Vengeance Of The Mummy

Naschy Come Home

Vengeance Of The Mummy 

(aka La Venganza De La Momia)

1973 Spain

Directed by Carlos Aured

Camden Collection DVD Region 0

Vengeance Of The Mummy is one of Paul Naschy’s loving homages to the classic Universal horror movies of old. Naschy, best known for his portrayal of the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky in many films, also wrote this one. Like the 1959 Hammer update of The Mummy (reviewed here), this mixes elements from the 1932 classic version of The Mummy, which starred Boris Karloff in the titular role, with ingredients from the 1940s pseudo-sequel series, which followed the bandage-wrapped exploits of Kharis, as played by both Tom Tyler (The Adventures Of Captain Marvel, The Phantom) and by the legendary Lon Chaney Jr (who had the privilege of playing all four of the top tier Universal monsters in his time). 

In this interpretation, Naschy plays a dual role in that he plays both Amenhotep (which is obviously a name check reference to Imhotep) and also a devoted, Victorian follower of the same tyrant, Assed Bay. Unlike the Karloff “dual role”, where he played the bandaged wrapped version and the modern Egyptian version of the same character using an assumed name, the roles  in this version are actually two different characters, with Amenhotep prowling around in bandages while Assed Bay seeks to reunite him with the spirit reincarnation of his former lover (which is a concept with direct lineage from the Karloff version, of course). A concoction very similar to the “tana leaves” of the Kharis series of Mummy films is also used in this version, although Amanhotep only needs to drink this the once.

In Vengeance Of The Mummy, the main male protagonist who, with his wife, discovers the accursed tomb of Amenhotep, is Jack Taylor (start of such genre movies as The Ghost Galleon aka Tombs Of The Blind Dead 3, Female Vampire, Vampyros Lesbos etc) who I also liked in what I consider to be the best of the Naschy/Daninsky films I’ve seen to date, Dr. Jekyll And The Wolfman. Interestingly, it’s not this character’s wife who is the love object of Amenhotep’s curse in this version, but the daughter of his professor friend and, I’m guessing because of certain gender and genre expectations at the time this was made, she is played as a single lady... I just can’t tell you why because I don’t want to spoil the end of the movie for you.

The film has a prelude set in Egypt (this one doesn’t make extensive use of flashbacks as did the 1932 version of The Mummy and various other incarnations of it over the years) but the majority of the movie is set in London, England and in this way it plugs into the same feeling of nostalgia (I used to go into London a lot as a kid) that I got from Taylor and Naschy’s collaboration from the year before, the aforementioned Dr. Jekyll And The Wolfman. I don’t quite remember the Natural History Museum having a big sign out in front of it saying British Museum (Natural History) but... I guess it could have done and I just wasn’t paying attention as a kid. The montage of establishing shots to tell us we’re in London is bizarrely long, though. Clocking in as a few minutes and outstaying its welcome somewhat as a “short” intro to a scene. 

Even so, this film is one of the best of the Naschy productions I’ve seen. The set design is a little simplistic, especially the stuff in the Egyptian setting at the start of the movie, but it’s also very colourful and lively and I loved it. Similarly, the shot design and the way things are dollied through or edited together is all excellent with some really nice, Hitchcockian moments which are almost birds eye views of the characters as they go about their business in a few sections. Really nice stuff.

The musical score, by a guy named Alfonso Santisteban, is pretty good too. It’s not exactly as subtle as you might hear in a lot of horror films but that doesn’t count against it and the melodies and elements of the orchestration are all quite toe tapping and listenable throughout, certainly defending its honour against such brilliant scores as Franz Reizenstein’s score to the Hammer version of The Mummy, for instance. I’d love to get my hands on a recording of this score but, unless a boutique label like Quartet decide to give it a go (they released two Naschy scores but I think they were slow sellers and possibly underperformed for them), then I’m not holding out much hope.

What we have in this movie is one for all fans of the always familiar and iconic movie monsters which have stood the test of time throughout the years from the early talkies (and sometimes before) and if you are into these kinds of films, or even if you like Paul Naschy movies in general, then this one is a definite must-see. For people expecting something a little more sophisticated... well, you’re probably going to be a little disappointed, to be honest... but fans of 50s and 60s Hammer/Amicus style productions will surely love it. As did I. Hope I get to it again sometime soon before I die.

The Werewolf and the Yeti

Yeti’s Burg

The Werewolf and the Yeti
aka Night Of The Howling Beast
aka La maldición de la bestia
1975 Spain
Directed by Miguel Iglesias
West Minster Fayre Films Ltd 
DVD Region 0

Warning: Big hairy spoilers at the end... 
but it’s not that kind of film and it’s all to be expected anyway.

Depending on your belief as to whether the “lost” 1968 film, The Nights Of The Wolfman, was ever shot or not, The Werewolf And the Yet is either the 7th or 8th in the series of 13 (or 12 or 14 depending on your viewpoint on other movies including this character) films featuring Paul Naschy as his famous werewolf creation, Waldemar Daninsky (aka The Hombre Lobo series) which he made between 1968 and 2004. It’s also one of the few in that series that I’ve not seen before and one I’ve been trying to get a hold of for a long time (as has my supplier, also a Waldemar Daninsky fan).

What I'd completely forgotten when I was watching it, until I did a touch of research for this review, is that one of the reasons it’s been especially difficult to see, in this country in particular, is that it was a victim of the “video nasties” act back in the 1980s. Looking at it now, of course, when so many things shown on popular television are far stronger meat than anything on the menu here and when films like the banned, uncut Zombie Flesh Eaters are readily available nowadays at your local video store (if you can still find a video store standing), one wonders why it was even on the radar as a video nasty in the first place (see my review of a documentary detailing that particularly dark period in the BBFCs evil history here - Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide). Of course, looking at the majority of films on that list, some of which seemed quite tame even by 70s and 80s standards, one could ask oneself the same question of pretty much most of the films that had the misfortune of ending up on that list.

The Werewolf and The Yeti, however, is not a great hidden gem, as it turns out. It’s certainly one of the more competently shot in the series, with some occasional nice designs and transitions...  and with a certain clean, uncluttered look about it... but it’s also less interesting in terms of the Daninsky series as a whole, which is a shame because the setting and plot, such as it is, are something which could have fuelled a really great “hombre lobo” film.

It starts off quite strongly with three snowbound explorers being attacked by the yeti of the title. Our scene then shifts to London, Westminster. And how do the Spanish film-makers further support the obvious visual and tell the audience that this part of the movie is set in England? Well that’s easy isn’t it? You just play Scottish bagpipes over the shot, so people know it’s London. Um. Wait! What?

Anyway, an elderly professor and his beautiful daughter are planning a trip to Tibet to track down the yeti who destroyed the last expedition, so the professor sends for world famous anthropologist and psychologist Waldemar Daninsky, as played by Paul Naschy.

Wait. Hang on!

"Since when is Waldemar Daninsky a world famous anthropologist and psychologist?" you may ask yourself. Well, since they decided to make this movie, I guess? The professor wants Daninsky, not just for these credentials but because he can apparently speak fluent Tibetan.

Of course, right? Whatever...

We’ve often seen Daninsky burst into snatches of Tibetan before, right? Maybe that’s the growling sound he makes whenever he turns into a werewolf because I’m buggered if I can remember a movie where he was a master of such foreign languages.

Moving swiftly on...

After the expedition has started, Daninsky and his guide, who looks like a giant bear, cross eyed version of Peter Lorre on steroids, scout ahead for the professor and his team and the guide promptly vanishes under the snow when he goes mad about being in the valley of the howling devils, or some such. It all happens so fast. Waldemar is alone against the elements but, a minute or so later, he stumbles into some kind of Tibetan temple cavern in a mountain and promptly faints. He is alone with two good looking ladies, guardians of the temple, who nurse him back to health and decide to keep him prisoner as he will be, and I quote, “a good companion and an ardent lover.” Obviously not happy about being the dedicated sex slave of two gorgeous women (because who would be, eh?) he tries to escape, only to stumble across the two of them eating bits of somebody, possibly Daninsky’s former guide, in their dining area... also known as “the floor”. The women promptly turn into she-wolves and bite Waldemar before he escapes, quickly transforming him into the angst ridden werewolf creature we know and love.

Oh hold on a minute!

This is preposterous. How many bloody times do we have to put up with another origin story for this character! We saw him turn into a werewolf back in 1968 in Mark Of The Wolfman (aka Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror) and since then we’ve seen him rebooted and re-bitten afresh with absolutely no reference to his past in almost every movie. What are these writers playing at? He’s Waldemar Daninsky. He is always played by Paul Naschy but... he has a different origin in practically every movie. C’mon guys! Nobody’s memory is that bad! I just don’t get it.

Anyway, while Daninsky has been having his adventures, the main expedition has been set upon by bandits who are lead by a man who is clinging on for life and who is manipulated by the evil scientist woman who has promised to keep him alive through alchemical means derived from her hobby of torturing people. The professor’s daughter is her prisoner, as is Daninsky who has since learned that a special flower that grows only in Tibet, mixed with the blood of a woman who loves him, will cure him of his werewolvery ways (which I think must be the fanboy who is Paul Naschy referencing the Marifasa Lupina flower from my all time favourite werewolf movie, Werewolf Of London, which was Universal’s first attempt at establishing a werewolf myth back in 1935) . All hell soon breaks loose and the beast lurking inside Waldemar’s tortured heart kills all the villains (and pretty much everyone except his main squeeze) before he is suddenly startled by the roaming yeti (finally) from the pre-credits sequence.

In a startling let down of expectations, werewolf and yeti fight... and when I say fight I mean trade a couple of blows before Daninsky bites the yeti on the neck and kills him, right before the girl accidentally finds the flower and, following the instructions she wasn’t in any way present to hear in the scene in which they were revealed, mixes her blood with it and gives it to Waldmemar to eat. Waldemar is cured and the two go off arm in arm into the sunset.

In the snow.

In the snowy, snowy, snow setting sunset in Tibet where they probably won’t make it back alive before freezing to death but, hey ho, you’re not supposed to imagine what comes next after the credits have rolled in these kinds of movies, are you?

The Werewolf And The Yeti is a nice looking entry into the series, to be sure, but ultimately it’s also one of the weaker ones and I wasnt’t all that entertained by the onscreen antics past the opening promises of snowy settings to the werewolvery action. And, big tip for the marketing people? The print I saw of this movie is called The Werewolf And The Yeti. This raises expectations of their being some sizeable “yeti action” in it. However, the time spent with the actual yeti is abominably small - a few seconds at the start of the film and, maybe not quite two minutes right at the end does not constitute the kind of yeti co-starring status I was expecting from your title. So all in all, I would only recommend this one to people who are already fans of this series of films. This is not a good jumping on point (which might explain why it’s so maddeningly hard to get hold of) and I would point people in the direction of something like the much better Dr. Jekyll And The Wolfman for a good one in this series to watch instead.

My review of the book Muchos Gracias Senor Lobo is here

Some of the other films in this series are reviewed by me here...

Assignment Terror
The Beast And The Magic Sword
Fury Of The Wolfman
Howl Of The Devil 

The Man With The Severed Head

Giving Head

The Man With The Severed Head
1973 Spain/France
Directed by Juan Fortuny
Arrow Films DVD Region 0

So, before I tell you about this film, let me tell you of my personal Mystery Of The Man With The Severed Head.

A couple of years ago I was on my lonesome, browsing through the horror section of Fopp records, when I noticed this Paul Naschy movie on their shelves. I made a mental note to buy the thing when I next had some spare cash but, as luck would have it, by the time I’d gotten home I’d completely forgotten the title of the movie (one of many I’ve forgotten under similar circumstances). I’d told nobody I wanted to see this and I wouldn’t have been able to recall the title to order a copy for myself if I’d wanted to anyway. The film soon passed from memory.

Imagine my surprise then when, a number of weeks ago, a non-franked, plain white padded envelope arrived for me with my name and address ink jet printed onto a label, containing this particular film, The Man With The Severed Head. No note, no compliments slip, no kind of traceable details. Just the movie, brand new, still in shrink-wrap.

Can you, in fact, imagine the full, horrifying implication of my surprise?

Frankly, since only a handful of people had my address and almost none of them even knows who Paul Naschy is, my only logical conclusion was to perceive this inflammatory cinematic epistle as a death threat. I tried to trace who would send me this sinister package in the post but to no avail. If it had been called The Fluffy Bunnies Meet The Easter Beagle then I probably wouldn’t have worried about is so much and for so long. But The Man With The Severed Head? I thought about notifying the police but, fortunately, held off for a couple of weeks and, luckily the mystery was finally solved. If you want to know the end of this story, and why some of you who I know read this blog might have received a similar package in the post, I’ll clear that all up at the end of this review.

So onto the film itself...

The Man With The Severed Head is a terrible movie.

There’s no two ways about it. It would have been nice if it had been so terrible it was also really enjoyable but, alas, while there are moments of unintentional laughs to be found in it, it’s mostly just really dull and frankly, unwatchable, for a lot of its running time. And that’s a shame because I do quite like Paul Naschy.

To further rub salt in the wounds, the film starts off really well and I was really getting into it for the first ten minutes. It begins with a store robbery that goes wrong when one of a safecracker’s gang accidentally sets off an alarm and they are being chased by the police in a low budget car chase. During this time the boss/safecracker, played by Paul Naschy, gets shot and the gang get their resident “patcher-upper” of a doctor to try to operate on the bullet that has penetrated Naschy’s head but it’s no use. Then, rather than take their boss to a hospital, the “patcher-upper” takes the gang to the only real and obvious choice left to them. He takes them all to his ex-student scientist friend who says he is able to help Naschy by grafting extra brain from a freshly severed head.

Because, yeah! That’s always the correct solution, right?

The film gets convoluted and details the rivalry between two criminal gangs as our “heroes” kill and behead the rival gang’s leader’s head to help out Naschy and everyone is trying to kill each other while Naschy starts taking on certain sadistic and animalistic traits of the other gang’s former boss. And of course, the only way they could think to cut off the rival gang leaders head was to position him in the path of an oncoming train.

Yes, I’m not making this up.

This film is filled with incompetent characters and bizarre moments of badly simulated sex (um... there’s no way you’re even anywhere near target with your naughty parts in rough proximity to hers mister actor), most of which are from another, alternate cut by the looks of it but which have been added as deleted scenes on the DVD extras. There’s also a bizarre song and dance number which is so badly edited into the actual body of the film, that I’m pretty sure that it originally came from a completely different film altogether and is just spliced into this one without any real thought about matching up the sets, style or colours etc.

Yeah, I know. It sounds ludicrous and like it should be one of the most entertaining bad movies going... trust me, it’s not. It’s just bad.

The opening sequences are really good but Naschy drops out as a character and only comes back for brief scenes in the last third of the movie, which is a shame because I’m thinking if he had been given more of a role in this the movie might have at least survived the passage of time as something even remotely watchable. Alas, it didn’t. And that’s all I’ve really got to say about it.

I tried watching it with the English audio dub at first (because I thought that was the original soundtrack) but soon switched to the French with English subtitles option. Why? Well lets just say that the phrase translated from the French as “don’t be playing the fool” turned up on the English dub in a grotty British accent which had decided to dub the line as “Don’t be a c*nt!” This level of profanity is pretty out-of-place to the kind of film it is and the time period it was made (although I have no problems believing it actually went out like this on original UK release prints, if it indeed was ever released theatrically in the UK) that I guessed pretty early on that the film had not been shot in English. Although, maybe I should have left the English dub on for comical effect?

The Arrow DVD comes with an additional but, I’m sorry, badly knocked up “documentary” on Paul Naschy... but I use the term documentary lightly because it really is not at all informative about the man’s career or life and the various people talking about him (between bizarrely unrelated clips which don’t match what most of them are talking about, presumably due to licensing restrictions) merely serve as a study of the man’s good character and don’t really tell you too much. The only saving grace of this DVD that I could see, asides from the handsomely morbid cover art and the reversible sleeve with one of the foreign posters for the movie, is the roughly two minutes of footage in the extra feature where we see “the first lady of fantasy” Caroline Munro being interviewed about Naschy... now that was a welcome touch.

All in all, though, I’d have to say it’s well worth giving this movie a wide berth. I can’t imagine sitting through this one again and I am just grateful I didn’t actually buy it myself a couple of years ago when I saw it in Fopp.

But at least I know who sent it, now.

A friend, Jason, who has a stall at some of the Film Fairs I occasionally go to, told me that it was Arrow Films themselves who had sent this particular package out to a load of people. Remember in my Zombie Flesh Eaters review (read it here) I’d warned that the first pressing of that was short a few seconds after the opening credits and that you had to send the first disc back to Arrow to get a corrected one (which they did and it arrived very promptly)... well this is a follow up for everybody who paid the postage to send that disc back to them, apparently. Everybody on that list gets sent a free copy of The Man With The Severed Head as compensation. It’s a really nice after thought and good customer service, although I’m sure they probably picked their slowest seller to give out for free. It really is a bad movie. Still, it’s really good of them to do that and they should be applauded... even if they didn’t tell people about it and probably loads of people also now believe they have had a death threat... honestly, just a compliment slip would have been nice.

Mystery On Monster Island

A Verne For The Worse

Mystery On Monster Island
1981 Spain/USA
Directed by Juan Piquer Simón
Midnite Movies DVD Region 1

This film first came to my attention only a couple of weeks ago when I finished reading the excellent book on Paul Naschy promotional material, Muchos Gracias Senor Lobo (reviewed here). I saw some beautiful poster artwork for this movie in this book and, not only did it seem to star Paul Naschy... top billing went to Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp. Furthermore, it was also based on the writings of one of my favourite writers, Jules Verne, so there was no way I wasn’t going to order the cheap Midnite Movies edition off of Amazon for less than a fiver!

I’d assumed, when I first saw the poster, that the Jules Verne tale this one took as its source would have been my favourite of his tales, the semi-sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea... Mysterious Island. There were no monsters in the original tale of that one, of course, but there is a mystery at the story’s heart and famous adaptations of that particular work in the past have often featured giant monsters of one kind or another (heck... I even have a 1950s cinema serial of Mysterious Island which also sees fit to include invaders from another planet lead by a dominant queen) so this was my first guess on the source.

And of course I was dead wrong... something which most reviewers of this movie, it seems, tend to ignore or remain ignorant of when doing their own research on the subject! Being as most of them seem to proclaim that this movie is based on Mysterious Island. Not so!

In actual fact, the film is based on Verne’s work School for Robinsons, which I believe may well have been a partial sequel to one of his many other, interlocking books but unfortunately, my little knowledge of Verne is sadly limited to the 10 or 12 of them which are continually kept in print in the UK... and we have nothing like the whole of his work available to us over here (although maybe if I joined the Kindle revolution?). So, having said that, I obviously can’t judge as to whether this movie is a good adaptation.

What I can say for definite is... it’s a mostly lousy movie. It does have some cheesy looking monsters in it and, obviously, that can only be a good thing... but ultimately, this movie never really succeeds in hitting that mark where, “it’s so bad it’s good”. Instead, becoming a mostly tiresome and plodding effort which you will probably find yourself wishing to end sooner rather than later.

It’s a bit of a strange beast as well because it’s obviously a childrens film - certainly, the comic relief character is squarely and irritatingly pitched at a younger audience in the most over the top manner you wouldn’t even catch on an episode of Playschool and, since he seems to get the majority of the screen time, it’s pretty much a kid’s holiday film at heart. Much less a family film than it is a youngster’s glittery distraction. However, saying that, Paul Naschy is seen taking a few blood squib explosions to his body very early on in the proceedings and is depicted with both his arms literally running red with blood... which is interesting considering the obvious target audience. I really couldn’t imagine this got much, if any, of a release in this country at the time.

Which leads me into Paul Naschy’s demise and the way that he and the two actors who take top billing are treated. This must have been a really cheap movie because Naschy lasts less than five minutes on screen before he is blown up and drops out of the story. Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp fare a little better... but not by much. Cushing and Stamp really only appear for 5 minutes or so at the start of the film and 10 minutes maybe at the end. The budget obviously didn’t stretch to having them on set for very long and, for the rest of the movie, the beleaguered audience has to make do with two male leads who, between them, seem to show either a total lack of personality or, in the case of the comic relief, an overabundance of obvious and overblown comedy enthusiasm. This doesn’t make for good viewing. What’s worse is that Terence Stamp is supposed to be the main villain but for the majority of the picture the main villain and his many henchmen run around with their bodys and heads totally covered in heavy masks and coats... presumably because the cheap budget meant that the producers had to hide the fact that they didn’t have Terence Stamp on set most of the time, instead electing to dub his voice on a hidden actor's lines instead.

Having said all that, there were a few things which made it so, as bored as I was, the movie wasn’t one I actually regretted seeing... although it was a close call. The monsters are mostly fairly cheesy and this lends the few scenes where you actually see some, a certain amount of amusement (or at least more amusement than the official comic relief provides, at any rate).

Secondly, in an effort to defend their desert island home from Stamp’s villainous horde, our irritating heroes construct some defences around the piece of sand they call their home. One of the things they make, although I’ve no idea how, is a homemade Gatling gun made of bamboo chutes which rapidly fires bananas at the turn of a handle. This is, of course, something of a stroke of genius and I am, and always will be, happy to say I’ve seen a film in which a banana firing, bamboo-chute Gatling gun is used to ward off a bunch of antagonists.

A third thing, which is another mixed bag, is the music. The composing credit doesn’t come up until the end of this one but it seems to be put together by three separate composers. So I’m guessing this means the movie has a needle-drop style score, from a library of universal cues written by these particular composers... or the film had a very troubled production history (which I suspect is probably the case). Or possibly, even, a less than thrilling combination of both of those elements. Either way, there’s a really strident and neat tune which is played quite a lot throughout the movie at various points which really does catch the ear. Unfortunately, though, it’s completely inappropriate to any of the scenes it’s used to score. So while I am quite happy to keep this as my own personal earworm, and would rush to buy the score to this movie if anyone is wise (or perhaps foolish) enough to release it... I would have to say that the movie itself suffers from the inclusion of most of the music here and if anything, the score robs the lacklustre shot design and jarring edits of any kind of power it might have had a chance at gaining and kind of makes things a lot worse most of the time.

Nice music though.

And there’s no more really to say about this one. I don’t regret buying this movie (banana Gatling gun, remember?) but this is definitely not a film I’d recommend to many people, even die hard B-movie enthusiasts who have a love of cheesy monsters. It’s just not that noteworthy I’m afraid. For the jaded and curious only, I would say. All others may be best advised to keep their distance. The greatest mystery of Mystery On Monster Island is how the budget holders were persuaded to let loose their purse strings and unleash such a piece of uninspired tosh into the world.

Muchos Gracias Senor Lobo

Paper Naschy

Muchos Gracias Senor Lobo
by Thorsten Benzel
Creepy Images 
ISBN: 978-3000393419

This marvellous tome was given to me by “a very good friend” recently for my birthday... because she knew just how much I wanted to read it. Now, while the book isn’t quite what I was expecting it to be, I was so struck by the design and beauty of this limited edition that I really wasn’t overly worried and, as it happens, this proved an absolutely amazing read, in addition to the heady experience of looking over the thousands of beautiful posters, lobby cards, locandinas and foto busta reproductions which make up 99% of the book. It really is one of the three or four most beautiful books I’ve ever owned... right up there with Tim Lucas’ All The Colours Of The Dark (his epic work on director Mario Bava... and I mean epic) and my Taschen book, The Pedro Almodovar Archives (reviewed here).

Now, when I first caught sight of this wonder on the internet, I was labouring under the false impresssion that this book, which has all the text in two languages (one of which is English), was concerned with talking about the films of Paul Naschy... who was perhaps most famous for his Waldemar Daninsky wolfman character which he played on and off for a number of decades. Well this is not strictly true, although, it certainly is one of the most valuable resources on the films of Paul Naschy there is (possibly the most indispensable actually). I don’t think you would find as fine a collection of posters and lobby cards etc as comprehensive as this printed anywhere else. However, the sharper eyed among you may have noticed the subtitle of the book is actually “Paul Naschy Memorabilia” and while the book features all these quite rare and opulent examples of various promotional materials on a film by film basis, it turns out that it is these artefacts from the films themselves, and not the actual films, that are the source of discussion here.

The book is put together by a private collector of Paul Naschy items and, while there is obviously some technical background on the origins of each movie, the main thrust of the information is all to do with the history of each movie as seen by it’s release patterns and paper trail, so to speak.

Curiously, the book only goes up to the 1987 Naschy movie El Aullido Del Diablo (aka Howl Of The Devil, reviewed here), which co-starred the extraordinary Caroline Munro... and then covers some of the other films in a short appendix which also has some amazing poster artwork in it (I ordered a cheap copy of Mystery On Monster Island on DVD after finishing this book because of that appendix). So what would be a typical chapter here would be some bumph about the movie, followed by the curiosities manifest in the different styles of advertising campaign materials in different countries - things like a company logo being printed on the bottom right of a poster identical to another except for the absence of that logo or the fact that one country’s run of lobby cards was printed on a slightly thicker stock but printed offset litho instead of some other process. Some of the most amusing differences from territory to territory are the way in which some countries censor nudity... some will allow it, others will put little stars over ladies’ nipples and yet another went to quite elaborate lengths to “pen and ink” ladies underwear onto some of the actresses. All very strange but interesting.

Now, I’m a graphic designer for print, so I naturally found most of this stuff really fascinating anyway, but the real icing on the cake, and the strength of this book, is that the writer is able to then show you all these things illustrated in full colour with a wonderful (old, decaying book) background which is printed under the text and pictures on every page, presumably chosen to give the photographs of this rare, archival material a bit of 'lift' off the page in contrast. It’s really wonderful stuff and, even if there had been no accompanying text with each section, it would still be one of the most essential purchases going... not just for longstanding fans of Paul Naschy, but for anyone interested in knowing the ins and outs of the way films are marketed in different areas.

This is, untypically, one of my shortest reviews, but that’s because I really have nothing bad to say about this particular volume. The myriad illustrations of brightly coloured movie advertising confections coupled with the sheer enthusiasm and passion of the writer, who has obviously spent many decades putting together this collection of rare and sometimes rescued items, are more than enough to ensure this is a book I shall return to for reference and, well, to just lose myself in the pictures, time and time again. If you are a fan of either Paul Naschy, horror films or movie advertising in particular, I urge you to snap up one of the last copies of this book before it passes you by. An absolutely thrilling work of reference which is an absolutely essential purchase for lovers of film.

And another big thank you to my “extra special friend” who got me the book in the first place.

For some of my Paul Naschy movie reviews, check these links below...

Assignment Terror
http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/assignment-terror.html

Fury Of The Wolfman
http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/like-werewolf-scorned.html

The Beast And The Magic Sword
http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/werewolf-vs-samurai.html

Howl Of The Devil
http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/howl-of-devil.html

Attack Of The Werewolves

Hairs and Graces

Attack Of The Werewolves
aka Game of Werewolves 
aka Lobos de Arga
Spain 2011
Directed by Juan Martínez Moreno
Kaleidoscope Region 2

I first became aware of Attack Of The Werewolves about 2 months ago... but it’s only been released over here on DVD for about 2 weeks now. As usual with these kinds of films, it’s gone straight to home video over here and bypassed a cinema release, which is where I would have preferred to go and see it.

When I first read that this was a new Spanish werewolf movie, I immediately assumed this was going to be an homage to the late, great Paul Naschy werewolf movies, which he made about his famous, continuity challenged wolfman character Waldemar Daninsky in 13 films from 1968 to 2004 (I review four of them here, here, here and here). Although the prosthetic make-up on the actors playing the various wolfmen in this movie owes more to the Naschy style and look than it does to ‘the curse of CGI’, it would be true  to say that there’s not that much else that this movie has in common with those earlier Naschy ‘classics’.

In fact, this film turns out to be something I really wasn’t expecting (especially since the UK packaging makes it look more like a dark and sinister horror movie than the marketing in other territories)... it’s a horror comedy... with a lot of the emphasis on the comedy.

Now comedy horror films are nothing new and it’s a testament to how well the two genres mix that they have been around for so long. I think the reason for this is because the horror genre, in particular, is so easy to understand that the rules of the horror film need a little extra to keep the genre alive sometimes. Because audiences understand and read horror texts so well in a cinematic setting, it’s such an easy one to cross pollinate with other genres. That’s why you get horror-westerns and, especially, horror/comedies, right the way back to movies where Universal allowed their once successful back-catalogue horror icons to be used for the blockbuster success that was Bud Abbot And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948... which brought three famous actors back to roles they had played earlier for Universal; Lon Chaney Jr as Lawrence Talbot/The Wolfman, Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein monster (a part he had played in the previous two Universal outings for this monster). This movie actually did much more to revive Abbot and Costello’s ailing career (and gave them a long second wind) than it did the Universal monsters, to be honest, but it does prove that horror serves the mistress of comedy well when it’s harnessed for this kind of cinema-going experience.

So back to the movie on hand... what’s this fine example of the genre about? Well...

When an unsuccessful writer returns to his childhood village, he doesn’t know that he is invited to be the main course for a werewolf in order to break the curse set on the village by his ancestors 100 years ago. Only his childhood friend, his agent and his trusty and comical pet dog are on hand to help him. There’s not much more you need to know other than that.

Bereft of any really strong female characters, until the end, the movie still managed to keep me totally entertained and even made me laugh (which is kinda hard these days) in a few places. Everybody plays the movie with a straight face but there’s also a curious, almost underplayed attitude in some of the roles which make it even easier to believe the fantastic and mostly comical ‘werewolf shenanigans’ you see on screen.

The main protagonist’s pet dog is the real star of the show and as its antics on screen get more and more Looney Tunes cartoon-like and crazy, you are willing to suspend your disbelief because everyone is buying into their own roles so much. There is hardly ever a sign of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ and the camaraderie of the characters and the way they interact carries the film through completely. There’s even a heroic policeman towards the end of the movie who works surprisingly well and has at least one surprise up his sleeve, which he blatantly states on screen before the movie makers actually spring it on you a little later in the film’s running time.

This one doesn’t skimp on the gory effects either... which is possibly why it didn’t get a cinema release over here (although the DVD carries a 15 rating so they could probably have got away with attracting the teens). It’s not excessively gory and people who are used to watching horror films won’t see anything that will in any way disturb them, but it doesn’t pull back from showing, for instance, a torn throat or a severed arm and the effects of those kinds of injuries. And there’s one instance involving severed fingers (which I don’t want to spoil here... but which was done in a US thriller in 2005 in much the same spirit of hilarity) that will probably have you laughing out loud.

What the director does, very well, is handle these gory sequences and walks the thin line between too much and too little without killing off either the light hearted tone of the overall feel of the movie or harming the sense of peril and danger you get when you are rooting for the main protagonists to survive their ordeal. It’s a well crafted little horror/comdy delight, competently shot, nicely framed and with a pacing that is just about right... with maybe a couple of false stops near the start to set up the characters a little more.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about this one really. A great little genre movie that really needs a bit more mainstream recognition, as I think it’s a film which would be hard for most people not to appreciate. Certainly if you’re a fan of either horror comedy films or werewolf movies, it’s well worth putting this one on your shopping list. It’s no howler.

Assignment: Terror

Rennie Dreadful?

Assignment: Terror

(aka Dracula Versus Frankenstein aka

The Man Who Came From Ummo)

Spain/Germany/Italy 1970

Directed by Tulio Demicheli

The Camden Collection Region 0

Spoilers: This review pits spoiler against spoiler in a spoilerific mash-up that can only end in inevitable death by big explosions!

Okay... let me make something clear before I start my review of this awesome movie. This film is not to be confused with Al Adamson’s 1971 movie Dracula Versus Frankenstein (despite having the same title in some territories) which I’ve already reviewed here. Neither is it the version being sold in some countries on DVD as Dracula Versus Frankenstein which seems to be cut down by almost a half an hour. This “review” version is pretty much uncut... although it’s probably not in its correct aspect ratio.

This movie was the last film made by everyone’s favourite peace loving alien Michael Rennie (Klatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still) but in this movie he’s playing the bad guy... well, bad alien in fact. Sent to earth by his alien superiors, he is assisted by two resurrected earth scientists (one played by Karin Dor, who played the first German Bond girl in scenes in You Only Live Twice) in his attempt to kill off and control the planets population by... wait for it... resurrecting four of our worlds supernatural monsters to create a force of deadly destruction... or at least a fresh supply of victims to hold mankind enthralled in the fear created by its own superstitious beliefs.

I’m guessing this would take quite a lot of time to do since these monsters are not the size of a behemoth but what do I know. The similarly plotted Godzilla movie Invasion Of The Astro Monster (aka Godzilla Versus Monster Zero) seems to me to be a much more credible version of the same plot line in that, at the very least, monsters like Godzilla, Rhodan and King Gidhora leave a much more effective wake in their particular force of deadly destruction.

To be more specific... Michael Rennie’s plan involves bringing back to consciousness and using Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster (called something very similar, presumably to evade copyright but there’s frankly no doubt on screen as to who this Karloff-styled creature is supposed to be), The Mummy and The Wolfman and setting them loose on the Earth faster than you can say “Klatu Baradu Nikto.” And if that’s not interesting enough... The Wolfman character in this one is none other than the great Paul Naschy in his Waldemar Daninsky wolfman role. Naschy also wrote the movie and this is only his second appearance in the role (not counting the possible “lost” movie in the series). Unlike many of the later Waldemar Daninsky movies, Naschy’s wolfman character is actually given a credible explanation for being resurrected (instead of just reappearing as though the last film in the series never happened). He has almost no dialogue for most of the movie and very much plays a supporting role until the final third where he returns to his former glory and does a very creditable job... making the part his own once more and giving the role a certain conviction.

Dracula is brought back to life in exactly the same way he is brought back in Universal’s House Of Frankenstein, by removing the stake from the chest of his skeleton which is being exhibited in a side show carnival. This is almost certainly a deliberate homage from Naschy, who loved those old movies, but the make ups on both Dracula and the Frankenstein monster are... well not terrible but not great. The Daninsky wolfman make up is fine, however, but the one make-up job which really is quite good on this one is The Mummy... which manages to capture and crossbreed the withered Karloff as Imhotep face from Universals original 1932 version, with the walking bandaged visage of Kharis played by both Tom Tyler and Lon Chaney Jr in the sequels. The Mummy in this film is pretty eerie... although he doesn’t do that much, it has to be said.

Above all though... this movie is fun with a capital “F”! The policeman trying to work out the cause of the strange deaths in his city has a groovy, sixties, swinging theme tune that follows him around in his investigation and a main squeeze, who is “sixties cute”. They are, of course, no match for Michael Rennie’s permanently smirking alien villain but this is okay because Waldemar Daninsky comes to the rescue when our hero is ensconced in his vampire-bat death trap and as for Rennie, well he’s on to a loser from the start as his freshly undead human scientists fall prey to weak human emotions such as love.

This film is a great laugh. I can only refrain from commenting on the artistry of the cinematography because I’m pretty sure the transfer I saw is, as I said previously, in the wrong aspect ratio, but the film ends up with monster fighting monster... I especially liked the bit where Naschy’s wolfman traps The Mummy in something which is very similar to a mouse or hamster exercise wheel and then sets fire to him. Very funny... err... I mean chilling, very chilling!

There’s not really a lot more I can say about this film without damaging it in the eyes of some but certainly raising its credibility in the eyes of others. Seriously folks... this is a Paul Naschy movie from the Waldemar Daninsky canon that involves space aliens trying to conquer the earth using Universal style monsters... how could this movie ever put a foot wrong? Answer... it doesn’t. It’s brilliant trash and it seriously deserves a proper, commercially produced widescreen transfer... and so does its modern audience, most of whom exist without any proper access to this movie. Get on the case now. It’s brilliant!

Howl of the Devil

Naschyville

Howl of the Devil (aka El aullido del diablo aka Howling of the Devil) Spain 1987
Directed by Paul Naschy
The Camden Collection Region 0

Howl of the Devil was directed by Paul Naschy and he also plays several roles in this one too, including a quick cameo from everybody’s favourite Paul Naschy character, Waldemar Daninsky (in his wolfman form).

I bought this, frankly quite bad transfer off of a Spanish TV channel, because it’s a film in which Naschy pays homage to many of the great monster creations from the 30s that he loves... there’s even a spiel about them by way of a written prologue to the film by the looks of it. Unfortunately the transfer was just too bad to make out what any of the words were, with the only word prominent enough to be able to be read being KARLOFF... so I’m assuming Naschy is happy to wear his influences on his sleeve and be upfront about them from the start.

There's also an extra special bonus... and I don’t think I realised this when I bought it... in that this film co-stars the one and only screen presence who is “the first lady of fantasy” Caroline Munro! Woohoo! One of my favourite women of all time in a Paul Naschy movie! Sorted. I’d actually read in an interview with Naschy a few years back that she was in one of his movies but I didn’t really twig that it was this one. Nacshy had been asked who, of all his leading actresses he’d worked with over the years, would be the one he’d most want to work with again. Of course, he named Caroline... which just shows the man’s good sense and taste is my view.

Howl of the Devil is a curious little film and quite unlike anything else I’ve seen Naschy do... mind you, bear in mind that I’ve only ever seen his Werewolf movies and this really doesn’t count as an entry in that series because the Daninsky character is only in the film for... well... probably less than a minute.

The set up is unusual...

Naschy plays a villainous, unsuccessful actor who’s dead brother, also played by Naschy, was a successful film talent. He lives with his brother's son who he hates and a cleaning lady called Carmen who comes in regularly, played by the aforementioned and gorgeous Caroline Munro. He repeatedly tries to lure Carmen into performing sexual favours for him with the promise of wealth and its rewards, but she is having none of it. His other hobby is to get his butler to pick up young lady hitchhikers and to sexually molest them under a famous horror-style role such as Bluebeard, Rasputin or Fu Manchu.

Meanwhile, his poor brother’s son talks with various phantoms projected by his dead acting father which are also Paul Naschy in famous roles and make-ups such as the Frankenstein Monster (in full Jack Pearce style), Quasimodo, Mr. Hyde or The Phantom of the Opera and this, of course, more than gives Naschy enough time to demonstrate his versatility as an actor... much more so than in his other movies. Actually, although most of these films are filled with bad acting, if you keep your eye on Naschy you’ll probably realise that he’s always quite believable in his roles and that, no matter how ridiculous his lines are (and they often are beyond ridiculous), he always takes his parts seriously and sells his roles well... which is obviously more than you can usually expect from a lot of the actors who populate these kinds of pictures.

I have to say that Caroline Munro acquits herself quite well in this one (well no surprise there then... she’s always fantastic) but it’s actually quite strange and disconcerting hearing her dubbed over with a Spanish voice. It almost, but not quite, threatens to pull the actual acting under with it but I’m happy to report that she takes the role very seriously indeed and it’s not hard to understand why Naschy would have liked to have worked with her again some day.

The film itself, if truth be told, is really not a very good one and the synthesised score shines at best but mostly just keeps up and doesn’t quite support the atmosphere at worst. There’s a nice little homage to Universal when the young boy asks the Waldemar Daninsky Wolfman character if he’s been talking to Lawrence Talbot who suffers from similar problems but these kind of enthusiastic references to the rich history of the genre, couple with some great make-ups from Paul Naschy and the beautiful eye-candy of Caroline Munro do not add up to the fact that this is probably one of the least fun of Naschy’s films that I’ve seen. This is by no means a criticism of the movie as a whole... just an observation. It is, however, one of the more curious entries in the cycle of horror movies that Naschy made in his quite considerable career and it even has quite a good little twist ending which I didn’t see coming. Which is kinda unusual for me.

Not a brilliant or as entertaining a film as many of his others but certainly a curio that’s worth some of your viewing time if you’re a fan of Naschy in general. Just don’t expect the excessive blood and thunder of some of his more familiar movies.

For my reviews of a couple of others of Naschy’s many wolfman movies, please click here for The Beast and the Magic Sword and here for Fury of the Wolfman.

Like a Werewolf Scorned

Fury of the Wolfman

(aka La Furia del Hombre Lobo

aka The Wolfman Never Sleeps)

Shot in 1970 but released in 1972 Spain

Directed by José María Zabalza

The Camden Collection DVD Region 0

Fury of the Wolfman is the fourth (or third if you discount legends of the “lost film”) in the cycle of Paul Naschy’s 12 movies about the Waldemar Daninsky character made between 1968 and 2004.

I would also have to say, it’s certainly the worst of the seven Naschy movies that I’ve seen to feature the titular wolfman/Daninsky character. And it’s really a shame too because the movie started off extraordinarily well... for a Daninsky movie.

Unlike most of the other movies I’ve seen in this “loose series”, the film opens with some really good cinematography (reminiscent perhaps of the gialli that were being made in Italy at the time) with excellent use of contrasting colours and some quite unexpectedly competent sound design which gives the earlier sections of the film a nice, genuinely haunted atmosphere. In these start up sequences we are given yet another “origin"... this time around Waldemar has recently been bitten by a yeti during his scientific research visit in Tibet, although I believe this has nothing to do with the later entry into the series - The Werewolf and the Yeti (aka Night of the Howling Beast). Now I’m getting quite used, as I said in an earlier Daninsky review a month or so ago, to Naschy’s recurring character having a new and completely different origin to his lycanthropic curse in each movie... just as I am getting used to him being killed for good at the end of each picture, only to return in the next film in the series without any fanfare or continuity from the last picture.

That being said... Why was Daninsky on a scientific expedition in Tibet in the first place? You guessed it... because in this film he’s a scientist. What? So Waldemar Daninsky is a scientist now? Okay. And everyone is calling him Professor Daninsky? Okay, I can live with that. Paul Naschy is not the best actor in the world but compared to the lame theatrics displayed by most of the rest of the cast in these films... well... if they say he’s a scientist then he’s a scientist. He doesn’t possess a pipe though so I’m not 100% sure I can buy into that idea completely.

The soundtrack of the film uses a lot of audio flashbacks of conversations with words like pentagram repeated almost endlessly in a not bad trick which works quite well at the beginning of the movie to help create a certain sense of impending dread. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cheesy and cliched way of handling things but it’s actually quite sophisticated and reined in compared to what I'd usually expect from these kinds of movies. But like I said earlier, it doesn’t take long for this film to take a detour into being an absolute mess of celluloid.

Here’s what I could make out of the plot in a nutshell (and if I had a nutshell I’d stick it in there and give it to a squirrel to horde somewhere far from me!)...

After being bitten by said yeti, Daninsky returns to Spain to continue his scientific research job with a fellow scientist, a woman with whom he has had a passionate three year fling in the past, prior to his marriage to another woman. Now I know this other woman is definitely a scientist because she keeps using terms like “chemitrodes”... rather a lot actually. I don’t know what a chemitrode is exactly but this lady loves them.

Anyway, Daninsky finds his wife having an affair with another man, but they’ve “fixed” the brakes on his car and he crashes it into a tree. He survives the crash and returns home to find his wife and her lover... the full moon has it’s usual effect on him and he kills them... or “wolfs them up good” as I like to say. During his hairy frenzy, he manages to electrocute himself to death. His ex-lady friend colleague takes his body away to her scientific retreat which seems to be a castle of some sort... easily affordable as a second home if you’re a scientist and dealing with unwieldy and worrying things like chemitrodes in your workplace, apparently.

She revives Waldemar with her chemitrodal meddling in her attempt to alter his mind... a term called “human zebra” here... but whatever it’s called, the plot is just not going to stay black & white for long. While she goes away for some supplies for her dastardly experiments (presumably Chemitrodes R Us is open 24/7), Waldemar rekindles love with a young scientific assistant whom he is trapped in the castle with... along with some drug crazed mutant hippies who sometimes seem to be their friends and sometimes attack them. In fact... by this point I’ve got no idea what’s going on anymore... other than the fact that Waldemar finds the affair his wife was having was caused by mad scientist lady altering his wife’s and her lover’s hypothalmus with... oh, you know what with by now. Those chemitrodes have a lot to answer for... it was all a plot to kill Waldemar so she could revive him and control him.

But seriously, by now the editing has got the better of this film... Why is Walfdemar’s girlfriend attacked by someone hiding in a suit of armour? Why is there a masked figure stalking the castle? Why are the hippie people friendly, then hostile, then friendly again, then hostile... honestly, by this point it’s like somebody has got all the footage cut in little strips, thrown it into the air, and re-edited into a sequence that makes no sense from shot to shot. I truly believe that the director, who was apparently disliked by Naschy and apparently spent a lot of the time drunk, just didn’t get the footage required to be able to edit this mess into a coherent, decodable narrative. More’s the pity since it had such a promising opening (been a while since I saw a promising opening but since I’m not writing a porn blog I’ll refrain from going down that avenue, gentle reader).

All I know for sure is that the scorned scientist revives Waldemar’s dead wife who is now infected with the lycnthropy passed on for her husband and you get to see two werewolves fight before Waldemar gets killed... again... and finds his final peace... which will be shattered when he revives for the next film in the series.

Fury of the Wolfman is, frankly, a terrible movie and, unlike most others in this wonderful series of bizarre Spanish werewolf movies, not much fun either. My favourite of the seven I’ve seen so far is still Doctor Jekyll and The Wolfman from 1971... love those swinging London locations which I remember as such from my childhood. If you want to see a fun Waldemar Daninsky movie... watch that one and let this horrible, ravaged carcass of a movie rest in pieces.

Werewolf VS Samurai

The Beast and the Magic Sword

1983 Spain Directed by Jacinto Molina

Camden Collection DVD Region 0

Written and directed by Paul Naschy himself (under his real name), The Beast and the Magic Sword is the 10th of the 12 movies made between 1968 and 2004 starring Naschy as everyone’s favourite Spanish werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. And this ones a real humdinger.

I’m getting a little bit more relaxed as I get older about the total lack of continuity from movie to movie in this cycle. The only constant seems to be that Paul Naschy plays Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf. Whether he is roaming around early 70s London chasing after Doctor Jekyll or whether he’s living in another century altogether (such as the 17th century where most of this film takes place)... he’s still playing Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf.

Whether he got killed in the last film for good or not, he’s still wandering around at the start of the next one playing... Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf.

Whether he got bitten by another werewolf, got cursed by a witch or some other strange cause is explored as to the origin of his character’s malediction which completely contradicts another film in the series... he is still bloody playing that Polish wolfman he’s so famous for... Waldemar Daninsky... the werewolf.

After having seen half of this series now (and it was not an easy task to find these damn prints) I’ve really begun to mellow towards the fact that you just have to watch Spanish werewolf films on a movie to movie basis and not worry too much about connecting the dots... and this is one of the better ones in the series!

In this one, every seventh generation child in the Daninsky’s bloodline is cursed with lycanthropy by a vengeful demon worshipper. Year’s later, in the seventeenth century, the cursed one in the family line is... yeah, you’re way ahead of me now aren’t you?... Waldemar Daninsky the... right, okay, whatever. Anyway, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition with the blind daughter of his doctor and his... well it’s probably his wife but it’s not made clear, he goes to ancient Japan to seek out a katana slinging doctor who fights off both samurai and ninja to keep our blood swilling and, quite literally, bodice ripping wolfman from killing him before he can concoct a cure. Yes folks, this movie has a werewolf, samurais, ninjas, thick blood dribbling down Naschy’s furred up features and women having the tops of their dresses constantly torn off... what else does a film really need?

Along the way, Daninsky and his companions have to fight off a demon lady who possesses a silver katana with which she could kill Daninsky... except, after seeing him fight a tiger (and it’s a real tiger folks) she decides she wants to use him instead for her own demonic ends. Needless to say, after she kills the blind daughter, Daninsky gores her up and escapes with his “wife”... who then gets speared to death.

The samurai doctor geezah, meanwhile, has tried to perfect a cure from rare Tibetan flowers and, bearing in mind that former strong-man Naschy must have been a big fan of the old classic Universal horror movies of the 30s and 40s, I think this must be a well appreciated nod to the Tibetan Marifasa Lupina plant which was a short term cure for lycanthropy in Universal's first stab at a werewolf movie in 1935, Werewolf of London. Nice one Jacinto!

In the end however, the doctor's cure proves useless and has to get Naschy’s new lover (because only a wolfman’s true love can fully kill a wolfman... I believe that must be a reference to Lon Chaney Jr’s second wolfman movie, Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman) to kill him with the demon lady’s handy silver sword.

Which she does...

Thus leaving the series open for another sequel to totally ignore the ending of this film.

Great stuff.

And who cares anyway... blood and wolfman and samurais and ninjas and gratuitous bodice ripping! What’s to think about here?