather than "sex" or "fuck" even though, let's face it, in the Howling II movie, nobody is making love), Stirba/La Bruja just slowly removes her clothes instead of ripping them off. Fade to, and I quote, "three wolves in a lovemaking frenzy" [again, in all caps for emphasis].

*sigh* Why? At this point it's worth mentioning that in an interview with Philippe Mora with Fangoria magazine during the filming of Howling II, Mora made the outrageous claim that Sybil Danning didn't really exist in the film. What he said was that throughout the entire movie, Stirba was an old woman and that the appearance of Sybil Danning was what Stirba wished she looked like and was a spell that she had cast over everyone. Some of this seems to make it to the final film like when Sybil-Stirba first appears and seems almost scared until she realizes that everyone sees her as young. And then the end of the movie where Stirba's magic won't work on Stefan and as such, he sees her as the 10,000 year old woman she actually is. However, the movie does in fact play it off as Stirba is young again, Elizabeth Bathory-style. None of that is in the script. Not even Stefan/Romo seeing Stirba/La Bruja as an old woman in the showdown.

Goddammit, Philippe. For real? We then hang out with our three heroes for a bit as they cross Transylvania in "a small European sedan." In the film, Christopher Lee seems to be asleep in the backseat but here, Stefan/Romo is described as "meditating" with a "slight smile on his face." For some reason, Stefan/Romo is written frequently to constantly have "a slight smile on his face." Yeah, I think Lee made the right decision not doing that.

“Meditating” my ass. I know a nap when I see one. They have the encounter on the road with the woman in the street and it goes like in the movie except the priest claims she was hit by falling rocks (?!) and the woman doesn't suddenly grow fangs. Stefan/Romo just ices her werewolf ass out of nowhere. Just like in the movie, Stefan/Romo randomly ditches Ben and Jenny, though he does anti-explain, "I will leave you now. There are things I must do alone." Where he goes is never described... just like in the movie. Ben and Jenny continue on when a tramp suddenly steps out into the road and they hit him. When they run out of the car to investigate, the tramp is nowhere to be found, but blood is on the road. Our heroes shrug it off (Ben remarks, "He is here... but he is not here. Welcome to Transylvania.") and get back in the car. This is where the crouching werewolf-hidden dumbass comes into play and the scene continues just like in the movie, complete with a random cliff just appearing out of nowhere.

Wait, so you’re telling me this actually made sense at one point?!? Ben and Jenny make it into Santa Marta/Vlk and the hotel they stay in is given a name, the Hotel Aragon. They also don't do the dumb "six floors" gag and are given room 204. As mentioned before, the hotel proprietor is named Carlos here, but his nephew porter is "Tonio" rather than Tondo. Once in their room, there is none of that godawful garlic nonsense. Instead, Jenny kinda randomly decides to entice Ben into bed and outside, Vlad/Vittorio can smell it. That brings us to page 50 in an 89-page script and the rest of the script unspools at a rather breakneck pace. Honestly, there isn't really much writing so much as there is just action sequences and stuff happening until Sarno decides to call it a script. Ben and Jenny go to the church, where they are spied on by "Carlos" from a hotel room. Stefan/Romo's allies are introduced; Father Florrin is "Father Matteo," Vasile the dwarf is “Emiliano,” Konstantine is "Rudolpho," and Luca is "Juan." Honestly, this is getting out of hand and the absolute region-blindness is sickening. This is just piss-poor writing. Are there some Spanish people in Romania? Sure, there probably are. This many? Doubt it.

Seen here: not a Carlos. In the script here, the children seem to really enjoy the wolf/girl puppet show. They make a bigger deal of Ben leaving Jenny to go stalk Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana as they wander through town and... actually they don't even have the dialogue they have in the movie. They eventually come upon Stefan/Romo. Vlad/Vittorio bows mockingly at him and Marsha/Mariana just glares at him "with murderous intensity." When Vasile/Emiliano asks if that's the woman they're looking for, Stefan/Romo warns "she is as deadly as the black widow spider."

“Punk-ass werewolves...” Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana return to Stirba/La Bruja's castle with Ben and Vasile/Emiliano hot on their heels. Vlad/Vittorio uses something described as "a cross between a whistle and a yodel" to gain entry from the rifle-toting sentry. When we go into the castle, Stirba/La Bruja is sitting on her throne, watching a fire and her "eyes are abnormally bright as if she were in a trance." In the movie, Stirba is wearing sunglasses because Sybil Danning had an allergic reaction to that wolf-hair makeup they put all over her and it looked like she was punched in the face, so they put sunglasses on her to cover it up and continue filming. The two other werewolves report Stefan/Romo is in town and Stirba/La Bruja spills the beans that he's her brother and that "he circles me like an avenging angel of death." She goes on to deliver the bizarrely-written "he lusts to destroy me. But I will destroy him!"

“Oh come on! We just sprayed for dwarves in here!” Stirba/La Bruja sees Vasile/Emiliano spying on them from the window and unleashes her werewolves upon them. When the castle door slams open, Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana are already in full wolf form. Stirba/La Bruja chants another black magic spell that seems to be made up nonsense words this time. When Vasile/Emiliano loses his blessed earplugs, Stirba/La Bruja's chanting causes his head to explode from the inside out and the script says that geysers of blood and brain "tissure" [tissue, I imagine] sprays out of his eye sockets, nose, and ears. That seems unnecessary. Stirba/La Bruja pours an oil over Vasile/Emiliano's corpse and whispers something into his ear that causes him to come back to life as a zombie.

Like you w--wait, what were we talking about? Tondo/Tonio tries to rape Jenny, but rather than "take him away and teach him discipline," Stirba/La Bruja has a werewolf minion eviscerate Tondo/Tonio right then and there. She captures Jenny as bait. Stefan/Romo has the encounter with zombie Vasile/Emiliano and is saved by Ben in a sequence that reads like it goes on forever. Ben's fight with the dwarf is more involved than in the film—Vasile/Emiliano proves capable with a blade and Ben manages to toss him out the window with a judo throw! Ben and Stefan/Romo go back to the church for reinforcements and weapons. The significant change here is that Stefan/Romo says they have a titanium spike that was somehow made from the Holy Grail, rather than having the Holy Grail itself and nobody stopping to wonder how the fuck they have the Holy Grail on hand. He also shows off a "titanium machete" made by Luca/Juan. That, unfortunately, didn't make it into the movie, but perhaps it should have.

”Yeah, yeah, Holy Grail, whatever. Gimme dat gun!” [Yes in the final movie, Stefan actually cops to having the Holy Grail on hand. No, not a single person goes, “Hey, wait a second, Stefan...”] Stirba/La Bruja has a fuck party at her castle (described in the script as a "Black Sabbath revelry," but it's a fuck party). Here, there is "a diabolical altar with the head of the horned god prominent over it" (heavily implied to be Lucifer). Additionally, a slaughtered lamb has been split open and crucified upside down on a wooden cross. In the final film, I don't think it's crucified, but they do have a lamb just hanging in the corner of the castle, which Stirba prays to briefly.

Ya know... this movie is kinda making a good case for evil. One of her disciples runs in and tells her [presumably] the heroes are coming and she stops the fuck party dead in its tracks and orders, "Go my children... destroy them!" Everyone starts transforming, but Stirba/La Bruja tells Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana to stay with her, which they do in human form. The trio then goes over to the altar and prays to their horned god, described as "staring out with eyes as dark and empty as deep, endless space."

Don’t make a Kristen Stewart joke. Don’t make a Kristen Stewart joke. Don’t make a Kristen Stewart joke. The werewolves attack our heroes and all hell breaks loose. Ben pushes Stefan/Romo down "for safety" and sets about murdering everything in sight. Konstantin/Rudolfo saves Luca/Juan by ripping through a werewolf's throat with his titanium machete. Another werewolf "rips Rudolfo's face" [did Sarno mean "rips off"?] and proceeds to slash him to death. Stefan/Romo—I shit you not—has a fire extinguisher that sprays holy water, which he uses to finish off the other werewolves! It causes them to "shriek in agony as if they were being burned alive!" I hope it was Christopher Lee who put his foot down and said "I'm not doing that." As they continue onward, "an unearthly, grotesque hand" with "enormous curved talons" grabs Luca/Juan and drags him into the earth like a random quicksand pit. There's no mention of werewolves here; it's just someTHING's hand. Another hand grabs hold of Luca/Juan's neck and drags him underground. Rather than hurl the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch as in the movie, Stefan/Romo throws a vial of chrism at them and Father Florrin/Matteo [misspelled as "Metteo" here] lights the leaves up with a match. Then, this happens: "as the three men sprint away, there is a horrible agonizing roar of pain from the demonic creature as it begins to burn in the fire of the consecrated Chrism. The outlines of some unearthly form rises up in the flames and twist wildly [sic] in his death throes." As we cut back to the castle, Stirba/La Bruja is "screaming and writhing in ecstasy as she walks on glowing ashes." Why?? You will go wanting because there are no answers. Stirba/La Bruja orders Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana to "bring the girl" and they head off for Jenny. Instead of the ultra-creepy area made up of walls of human skulls, Jenny is just being kept in a more mundane torture dungeon. When Father Florrin/Matteo sneaks into the castle, Stirba/La Bruja just steps out of a shadow and stares at him. She orders her gargoyle staff to attack him and the "hideous little creature opens its eyes which glow with an infernal ruby light," leaps onto the priest's face, drives its fangs into the top of his skull, uses its tail to wrap around his neck, then uses the tip of its tail to prod up through his nose into his skull. The thing causes Florrin/Matteo's head to explode from the inside out, causing "squirming, gelatinous tentacles" to pour out. Stirba/La Bruja marches off because that was all just a touch much. Vlad/Vittorio and Marsha/Mariana appear to harass Jenny and Ben charges in and blows the back of Vlad/Vittorio's head and his brains onto the wall behind him. Marsha/Mariana is understandably stunned by this and when Ben tries to shoot her, he's out of bullets. Sorta-Ms. Quist starts to wolf out and leaps at Ben but he stabs her with a silver knife, despite the fact Stefan/Romo had explicitly told him she's immune to silver now. However, she doesn't actually seem to die. She slumps to her knees and cannot pull the knife out. When Ben hauls Jenny away, Marsha/Mariana is said to be slumped onto the floor dying and screaming. I have to say, Marsha was done dirty and she should've been able to get away Howling I-style to run amok in The Marsupials: The Howling III, dammit (which yes, does seem to take place in the continuity of the first two movies, if Olga's stealth reference is to be believed). It's worth mentioning that in the script, this scene does not have a wooden cage locked full of victims which does appear in the corresponding scene in the movie. And after Ben kills Vlad and Mariana and hauls Jenny away, our ersatz hero just leaves those poor people there to starve to death! Stirba/La Bruja hears the screaming and charges off to help (I guess?) but Stefan/Romo steps into her path and boasts "You go no further." At this point, the script goes even more off the rails. Stirba/La Bruja beckons Stefan/Romo to come to her and dares him to fuck her, going so far to throw back her cape, revealing "her luscious naked body." Stefan/Romo just starts involuntarily walking over to her (as one would) and rather pathetically calls out for Christ and God like he was inside the Wicker Man and Lord Summerisle just lit it on fire. Stirba/La Bruja says "You will be my Prince of Darkness and I will be your Queen of the Night!" Obviously, there was no way Christopher Lee was going to let that line stay in when he came on board. Similarly, a line where Ben describes Stefan/Romo as looking like "Dracula's grandfather" was removed, probably for the same reason. Anyway, Stirba/La Bruja laughs that they will rule the world and that "I give myself to you; I am yours to ravage and rape." No, really. Bottom of page 86. Sarno seriously wrote that shit.

Seen here: not a man freaking out about possibly banging his smokin’ hot sister. Stirba/La Bruja demands "Love me, my brother!" [though, based on previous scenes, Sarno definitely means "fuck me, my brother!"] and Stefan/Romo leaps through the air, tackles his sister, drives the Holy Grail titanium spike into her (where is not said), and plants one on her as she shrivels into her "hideous and shriveled hag" form [again, rude!]. Now, some of this was actually shot because there is a still of Christopher Lee kissing Sybil Danning from this scene that is not in the movie. But there's absolutely no way they were gonna have/get 62-year-old Lee to jump through the air and tackle Sybil, even with his trusty stunt double Eddie Powell on hand.

You thought I was lying, didn’t you? Now, here in the script, Stefan/Romo's flying tackle causes he and Stirba/La Bruja to crash into her fire pit and that causes them to become engulfed in flames. Stirba/La Bruja won't let go and he can't get away from the fire and they both burn to death. And honestly, that works a lot better than whatever the hell happens at the end of the movie where there's no real excuse for Stefan having to burn to death too while Stirba admonishes that they will be "wedded for eternity." Got a man doing God's work here and God absolutely drops the ball on him.

Bullshit, I say! At any rate, Sarno thinks its funny to cut from them screaming as they burn to death to Jenny's fireplace in her apartment the next Halloween. Jenny says that she misses Stefan/Romo and Ben jibes that Halloween was probably his favorite [spelled with an extra u] day. There's a knock at the door and a werewolf plays trick or treat. You've seen the scene; you know how it goes, except Ben gives the werewolf money instead of candy and wishes him happy Halloween! The werewolf waves back and howls. When Jenny demands they go over to the apartment and say hi, the script says that Erle answers the door! But he had been killed by Stefan/Romo at the beginning of the story! In the movie, it's the priest they encounter when the woman on the road was hit by a car/falling rocks. The script just gives up after Erle/the priest asks "won't you come in?" It claims to be "The End," but it's more like "The Quit." For what it's worth, the script does not have the scene that I saw on USA one time where the camera creeps down the hall to reveal the inside of another apartment with a family of laughing werewolves inside. I'm told this ending also appeared on the VHS release in Australia, but it was certainly not in the "normal" TV version that played elsewhere (Fox, predominately, and later the Sci-Fi Channel).

Before you ask, yes that IS Philippe Mora painted into the mural on Stirba’s castle to the right of Sybil there. So there you have it. Everybody who worked on it says Howling II isn't the movie they made... but damned if the script isn't pretty much the movie we saw.

#Howling II #Stirba - Werewolf Bitch #Your Sister is a Werewolf #Robert Sarno #Christopher Lee #Sybil Danning #screenplay #script #writing #what the what?#Philippe Mora #Gary Brandner #Reb Brown #Annie McEnroe #Ferdy Mayne #Marsha Hunt

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