Paul Naschy (1934 - 2009)

Word has reached us from the Latarnia forums that Jacinto Molina, better known to the horror world as actor-writer-director Paul Naschy, died on November 30th, 2009, after a year-long struggle with cancer. He was 75. Naschy broke onto the horror scene in 1968 with La marca del Hombre-lobo (known as Frankenstein's Bloody Terror in the United States), which introduced to the world his most lasting creation, the troubled lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. He would play Daninsky over a dozen times in the course of his career. He would also tackle such characters as Dr. Jekyll, Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, Quasimodo, Frankenstein's monster, and Satan himself. Naschy wrote the screenplays for most of the films in which he appeared, and directed a handful of them.

As for myself, I'm still processing the news. I don't think I can find the words to express what Naschy has meant to the genre or to me as a genre fan. He was a damned talented man and horror cinema has grown dimmer with his passing.