Pardon me, but how do you say, "Stirba - Werewolf Bitch" in Dutch?

AMSTERDAM -- If you ever want to entertain a Dutch video store clerk, try calling around on a Monday night and asking whether he has any sequels to The Howling.

Today is a rainy day in Amsterdam. Blessed with good weather, I took yesterday for granted, spending much of it indoors looking at Rembrandts, Vermeers and Van Goghs. I returned to my friends' apartment for a large dinner of steamed mussels and Dutch cheeses.

From there, we turned our attention to one of the defining themes of this leg of my trip: The Howling.

I don't know how many of you have seen The Howling. Starring Dee Wallace Stone of E.T. and Cujo, it's the story of a successful early-1980s anchorwoman who finds herself ensnared in a web of secret identities and werewolves. While the definitive horror movies of the early '80s were geared to a teenage audience, The Howling is perhaps the first blood-and-guts werewolf flick geared to an audience of middle-aged women. Basically, it's could be a Lifetime-channel movie, but for a couple disembowelings and a gratuitous sex scene.

I'm pleased to say that it's terrible. Really terrible. If Ed Wood had been alive in 1982, he might have made The Howling. Throw together a montage of people smacking their lips, incongruous accents, and stop-action werewolf metamorpheses, accompanied by a synthesizer soundtrack and a four-minute shot of a hamburger being grilled, and you have the whole movie.

Amsterdam may have its red light district; its Vermeers; its canals; and its bikes. But when you're on a Howling kick, none of that matters.

Last night's after-dinner conversation led to the inevitable: The Howling. My English-speaking host called a local video store and asked whether they had The Howling 2: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch. No dice. Perhaps The Howling 3: Marsupials? Alas, no. By then, the video store clerk was laughing into the phone.

The werewolf spring had run dry. My second host and I struck out for the local video store. We decided on George Romero's lesser zombie film, Day of the Dead.