Phillipe Mora Talks Howling II, The Growling, and More!
Matt Boiselle
|
Following in their tradition of picking up dusty old horror films and hosing them off, complete with a buff and shine, Shout! Factory DVD has once again turned on the hot wax machine for director Philippe Mora’s 1985 sequel to the rousing lycanthropic wolf-fest The Howling with Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf. Mr. Mora was gracious enough to sit down with us for a few minutes to discuss his participation in the making of the film and share a few interesting tidbits about the film’s star, the iconic Christopher Lee.
So settle in and enjoy, but please, keep the hair off of the furniture.
DC: Can you give us a look back at how it came to be that you took over the franchise four years after the original?
PM: My friend John Daly was a producer, and he got the rights, and he asked me if I’d like to direct it, and I had two reasons for accepting the job – one was I was reminded of my friend, Arthur Ross, who wrote Creature from the Black Lagoon because he needed a station wagon, and the other reason was John said that he’d made a deal with the Communist regime in Prague, behind the Iron Curtain, and I thought that it was a fascinating adventure to make a film behind the Iron Curtain. Now, doing a sequel as a director is a no-win thing: You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t – if you copy the original, people will tell you that you just copied the original, and if you don’t, the fans of the original will go after you, so I opted to make a completely different kind of film, and interestingly enough it kind of became the template for the rest of the Howling series – it’s the only series where the next movie is completely different from the last one.
DC: Did you come across any challenges when making the sequel – did anything hold you up?
PM: Well, many – it was a very difficult shoot. You’ve got to picture this: I was behind the Iron Curtain, and I believe it was only the third film to shoot there besides Amadeus and Yentl, and we were under surveillance for suspicion of that maybe we were spies from Hollywood, and because it was an occupied country, basically, you couldn’t use walkie-talkies or photocopiers or anything like that, so instead of walkie-talkies they gave me six guys with bicycles. It was difficult, but it was an adventure, and Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning were troopers, and they too were part of the adventure – it was quite an extraordinary situation. I really believe that the weirdness of the movie was due in part to the weird place we were shooting.
DC: What can you tell us about working with the late, great Christopher Lee – any fond memories?
PM: All my memories of working with Christopher are really fond. I had made The Return of Captain Invincible with him previously, so we were already friends. In that film, I’d shot him singing “Name Your Poison,” which was written by Richard Hartley, the musical director from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Christopher loved it and told me that it was one of the most favorite things he’d ever shot in his career. It was in that film that I saw that he had a fantastic sense of humor and could set himself up, and that’s how he was in some parts of Howling II. We also were friends ironically due to the second World War – I’ve made documentaries about the Third Reich, and Christopher’s been in British Intelligence, and when we landed in Prague from London, there was an assembly of military dignitaries on the tarmac, and I’d said to Christopher, “I wonder what that’s for?” – and he said, “That’s for me, dear boy – I’m a war hero to them.” He couldn’t talk about this stuff when he was alive, but he told me as a confidant that he’d been involved in the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich (SS leader in charge of the Holocaust), the only top Nazi killed by the West Allies. Christopher had taken me to the church in the center of Prague to pay homage to some of his partisan friends who’d been killed by Heydrich. They’d been taken to a small corner down in the basement and drowned by the Nazis, so he had this whole history there, and after the war he’d become a full-on Nazi hunter, and he’d arrested Heydrich’s replacement, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and was involved in his trial and execution. So there was this whole serious and profound part of Christopher, which I think permeates his performances – there’s a gravitas there. Yes, he had a fantastic sense of humor, but he kept that to himself except on occasion, and you can’t fake that. He was a very serious man – he’d seen horror, and these horror movies may have been a joke to him, but he always knew that it was very serious.
DC: Lastly, what can we expect to see from you in the future?
PM: I’ve got a couple of things – I just finished a documentary called Three Days in Auschwitz, which is premiering next month at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland, and that film documents three different visits I had to Auschwitz over the last five years, and I’ve discovered that unfortunately many of my relatives had been murdered there. I’m also working on a mockumentary called The Growling, which is about my experiences making Howling II and III, and I reveal for the first time that many of the cast were actual werewolves!
Howling II Release Details:
After countless millennia of watching, waiting, and stalking, the unholy creatures known as werewolves are poised to inherit the earth. Legendary horror icon Christopher Lee (The Lord of the Rings, Count Dracula) faces off against sexy cult favorite Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars, Chained Heat, Grindhouse) in this terrifying descent into a world of nightmares that turns out to be all too real!
Fans of the popular HOWLING movies rejoice as the long-awaited Blu-ray edition of HOWLING II hits home entertainment shelves everywhere on July 14, 2015 from SCREAM FACTORY™. This high-anticipated release contains extensive bonus content, including all-new interviews with actor Reb Brown, actress Sybil Danning, and special make-up effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler; audio commentary; behind-the-scenes footage; and much more! A must-have for movie collectors and horror enthusiasts, the HOWLING II Blu-ray is priced to own at $24.97 SRP.
After newscaster Karen White’s shocking on-screen transformation and violent death (in the original THE HOWLING), her brother, Ben (Reb Brown; Yor, the Hunter of the Future), is approached by Stefan Crosscoe (Lee), a mysterious man who claims that Karen has, in fact, become a werewolf. But this is the least of their worries… to save mankind, Stefan and Ben must travel to Transylvania to battle and destroy Stirba (Danning), the immortal queen of all werewolves, before she is restored to her full powers!
Also starring Annie McEnroe (The Hand) and Marsha A. Hunt (Dracula A.D. 1972), directed by Philippe Mora (The Marsupials: The Howling III, Communion, The Beast Within), and driven by a pulsing punk-y soundtrack, this film is a no-holds-barred horror-fest that’ll rip your heart out… and you’ll like it.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Director Philippe Mora
- Audio Commentary with Composer Steve Parsons and Editor Charles Bornstein.
- Leading Man – An Interview with Actor Reb Brown
- Queen of the Werewolves – An Interview with Actress Sybil Danning
- A Monkey Phase – Interviews with Special Make-Up Effects Artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler
- Behind-the-Scenes Footage (in HD – from Philippe Mora’s archive)
- Alternate Opening and Alternate Ending (in HD – from Philippe Mora’s archive)
- Theatrical Trailer
- Stills Gallery
Categorized:News
