- Directed by Neal Sundstrom
- Written by Gary Brandner, Clive Turner, Freddie Rowe
- Stars Phil Davis, Victoria Catlin, Elizabeth She, Ben Cole
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfXpl5zH9ao
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a werewolf movie that has no connection to the previous Howling movies. There are some issues that don’t hold up to scrutiny. And past those problems, it’s also pretty mediocre. The script, acting, effects, and direction aren’t awful, but not great.
Synopsis
Credits slowly roll as we zoom in on a baby’s crib. We cut to Budapest in 1489, where we see many dead people arrayed along a dinner table. A man comes in and reports that everyone is dead, including the baby. They seem upset, “There was no other way! The evil is finished.” The man then stabs his wife and then himself. Before he dies, he hears the definitely-not-dead baby crying. “We died in vain,” the man yells– and dies.
In Budapest, 1989, we cut to Gail talking to David, a photographer, on the street. Jonathan talks to Marylou; he’s a tennis player, and she’s an actress. They, and various other characters, have been invited to Budapest to attend the opening of a castle that’s been closed up for five hundred years. The Count greets the most famous guest, Anna, the movie star, as Catherine, Ray, Richard, and the Professor get on the bus with the others.
They drive on as ominous music plays. Their bus hits something on the road, but they don’t stop.
The Count explains that the castle was untouched and never ransacked. The castle has been shrouded in mystery for five centuries. Peter and Susan are the servants, but they don’t understand English. The Professor thinks the castle does have a past, but someone has gone to great efforts to cover it up. Richard talks about how Satan created werewolves right here in this region; they were all killed off, but people today are still superstitious about it. Maybe those two ideas are somehow connected.
Catherine and Anna are charmed and repulsed by Australian Ray. The Professor goes off exploring and finds a skull. A door gets locked behind him, and soon he finds out that he’s not alone; there’s some big, toothy animal.
Back at the dinner table, the whole group talks. The Count tells the story of the execution of three generations of a family back five hundred years ago. It was forbidden by law to even discuss the story. The Count gets upset when he hears the Professor has gone missing. He comes back shortly after and reports that the Professor has left the building and there’s a snowstorm outside. Dinner breaks up, and everyone goes off to do their own thing; they can’t leave now because of the storm.
Richard and Catherine get together; he’s having an affair, cheating on his wife, who wasn’t invited. Gail talks to Ray about whatever the bus hit, the weather, and that there’s someone in the castle that they don’t know about. She thinks someone did something to the Professor; Ray thinks that’s all ridiculous. Jonathan and Marylou find a hot spring in the building and get naked; he notices they have similar marks on their arms.
Ray finds a secret passageway and also gets trapped inside. He peeks through a crack and watches as Gail returns and is killed by a monster. Then, he falls into a pit and passes out. He wakes up and finds the Professor’s body and then opens a door outside, where something gets him.
David and Jonathan talk about cameras. Peter, the servant, comes in and takes the film out of the camera. Marylou and Anna talk about David and Jonathan and sex. The Count comes in looking for Gail and Ray; he enlists David and Jonathan to break the door down and search Gail’s room. The Count looks around and finds the secret door that Ray found earlier. The three explore and find Ray’s modern wristwatch. They go back upstairs to enlist the help of the others.
The group splits into several parties to search the tunnels. Jonathan is chased by a werewolf who knows the passages better than he does. Anna gets scared and shoots… something. Richard and Catherine argue a lot, but someone severely injures Peter. Marylou reports seeing a huge animal. They all go back upstairs to discuss what happened.
Marylou says she feels sick. The Count has a wounded ankle, and Peter has a head injury. Richard and Anna flirt and talk about Marylou; all three of them are orphans who can’t trace their own ancestry. They also have matching birthmarks on their arms. They aren’t all here by chance; this whole trip is a setup. Suddenly, a werewolf breaks in.
David and Catherine go back down into the dungeons; she thinks The Count is up to something. They go to where Anna shot the thing– it’s Jonathan, but his throat has been torn out. They get lost on the way back. They find Gail, who isn’t quite dead. “It’s a werewolf,” she moans and dies. They go upstairs and find Marylou sleeping, but Richard and Anna are missing.
The Count walks in. “The werewolf. The prophecy is fulfilled.” He explains that they all have that hereditary birthmark that leads directly back to that night in 1489. They’re all part of the same bloodline, and one of them is a werewolf. David thinks The Count is the killer. David locks The Count, Peter, and Susan in one of the cells. There’s a lot of unnecessary discussion between David, Anna, and Catherine.
Anna returns and lets the Count and the servants out. Catherine finds that Marylou is gone. The Count thinks David is the werewolf. They lock her in the cage and leave the key for her own safety. The werewolf then reaches through the bars and kills her. Catherine finds the body, and it gets her as well.
The Count is hunting David. Peter decapitates Susan and Marylou shoots Peter. This leaves only Marylou and David versus the Count. We get lots of shots of the three wandering around, looking for each other. Peter runs in, and Marylou shoots the Count.
Peter denies that there’s a werewolf, but the moon comes out, and Marylou smiles into the camera.
Commentary
The credits say it’s based on the first three “Howling” books, but it isn’t really. This has no real connection to the previous films in the series. It’s a werewolf film that had the name stuck on it.
This supposedly untouched castle is full of anachronisms and things that would have decomposed in the past 500 years. The castle sets look creepy and mostly realistic. The cast is large, but everyone looks unique enough to tell apart. It was supposed to be a guess-who-the-werewolf sort of mystery, but it’s so badly scripted that there’s no way of telling that.
We get tight closeups of a werewolf’s face in one scene, but we never get a transformation scene or full-body shot. We don’t really know how Marylou could change back and forth into a werewolf at will multiple times in a night without tearing her clothes, but it happened.