Dearie me! Not only were the careers of the successful '70s horror directors failing in the 1990s, but it was the same in Spain, where horror veteran and legend Paul Naschy made this misguided addition to the Waldemar Daninsky series. LYCANTROPUS: THE MOONLIGHT MURDERS (1997, original title Licantropo: El asesino de la luna llena) is a contemporary tale which sees an aged Naschy - looking every one of his 60+ years - playing a family man and writer suffering from the usual werewolf curse, while his daughter finds herself harassed by an obscene caller. It's a cheap and oddly lifeless afair, suffering from a director - Francisco Rodriguez Gordillo - who seemingly hates the horror genre.
By all accounts, Gordillo excised most of the sex and gore from the script, leaving this largely bloodless and completely lacking in the gothic atmosphere that defines Naschy's earlier output. The werewolf doesn't even feature all that much, which is a pity as the make-up is decent, and one nifty transformation sequence is aided by CGI inserts and layered sound effects. It's more a mystery than a horror, but it's incredibly talky, and largely inert, meaning you'll be bored for much of the time. This is one Daninsky outing we could have done without.
By all accounts, Gordillo excised most of the sex and gore from the script, leaving this largely bloodless and completely lacking in the gothic atmosphere that defines Naschy's earlier output. The werewolf doesn't even feature all that much, which is a pity as the make-up is decent, and one nifty transformation sequence is aided by CGI inserts and layered sound effects. It's more a mystery than a horror, but it's incredibly talky, and largely inert, meaning you'll be bored for much of the time. This is one Daninsky outing we could have done without.