The Howling II by Gary Brandner

The 1978 book sequel to the 1977 smash hit The Howling, both by Gary Brandner. To be clear, both books were before the movies. The original Howling movie came out in 1981 and the movie sequel Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf came out in 1985. The first movie is roughly based on the first book whereas the second movie has absolutely nothing to do with the second book EVEN THOUGH Gary Brandner helped write the screenplay. Get it? Got it. Good.

Howling II picks up three years after the first novel. Our star Karyn has moved on with her life and is now living in Seattle with a new husband and his son. She goes to therapy to deal with all the werewolf shenanigans she went through. Neither her psychiatrist nor her new husband believe her but they’re not dicks about it either.

She is starting to feel good until she notices a strange woman following her around. She becomes paranoid. She tells people but they all think it’s part of her neurosis. THEN she sees her ex-husband turned werewolf Roy hanging around her local mall. Roy is supposed to be dead but here he is. She puts it together that the woman she is seeing is the werewolf woman Marcia who stole Roy away and made him into a werewolf. Now she is in full panic mode. Her husband is like, nah it’s cool, let’s go out to dinner just me and you. They do. Werewolf shit happens at home. It’s a bloody mess. She’s out of there in order to not put her family in danger. So where does she go??

To put her other family members in danger in LA. Her parents house. She has a chill couple days before the Howling starts. She decides that she needs to find Chris, her ex’s friend who helped her escape the werewolves last time. Not only he is the only one who would believe her but he has werewolf experience points.

She finds him down in Mexico with a young piece of tail. Awkward reunion. Gypsies. Mexico stuff. Werewolf action.

This was so good! A nice, quick easy read with absolutely no filler other than a couple characters who seem important and then are neglected to the side. It was creepy, had tension, atmosphere- especially in the Mexico setting. I knocked this out in two days. If you hit a couple horror clunkers this would be a good one to get you back into reading mode.

Fawcett 1978

Review by Nick Anderson