Series: Waldemar Daninsky

Vampires versus werewolves is the horror equivalent of that eternal struggle between pirates and ninjas, only toothier and hairier. With Night of the Werewolf (original Spanish title: El Retorno del Hombre-Lobo), we have a film that doesn't bring much new to the genre in terms of plot. It's pretty standard fare, with no great twists or turns you couldn't see coming. The film is mostly a rehashing of ideas from a previous film that also features Paul Naschy, La Noche de Walpurgis (also known as Werewolf Shadow), though this is not uncommon for any of Naschy's werewolf films. Unlike the shabby remakes of today, this is actually an instance of refining old ideas into a better movie. The film is a product of its time, in both the good nostalgia of the vibrant cinema of the late seventies/early eighties, as well as the unfortunate gender portrayal trappings of that era.(read more...)

Fury of the Wolfman never knows quite what it wants to be. It starts out with the aftermath of a Tibetan mountain adventure, turns into a werewolf movie for a few minutes, changes course to become Dangerous Liaisons without the charm, adds a bit of a detective and investigative journalism theme for spice, then devolves into a cross between a mad-scientist film and an S & M dungeon, PG-exploitation film.

Such mishmash wouldn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Well, I suppose I wouldn't call it mishmash if it was a good thing, but combining various elements can often work well. It doesn't here.(read more...)