Werewolf Shadow

Meet Paul Naschy, the werewolviest werewolf in screen history. The Mr. Atlas of Spanish horror cinema, Naschy (born Jacinto Molina) reprised the role of lycanthropy-cursed Polish nobleman Waldemar Daninsky for a total of 387 films. Well, okay, it's closer to twelve, but that's more than any other film actor before or since, and there actually is another Naschy werewolf movie in the can as of this writing. Additionally, Naschy has played a large variety of other characters from Dracula to Napolean to his greatest role as "Ratso" in Midnight Cowboy (remember?). With Werewolf Shadow (La Noche de Walpurgis) he'd put on the yak-hair for the fourth time already, but of all the movies the muscleman mogul scripted and acted in, this is the one that really took a bite out of the market abroad. Better known under the title of The Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman, Werewolf Shadow was the true cornerstone of Spanish Horror, a genre that the local authorities initially had a dim view of because of something called The Spanish Inquisition; still a touchy subject at Madrid cocktail parties at the time, evidently. Naschy compromised by having his scripts- loaded with bloody werewolf attacks, lesbian vampires and religious symbolism- set in other amoral, filthy, disgraceful, decadent, European countries; in this case: France.

Naschy, as you may have inferred, was not originally in the acting profession, but started out as an athlete, illustrator and unknown screenwriter. The producers tried to get Naschy idol Lon Chaney in the dog-nose at first. but the actor was pretty long in the tooth to play a werewolf at that point, so it was suggested that multi-talented Naschy should attempt to take that challenge on himself; even though he'd only appeared in movies as an extra by then and had no formal acting experience whatsoever. They changed Jacinto Molina's name to Paul Naschy to appeal to the first movie's Aryan-centric German producers, and made the werewolf count a Polack. And thus began the single greatest chapter in the history of the Spanish Empire. With this movie, Naschy scared up enough profits to launch the fledgling Spanish horror industry, and made himself a cult following that thrives to this day. Not bad for a squat, homely guy with a comb-over who wrote bad scripts and couldn't act worth a damn. But his performance as the rampaging werewolf itself is, to say the least, inspired.

Anchor Bay and Blue underground did a swell job bringing this most famous Naschy movie to Region 1 and PAL with a generous DVD that includes an exceptional remastered transfer, a recent interview with Naschy (which includes English subtitles), a great poster gallery, an informative bio and a vintage trailer and TV spot. The transfer is especially refreshing if you've seen the titles previous incarnations on DVD and VHS which were abysmally dark and murky at best. The interview is candid (and, at times, humorous) as Naschy recounts the trials of starting a film-making franchise from scratch and shares a few werewolf make-up tips. The same companies released another Naschy werewolf movie, Curse Of The Devil, on DVD at the same time (with the same features), and with any luck they'll catch on again and the Spanish horror maverick's movies will become available in their entirety so I can make fun them all here.

Our wolf-opera begins in a cemetery, of all places, where two police pathologists arrive to perform an autopsy on a man reputed to be a werewolf. Why bodies are brought to the cemetery for post-mortem examination is something of a mystery; either it's a mark of cold Socialist European efficiency, or Naschy's werewolf character died there in the previous film. One of these P.D. ghouls, who looks like he might mostly hang out at the bus-station when he isn't clocked in at homicide, plays the trembling, superstitious sleuth, full of warnings and portents. The other half of this unlikely team is the cool, sophisticated one, so he has to look down his nose and roundly poo-poo these hairy fairy-tales put forward by his cretin partner. Harumph! Just to show him that the the muscle-bound oaf on the table isn't a werewolf but simply a balding, steroid-crazed gnome, he makes it a special point to take the two silver bullets out of Daninsky's heart first thing. The Clouseu-esque odd-couple somewhat prematurely celebrate their subject not being a werewolf with a smoke, whereupon our hero wakes up, turns into a werewolf and kills them. Or, rather, he rudely brushes by them, causing them to be mangled and bloody by some kind of osmosis.

Extracting silver bullets from a werewolf during a full moon: an ultimately thankless task

This scene is, by the way, a sort of homage to the movie that made young Jacinto Molina such a fan of monster movies (and particularly those with werewolves), Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, where a would-be grave-robber brings Lon Chaney's wolf man back to life by removing his ring. I say sort of because this is, in stark contrast to the amazing opening of that Universal classic, a lame scene without a hint of atmosphere.

Wasting not a moment on his ferocious full-moon itinerary, the werewolf immediately goes outside and stalks a fair young maiden strolling innocently through the woods on a picnic-basket errand to grandma's house, savaging her horribly for no good reason and ripping off her shirt so we can see her tits as bloods runs over them (Well, that's just part of a werewolf's job, I guess.) Then the movie's title appears and the werewolf runs away from it, having sufficiently established the basic premise.

Then it's off to gay Paree! Or rather a revolving display with picture-postcards of the Arch de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower and the Cathedral de Notre Dame, intended to suggest gay Paree. This movie is actually being filmed in Spain, after all, by a primitive studio who probably couldn't afford a location jaunt to France back then, any more than some modern "guerilla-filmmaking" wretch from the U.S. could today . The post-cards are being sold in a night-club where hilarious-looking Euro-hipsters are boogie-ing to some super-charged disco inferno that only they can hear, while the actual music in the background sounds more like the work of Schroeder, the cartoon character from the Peanuts. As it happens our protagonist Elvira, a ravishing redhead, and her platonic other Marcel are there drinking adult beverages and discussing her planned essay about a renowned satanic vampire witch of the Elizabeth Bathory-type named Wandessa Denada De-something-something, a countess who got nabbed by the Inquisition for performing satanic rituals involving the blood-sacrifice of nubile, young, nude women.

Adults drinking adult beverages? WOOHOO! Take a drink!!!

This triggers a clownish kaleidoscope effect so that we know we're slipping into flashback-o-vision, because now that you've piqued their interest with the very suggestion of it, the audience is going to want to see your version of nubile satanic vampire sacrificial nudie action, followed, perhaps, by a good witch-burning . Thus, we are shown the satanic Contessa Wandessa's satanic ritual chamber where she imbibes in the blood of a virgin, being sure to sloppily drip some of the blood from her satanic devil-horn cup over her chin, because Satan likes that. Fortunately, this witch doesn't get burned at the stake; she gets staked with a silver crucifix by her lover, who'd naturally had no idea he'd been dating a woman with a satanic drinking problem who tosses her decapitated discards over the castle wall in big heaps.

And then we're swept back to the much less interesting movie at Club Snoopy, where the bubble-headed redhead heroine explains to her jet-set playboy boy-toy that she and her friend Genevieve are taking a little Blair Witch excursion up to "some god-forsaken village" to see Wandessa's grave and help give their essay on satanic vampire witches a little more credibility. The suave male-friend must now drop out of the scene for awhile to allow our star t&a to fall firmly into the clutches of evil so he can later return to rescue his love and fail miserably. Hence, he announce he has other plans, after expressing his undying noncommittalness for her.

An aspiring young actress makes the final cut as Miss Not-Appearing-In-This-Film

But when the sexy duo of and Genevieve reach their destination, low on petrol, they don't see the promised god-forsaken village, only the ruins of a monastery (that are not without their own god-forsaken charm, however). There they encounter mild-mannered Polish count Waldemar Daninsky, who has recently been exploring the ruins, looking up some dead monks he used to know. "Good evening!" he greets the fabulous foxes, squinting his eyes because it's broad daylight outside (what do you expect?- HE'S POLISH!).

The odd little man invites these luscious lamb-chops to come crash at his pad nearby, a stately but inhospitable castle where their cries can be heard by no one, and maybe check out the torture dungeon later on. Eager to move the plot forward and get it over with, our gorgeous gals with the gawdy get-ups agree, but only on the condition that his morbid, menacing, mentally-ill handyman "Crazy" Pierre drive them to get some gas at the not-so-nearby godforsaken village.

At the castle they exchange plot-lines over a dinner of cold-cuts, when the popular subject of local satanic vampire witches pops into the conversation and their mysterious Polish host goes into a near-catatonic pensive brooding trance, whereupon our delectable doe-eyed darlings excuse themselves for the evening with thanks and slip immediately into their skimpiest negligee to debate whether to go to sleep or flee for their lives. This seems like a great opportunity for a lusty lesbian pillow-fight, but instead our stranded starlets elect to slam some valiums and hit the sack.

It proves to be a restless night for Elvira, though, as Waldemar's coo-coo sister crawls out of the woodwork to grope her breasts and mutter something about a full moon tonight, terrible imminent danger and you need to get the hell out of here right now. Understandably confused by the mixed messages, Elvira passes out and reawakens to find Lord Lycanthrope practically lying on top of her, assuring Elvira that except for the deranged lesbo sibling that he forget to mention, and the giant fire-breathing lizard named Spot living under the stairs, everything was kosher and go back to sleep. The previously paranoid Elvira finds this all to be perfectly palatable, and from that point on decides she can trust Waldemar, in spite of every frantically blinking indication to the exact contrary.

The next day, lovely Genevieve stumbles across the manacles and blood room typical in medieval households while poking through the castle's recesses, and there receives her own informal introduction to the castle whacko, who rips off Genny's shirt and tries to strangle her. For some reason, Genevieve has the opposite reaction to this peculiar domestic situation than Elvira, and is now anxious to check out of Wally World with her hide intact.

But there's still that pesky term paper to get out of the way and so later on our battered bunny Genevieve accompanies Ellie and Waldemar up to suicide hill to check out the inscriptions on the witches vault, and while they're there Genny decides to crack the old biddy's coffin to get a few snapshots of her bones for extra credit or whatever. Inside, she discovers a silver cross embedded in the mummy's ribs, and, in the process of removing it (an activity strongly discouraged in their Grave of Wandessa tourist pamphlet), Genevieve manages to open a vein and wet the dead mummy's whistle with a revitalizing shooter of her blood (also an exhumed vampire mummy photography no-no). The scene is also clearly another homage to Black Sunday, in which a man accidentally cuts his hand on the coffin of an ancient vampire witch and drips blood into her empty eye-sockets, restoring her (eventually) to life.

When will kids ever learn not to bleed into the mouths of vampire mummies?

Elvira, too gentlewomanly to go rifling through strange graves, decides to walk to the ruins of the monastery to freshen up. There she sees a cloaked figure and figures she'll ask him where she might find the lady's room. This fellow turns out to be one of the monk mummies, prophesied to rise from the grave to serve Wandessa when she returns to life for Armageddon Day (I mean, who exactly was she expecting?). This monster's cheap make-up doesn't bear much scrutiny, so without stopping to ask questions Waldemar comes to the rescue, jabbing the phoney-baloney phantom in the heart and reducing him to a wisp of dry-ice vapor. That night Wandessa, with her 300-year-old case of cotton-mouth, claws out of her grave to get herself a refreshing Super Big Gulp(TM) of that sweet sweet hemoglobin

Up in the bedroom Genevieve chides Elvira about her growing crush on the penniless nobleman, before going downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water to wash down her steer tranquilizers. Being that this is a remote gothic-era mansion with no phone or electricity (even though you can clearly see phone and power lines running to it in exterior shots), you'd imagine she would have to go down to the well and pump the handle a few times for her water, but she just gets it out of the faucet in what appears to be the studio's employee lounge. She hears Wandessa call her (vampires always know your name) and suddenly she's at the end of a spooky mist-covered corridor facing a women wearing the latest in medieval vampire countess apparel.

All the women in this movie are HOT! Even Waldemar's screwball sister. Even, as we see later, "Crazy" Pierre's lush girlfriend that he doesn't like enough to have sex with anymore. And Pierre is not an attractive man. It's not unusual for the typical Vampire Woman to be hot, though, and Wandessa, played by American Patty Shepard, is no exception. Also, beginning with the monk attack in the earlier scene, shots that are intended to be eerie are shown in slow-motion. Naschy envisioned it this way and actually wrote the words SLOW MOTION in his scripts! And if he did nothing else right, Director Leon Klimovsky used the trick to good effect here, as did a lot of horror directors that followed.

An ignorant peasant contemplates the irony of being stabbed to death by a werewolf

Anyway, relieved of her excess blood by Wandessa, Genevieve becomes a very scrumptious-looking Daughter of Darkness, and takes on the same ethereal (slo mo) qualities as her mistress. Waldemar's sister Elizabeth has the misfortune of witnessing this sensuous seduction, and next we know Elvira comes down the stairs to find her impaled to an iron gate (weird architecture in this house). She screams and turns to see Genevieve walking toward her down that same foggy corridor in slow motion. Before Genny can put the zap on our heroine, Waldemar shows up and drives her away using the silver crucifix, which, as we later find out, is all the shifty shape-shifter was after in the first place.

The next morning Wally and Ellie agree that with Walpurgis Night coming up, Wandessa's resurrection will spell H-E-Double-hockey-sticks on Earth. Then Mr. Testosterone commands the submissive dame to go with Pierre to the village in the morning to warn them of the coming apocalypse; which would have to be good news to them because, damn, village life is really dull. And then they do that icky kissing thing, and he sends her off with the silver crucifix to protect her from the vampires, if not from Pierre, who proves to be nearly as dangerous.

"You know, people are afraid of those who live near the monastery. They think I'm crazy. You don't think I'm crazy, do you? I get angry when people think I'm crazy!" - on the road with "Crazy" Pierre

Elvira is rescued from this scintillating conversation when they come to a barricade of felled trees in the road, part of a slow-motion vampire ambush. But Wandessa and Genny are driven back by the cross again, which at least spares them the indigestion they would have gotten from eating greasy Pierre.

So it's back to Wolfman Jacinto's, where Wally orders Ellie to lock herself in a room with a the crucifix until dawn. That night, he wolfs-out the Naschy way- staggering around, making weird noises, drooling and grabbing his neck like he's choking on a chicken bone. The ordeal of metamorphosis done, he skulks out into the dark woods for victims and comes across legendary Colorado cannibal Al Packer, turning his face into antipasto with some deadly wolf-fu.

Drink!!!

Aside from suffering a traumatic, audience-faking-out nightmare, Elvira wakes up in the morning unscathed to find Wally, stumbling back home after a night of howling at the moon . He reveals to her the sob story of his curse and how he can only be killed by the woman who loves him using the silver cross, which is why he wanted Elvira to have it, since I suppose mutilating families of twelve every full moon loses it's charm after awhile. But first they must use the cross on Wandessa to head off the whole doomsday thing scheduled for Walpurgis evening.

That night Genevieve borrows several pints of Elvira's blood, but the vampirism is reversed when Waldemar, shirking his werewolving responsibilities for the night, Impales Genevieve on a grave-marker. This royally pisses off royal vampire Wandessa, but she's forced to retreat back into her crypt with the sun about to come up.

We fast-forward to night again, and Pierre shows up to take Elvira up on that sex she didn't promise him, knocking her out and carrying her away to a fate even worse than being in a bad horror movie. Luckily, it's time for our boy to make an appearance. Our heroic wolf breaks through his chains in record time and puts Pierre on notice for stealing office-supplies, biting out a sizable portion of his throat, and reflexively spitting it back out. Yuck!

"Crazy" Pierre receives his richly deserved chewing out from the boss

At this point Marcel, back from the bathhouses of Turkey, is finally re-introduced to the plot, determined to track down his beloved Ellie. Much of the footage of Marcel interviewing people and looking for leads (he's a cop, it turns out), and wisely cut out for the American release for pacing, has been added back here for the Anchor Bay DVD. This makes for a couple of disorienting scenes where the dubbing disappears, and we are forced to read subtitles (unless we happen to understand Spanish, which we don't). It would have been just as well left out, because we don't really care all that much how the boyfriend catches up with Elvira, anyway. Beyond being pointless, his presence is a distraction (since he's better looking that the real romantic lead), and the movie would be considerably tighter without him.

Drink!!! (Director Klimovsky really knows how to party)

Marcel gets directions to the castle from Pierre's doomed slut girlfriend and, learning of Elvira's infidelity with party-animal Waldemar, he grills the flea-bitten count for old plot-points and demands that Elvira leave the castle with him even though his jurisdiction technically doesn't extend here to the Transylvanian region of France. Waldemar agrees to send her away (even though he needs her to put him out of his misery), free now to hunt for Wandessa's hiding place in the Knight's Tombs. Conveniently, by the time he gets there, Wandessa has already highwayed poor Elvira again (laughing at Marcel's silly bullets) taken them to her lair, and chained them to the wall for a Walpurgis midnight-snack.

Our darling, dashing Dog Breath arrives right as Wandessa is about to skewer Elvira as an offering to Satan (whose shadow on the wall makes a brief cameo), and he awkwardly chooses this time to do his Fred Sanford "Coming to see you, 'Lizbith!" bit, turning gradually into a slobbering lupine with perfect hair and the celebrity monster death match is at long last underway.

Let the monster-mash commence!

Now you may not be aware of this but there is another little known way of killing a vampire besides the customary stake through the heart, sunshine, holy water, Italian food, etc.: You can simply get a werewolf to rip their throat out. So now you know.

After a valiant fight, Wandessa's fairly modest 2nd reign of terror comes to a gory end. She turns into household wax and is heated by an offscreen heater under a time-lapse camera until she melts down to bones and, um, maggots. Not a great effect. This takes awhile, though, and the werewolf is evidently so fascinated with the process that Elvira has time to grab the silver crucifix and do what comes natural to women; she stabs him in the heart! Our screenwriting werewolf performs his 4th death-scene of many to come, and our heroine walks off into the sunrise (!) with a guy who was too impotent to save her himself, and wasn't even in 95% of the movie. It would be a tragedy if it were possible to take a moment of it seriously.

But, I digress. I've watched this movie a dozen times and I must say I still enjoy it. It's no dumber than some modern bigger-budget werewolf movies (like Silver Bullet, American Werewolf In Paris, etc) made by Hollywood Leaguers recently. It has a lot of redundant exposition for such a familiar story, but it isn't padded out that badly. The dubbing is bad because it sticks closely to Naschy's dialogue, which he didn't take many chances with. The location is suitably ancient and spooky, the women make me drool like a cursed Polish nobleman and the performances are each no worse than Naschy's own.

And of course I have fun with The Man here, but I should make it clear that Paul Naschy didn't actually direct this film, so he is reasonably acquitted of it's most glaring errors. His own acting is somewhere between understated and wooden, but this is only the fifth movie he had lines in. At age 69, twelve years after a massive heart-attack, Naschy is back in front of the horror lens (of famous cult director Fred Olen Ray, this time) with a 13th Waldemar Daninsky werewolf saga, The Unliving. It just goes to show you: You can't keep a good Wolf Man down...