La loba

This is Mexico's first effort to produce a film devoted to a werewolf, in this case a female one as the title suggests "the She-Wolf". Transformations are pretty lame and based entirely on the effects designed for Lon Chaney's The Wolf Man, a character that has been around for quite a while and so, the producers had to come up with something different, though not really original: The Wolf Woman. This film comes close in time to the Mexican wrestler mania that "El Santo" took to a heyday in a sort of surrealist vision of movies. However, La Loba does not have any wrestlers and masks, but a rich Mexican girl cursed to become a wolf at night to kill, hunt and feed upon people. Very daring film for its day, as it openly suggests nudity during one of the transformation scenes. No novelty elements are brought to the genre, though, as Hollywood has given out enough materials on the subject by the time this picture was produced. It has some good atmosphere and it is the first movie to grow hair on a girl's soft face skin. Not to mention fangs and claws. Worth looking at, as it is one of the few "serious" attempts of the Mexican film industry to enliven the horror genre without escaping its campy nature.