Face of the Screaming Werewolf

If you read Rudolph Grey's excellent "nightmare in ecstasy", you will find a passage that refers to Edward D. Wood Jnr. directing Lon Chaney Jr. as a wolfman climbing up the outside of a building for promotional reasons. Is this a previously uncredited entry in the Wood CV?

I'm sorry, but I have a totally different opinion on this movie - if you can name it a "movie". If you want to see Lon Chaney Jr in his last Wolf Man theatrical appearance, it's better for you to catch the original version of this film, LA CASA DEL TERROR, Mexico 1959, directed by Gilberto Martinez Solares. As usual, Mr. Warren totally destroyed an excellent film in cutting about one-third, mixing it with elements of a Rafael Portillo mummy film totally unrelated with the other, and (always as usual) putting his name on a film made by others. Not only the original LA CASA DEL TERROR is an excellent film, but the comic elements (with Tin Tan) are well integrated with the horror segments, as it was the case in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, also with Chaney...

Seriously, I know the B-movie world is a strange place ... but have you honestly ever heard anything quite so preposterous and pointless? Here, filmmaker Jerry Warren (who later made Frankenstein Island) threw together two Mexican horror movies, "La Casa Del Terror" and "La Momia Azteca". No, really. He took two movies, and edited them together into one. He recorded his own scenes in order to combine them in some plot about a woman leading a team of archaeologists to find two ancient and evil mummies, one of whom is a mummified werewolf ... and it all makes absolutely no sense.

A bunch of scientists using mental regression hypnotise a woman and she describes a pyramid. When they take her to visit the pyramid, she has a flashback to a song-and-dance tribal ritual. And the ritual scene goes on. And it goes on. And it goes on. Just when you're beginning to wonder if Warren can't get more than THIS out of two whole movies, they finally venture inside the pyramid. And they venture. And they venture. Oh sweet Jesus, when is this movie going to start? Then they're attacked by stock footage of a mummy. Eek! And from here on, it only becomes even more of a big, stinking mess.

What is there to say about this movie? The script is unbearable. The acting is amateur (don't be surprised if you see them glancing right at the camera). The soundtrack is ludicrous and intrusive. While the production values of the original Mexican movies hold up, Warren's sets are far from convincing. The way the various scenes are edited together is often hilariously bad. There is no narrative flow whatsoever. Scenes drag on and on, while the viewer has no idea what's supposed to be happening. They say if something's worth doing it's worth doing well, but this movie was never worth doing. It's a bad idea, badly executed, and I feel sorry for the innocent cinema-goers back in 1964 who must have wondered what the hell they were being subjected to.

"Face of the Screaming Werewolf" stands among the worst movies ever made. If you want to see Lon Chaney's final big-screen performance as a werewolf, try and find the original "La Casa del Terror". And if you're looking for anything resembling quality, ignore this piece of trash. If you like bad movies, however, by all means check it out ... but keep your finger on the 'fast forward' button.

According to various sources, the hour long version of Face Of The Screaming Werewolf that I have just suffered through was cobbled together from two unrelated Mexican films, La Casa del Terror (1959) and La Momia Azteca (1957), with added footage from director Jerry Warren; this goes a long way to explain why it is a complete and utter mess from start to finish—although I have a sneaking suspicion that neither of the original Mexican films are all that great either (I'm sure I'll find out one day, being the movie masochist that I am).

It's always a tough job to summarise any film that is such a complete dog's dinner, but here goes…

Under hypnosis, Ann Taylor (Rosita Arenas) recalls a previous life where she took part in a ceremony in a pyramid in the Yucatan. Keen to investigate further, Ann accompanies a team of scientists to the ancient Mexican monument where they discover two mummies, one really old, the other more recent. Both are taken to the scientists' laboratory/wax museum (?!?!) for examination, where they come to life and wreak havoc, with the most recent specimen (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) also proving to be a werewolf. Ann is abducted by the ancient mummy and is killed, while the werewolf mummy goes on the rampage in the city before being cornered in the lab and set on fire.

In addition to the terrible editing, nonsensical story and poor acting, Face Of The Screaming Werewolf also suffers from plenty of padding, most notably the native ritual at the beginning of the film that seems to go on forever. Just think how (mercifully) short the film would have been had the editors been a bit more judicious with the scissors for that scene.

This movie presents about eight minutes of scenes with Lon Chaney Jr. and the rest its a long mexican movie pasted with another werewolf movie... and, what about the logic, and the continuity? The best scene of this stuff its at the beginning, the scientist and the mesmerized woman. But, I strongly recommend this movie to all Chaney Jr. fans!