Although the great Jacinto Alvarez (a/k/a Paul Naschy) died in 2009, he is still considered the sultan of Spanish horror cinema, having appeared in over one hundred films, shorts, and television shows, very often as a werewolf. He titled his 1997 autobiography “Memoirs of a Wolfman.” Fangoria inducted him into its hall of fame in 2000. He looms large over horror films generally, but over Spanish horror cinema, especially.
True to form, in The Werewolf versus the Vampire Woman (a/k/a Walpurgis Night), Naschy plays the werewolf – a man named Waldermar Daninsky. This is the fifth Waldermar Daninsky film. It was preceded by The Fury of the Wolfman and followed by Dr. Jekyll and the W Read more...
Although the great Jacinto Alvarez (a/k/a Paul Naschy) died in 2009, he is still considered the sultan of Spanish horror cinema, having appeared in over one hundred films, shorts, and television shows, very often as a werewolf. He titled his 1997 autobiography “Memoirs of a Wolfman.” Fangoria inducted him into its hall of fame in 2000. He looms large over horror films generally, but over Spanish horror cinema, especially.
True to form, in The Werewolf versus the Vampire Woman (a/k/a Walpurgis Night), Naschy plays the werewolf – a man named Waldermar Daninsky. This is the fifth Waldermar Daninsky film. It was preceded by The Fury of the Wolfman and followed by Dr. Jekyll and the Wolf Man as well as six additional werewolf films.
This film picks up where Fury left off; with a deceased lycanthrope (transformed back into ordinary human form) lying on an autopsy slab before two coroners. The first warns the second to beware of werewolves. The second scoffs at “those stupid old tales.”
He reminds the first of a bit of werewolf lore invented by Naschy’s screenplay: A werewolf is reanimated if the silver bullet (or, in this case, bullets) are removed from him. Then he proceeds to extract the bullets, just offscreen, accompanied by grotesque squish-snap-crunch scalpel sounds, and plop them into a surgical pan. Nothing happens.
“There, you see? Ha-ha-ha.” Cut to a full moon. Cut back to Daninsky’s eyelids, just beginning to flutter. And we all know what happens next. It’s werewolf time.
A fresh conflict emerges when two students – Elvira and Genevieve – go looking for the tomb of a medieval vampiress and bump into Daninsky, who leads them to the gravesite. Elvira accidentally bleeds onto the vampiress’ corpse. As everyone knows, bleeding onto a decommissioned vampire cadaver results in the fanged remains being recommissioned. And that’s what happens.
Very much worth watching. It’s really classic stuff.
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