The Howling, #2

HORROR

For Karyn it was the howling.

The howling that had heralded the nightmare in Drago... the nightmare that had joined her husband Roy to the she-wolf Marcia and should have ended forever with fire.

But it hadn't.

Roy and Marcia were still alive, and deadly, and thirsty for the most horrifying vengeance imaginable...

This was pretty bad.

First, it's just not interesting to have a bare-bones revenge story. The ex-husband and demented girlfriend wanting to pursue the ex-wife to take revenge. The book shifts points of view between the revenge-seeking couple and Karen, which gets old.

The premise is generic and the villains downright cheesy and unconvincing. Marcia's speech is especially awful. It got old seeing her lead reluctant Roy around by the wolf hairs. The ending doesn't make sense - you'd think she would have timed the revenge better. An easy cop-out situation.

Karen isn't much better. She forgets her husband easily enough when she goes to Chris for help, and the three-way jealousy thing? Overdone and cloying. She's a weak-willed victim who doesn't inspire much interest.

And while it was implausible that the cops couldn't tell teeth killed a particular person in Karen's household, surely that wouldn't be repeated in Mexico? Both sets of police say it's too vicious for an animal but clearly werewolf teeth (and a neighbor's eyewitness account of a wolf) would leave traces it was clearly a tooth or claw type weapon at the bare minimum? Seriously, come on now.

There's little tension and everything happens about the way I'd figure. There was so much foreshadowing with Roy that it was common sense.

The end is incredibly abrupt after the convenient ending - where do Karen and Chris go from there?

Author Information

Gary Phil Brandner was an American horror fiction author best known for his werewolf themed trilogy of novels, The Howling. The first book of the series was adapted loosely as a motion picture in 1981. Gary Brandner died in 2013.