Wednesday, August 27, 2014

F This Movie! - The Howling II Commentary

Patrick and Heather Wixson talk their way through this bonkers werewolf movie, which only one of them likes.



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17 comments:

  1. Excellent. The horror chick returns. I know she loves this movie. This is gonna be fun

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  2. Come on Patrick. Werewolfs and Sybil Danning. Sounds amazing ;)

    Im putting this on my scary movie month "To watch list" for sure. Perfect

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  3. Wow, Scary Movie Month came early this year to "F This Movie." :-P Now to figure out how to get a hold of "Howling II" without the evil that is Netflix Instant.

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    1. Netflix Instant wouldn't help, it's not on there. You can get it on a pretty cheap double-feature disc with Joe Dante's fantastic original Howling at Amazon.

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  4. Does this mean im the only one who will be watching it on guild home videos original VHS release?
    That's how I roll. Original format. Dont get me wrong. I love blurays but horror month is all about the 80s and watching the films just as I would of 30 yrs ago with all the trailers too. Nice

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  5. Update

    Now as ive heard the podcast. Im not sure Heather loves this film as much as she thought she did. i wanted to hear strong justification but it did not come. I understand why she is intrigued by it though.

    She is still The Horror chick. She ain't lost my respect
    And im still going to watch it horror month

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  6. If you want to watch along but don't need the audio track from the film, it's on YouTube in French as "Hurlements 2".

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  7. You guys touched on the dearth of good werewolf films and I wanted to throw "Wolfen" into the hat. Loved it when it was streaming on Netflix a couple years ago. Any other fans among you F-heads.

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  8. I'm watching this right now with the commentary LOVING every second! Thanks guys.

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    1. Thanks, Sonny! Hopefully the commentary makes it bearable.

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  9. I recorded this piece of shit like 3 years ago off retroplex and never watched it. You guys made my night.

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  10. For a film to be able to expand our emotional bandwidth – and not bore us away – it doesn’t necessarily need to be sumptuously shot, and it doesn’t need to be cerebral.

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  11. Alright, here's some information about the film to answer what you were wondering about:

    By 1984, Christopher Lee had never been in a werewolf movie. That was the only impetus to why he agreed to do this film. He didn't "need the money." It was just he'd never made a werewolf movie before. And they kept changing the script while they were making the movie, so what he agreed to do wasn't what they wound up doing.

    According to Phillipe Mora, like Patrick suspects, this film was changed in post-production. When they made the movie, Mora made a silly, schlocky movie. But suddenly, the producers decided they wanted a scary movie after the fact. So that's why the movie is edited in the bizarre style that it is, to try--however half-assedly--to do that.

    The werewolves weren't really werewolves: they were leftover props from a movie about apes or apemen or something that was never made. Christopher Lee said he saw the masks and told them "These are more primate than lupine. They should look more like wolves." They said "Oh... well... We'll get right on that, Mr. Lee!" and well... they never did because they didn't make original props to begin with.

    The title was changed because you can't have the word "bitch" in a title (or couldn't then). "Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch" was the title in most places in the world when it opened in 1985. It didn't open in America until 1986 and they went through several titles before deciding on "Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf." The U.S. trailer identifies it as "Howling II: It's Not Over Yet." But they just couldn't use the original title.

    Good werewolf movies: Curse of the Werewolf, The Mark of the Wolf Man (aka Frankenstein's Bloody Terror), The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Night of the Howling Beast...

    Gary Brandner did not write this movie. He began writing it, but he eventually just left the project when they kept demanding all these changes every week or so. He wound up with credit for work he didn't really do in the final film, though.

    Who could be Stirba in a remake? How about Kate Upton?

    And Scream Factory announced TODAY that it is releasing Howling II on blu-ray! Heather, get on it!

    The commentary was a lot of fun. Thank you for recording it!

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    1. Thanks for listening! I feel like we should record a second one just to have you join us.

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  12. Patrick just listen to the commentary with the movie, why haven't u guys not done more of these together? I love the way you guys word play off one another its great.

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    1. Thanks, Erik! That's the only one I've recorded with Heather, but we've done a handful of commentaries on the site. They're all a lot of fun. Start with Sleepaway Camp. That was our first. And thanks for listening!

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