Dr. Jekyll vs. The Werewolf

This is the first Waldemar Daninsky movie I've seen, even though it is (the box says) the fifth in a series (perhaps IMDb's years for the titles are off?). I bought it primarily because I've liked all the other Mondo Macabro DVDs I've bought.

It's also the first Paul Naschy movie I've seen, or at least the first one I've seen while knowing him to be a big Spanish horror star.

A couple return to the husband's homeland so he can visit his parents' graves. Unfortunately, the graveyard they're in was abandoned during World War II, and is neglected, rumored to be haunted, and a place where murderous bandits can be found. It's also located near the Black Castle, where a monster lives. The monster is Daninsky, who turns into a wolf-man when the moon is full. As a wolf-man, he kills people or bites chunks of flesh out of them. As Daninsky, well, he kills people too, but he has more of a choice as to who he attacks: he only goes after bad guys.

Daninsky gets taken to see Dr. Jekyll, the grandson of the infamous one, in England. Dr. Jekyll has a plan to cure Daninsky's lycanthropy, but I confess I did not understand it. It involved turning Daninsky into Mr. Hyde, and then somehow having the Mr. Hyde and Werewolf in Daninsky battle it out. That isn't what seems to happen, so perhaps I'm way off. I thought it peculiar that Daninsky turns into Mr. Hyde - Mr. Hyde had been the evil part of Dr. Jekyll. Daninsky's evil side might have been similar, but identical, and they give him the same name...?

It is fairly entertaining, and I'm curious to see some other Daninsky werewolf movies now (this wasn't one of Nachy's more favorite ones), and perhaps some more of Nachy's other horror movies. The DVD is good, has some nice extras including an interview with Nachy and a text covering the short history of Spanish horror movies, and the DVD will be staying in my collection.

It seems he's played the Waldemar Daninsky werewolf character in about thirteen movies, of which perhaps only four are readily available (through out of print videotapes and cheap poor quality DVDs), and the original is not one of them! It would seem a box set is needed, though I have not heard rumors of one.

While it is fair to say that Dr. Jekyll Vs. The Werewolf' isn't the most successful collaboration between writer Naschy & film-maker Klimovsky its central premise, while spectacularly lurid, is a good one, and the venerable Naschy applies his singular vigour to the dual roles of his iconic Waldemar Daninski and by portraying an especially feral-looking, golden-eyed Hyde!

Both the script's lack of invention and the bizarre anachronistic quality to 'Dr. Jekyll Vs. The Werewolf' hinder it from being a Gothic schlock classic. While wealthy hard-headed Hungarian businessman Imrie Kosta(Jose Marco)and his bombshell wife Justine (Shirley Corrigan) visit his parents final remains in an especially spooky, dilapidated cemetery situated no less spookily very close to the greatly feared Castle home to anguished, romantically-inlined Lycanthrope, the tight roll-neck sporting Waldemar Daninsky, and in the grisly gnashing of his brawny bicuspids the action returns to swinging London where urbane Dr. Jekyll (Jack Taylor) heir to his infamous ancestors malevolent serum stoically attempts to cure the beleaguered Waldemar but inadvertently encouraging a diabolical metaphysical battle of primordial wills between Daninski's relentless Lycanthropic tendencies and the indomitable will of the preternaturally evil Mr. Hyde!

While Naschy once again delivers another hair-raisingly haunted performance as the diabolically-inclined Daninsky, it is his howlingly hideous transfiguration into the hateful Hyde that engenders the greatest frisson of fear in Klimovsky's uneven monster mash up, but for all its absurdity it remains a fitfully fun movie with another credible, blissfully boisterous werewolf workout for the hirsute Naschy and once again ace composer Antón García Abril creates a marvellously moody score.

Newlyweds Imre (José Marco) and Justine (Shirley Corrigan) travel to the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania for their honeymoon, where Imre intends to visit the graves of his murdered parents (the man sure knows how to show his new wife a good time). Ignoring warnings from a superstitious local who tells them that the cemetery is a place of evil, the couple are attacked by a gang of local villains that try to break into their car. Imre is stabbed to death, and Justine narrowly avoids being raped when Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) leaps to her assistance (crushing one guy's face with a rock in the process).

Waldemar carries Justine to his castle, which is also home to a leprous man who has zero bearing on the plot, and an old lady whom the locals believe is a witch, and who tells Justine of Waldemar's 'illness': whenever the full moon rises, he turns into a werewolf!!! After Waldemar, in hairy form, kills several more villagers, a rabble of pitchfork wielding locals hack off the old woman's head, stick it on a pole, and proceed to storm the castle. Waldemar and Justine sneak out the back door and flee to London, where they enlist the help of Dr. Jekyll (Jack Taylor), whose infamous grandfather's personality-altering serum might be able to release Daninsky from his curse.

The sixth film in Paul Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky series, Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf is just as silly as the title suggests, offering up all manner of Euro-monster-mash madness. Naschy not only sports one of his more impressive looking werewolf make-ups, but also looks sufficiently slimy as Mr. Hyde, whose personality he adopts when injected by Jekyll's serum. The daft plot also includes a treacherous assistant for Jekyll in the form of Sandra (Mirta Miller), sees Hyde enjoying enjoying London's swinging nightlife (which allows for some particularly hilarious gyrating from a podium dancer), and provides several excuses for some cheesy gore.

N.B.: There are three edits of this film doing the rounds. My middling rating of 5/10 is for the heavily edited Spanish version that came as part of my Mill Creek Pure Terror box-set, and which is notably bereft of any gratuitous nudity (what's a Euro-horror without some boobs to go with the blood?). The US edit, however, does feature some nudity in the last half hour, while the fullest cut—the German version—delivers even more bare flesh, with Justine's breasts getting an airing during her attack, and Waldemar's werewolf tearing open his victims' clothes before tearing out their throats, all of which undoubtedly adds to the fun.

The fifth entry in the Waldemar Daninsky series is actually the eleventh Paul Naschy movie I have watched; for the record, I have four more titles featuring the Euro-Cult icon lined-up for this Halloween challenge. This is one of his better vehicles that I have come across, though still essentially flawed; in it he plays no less than three roles (though all inhabit the same body) i.e. Daninsky, his werewolf alter-ego and, in a bizarre turn-of-events, R.L. Stevenson's famous evil 'creation' Mr. Hyde! The copy I watched – culled from Mondo Macabro's R2 DVD – presents the film in its clothed variant prepared for Spanish consumption; still, the level of violence is considerable, with the werewolf seen munching on torn flesh and similarly gory effects. Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor appears as Dr. Jekyll and rather than have him turn into the primitive Hyde, he injects Daninsky with his grandfather's notorious serum in an attempt to cure his lycanthropy! The film is colorful and generally fun (clichés and all) but director Klimovsky does not quite take full advantage of the possibilities set out by the premise at hand: for one thing, his Hyde (amusingly bringing to mind John Belushi!) is nowhere near the monster he is depicted in most other versions of the tale, while a transformation from man to wolf inside a London discotheque (the setting for the film's latter half is present-day i.e. 1970s London) is completely thrown away as he not only fails to attack anyone but is himself almost trampled in the commotion that ensues! The plot also involves a couple of good-looking girls: a blonde, with whom both Naschy and Taylor are in love (though she opts to marry a third – and much older – man), as well as a brunette, who is Dr. Jekyll's vindictive and deranged assistant.

Paul Naschy has been playing tortured Polish werewolves since 1967, the high watermark being 1970's Werewolf vs the Vampire Women. Made a year later Doctor Jekyll and the Werewolf, if not exactly in the same league is certainly entertaining. After her fiance is murdered by thuggish villagers Justine is saved from death by loner Waldemar. A man with `an illness' Waldemar is of course the hairy side of the title, although the sadistic local villagers seem more violent and pose more of a threat than the beast he becomes. After every distant relative and friend of his has been decapitated or murdered by these apeish normals Waldemar heads off with Justine to a post- swinging London. There he turns to the grandson of Dr Jekyll who tries to help him out by somewhat illogically turning him into a pasty faced eye ball rolling `new' Mr Hyde. Soon all hell breaks loose thanks to Waldemar's triple personality. Let loose on London there is the kinky Mr Hyde who wields a mean whip, and a werewolf attacking Londoners more than a decade before An American Werewolf in London. Despite the Madrid-ish look to some of the London scenes some parts were indeed shot in `Londris', Blimey! Naschy and director Klimovsky found a good locale in Soho, London's notorious red light district back in the days of outdoor bordellos, the neon windmill of the Windmill theatre and sex -education documentary Love in Our Time playing in theatres. Theres a tale Naschy likes to tell about filming these scenes- while dressed as Mr Hyde some Soho regulars, not realising a film was being shot heckled who they thought to be a madman dressed in Victorian clothes. With the shot ruined `Mr Hyde' promptly chased the pesky raincoat dwellers with his cane. Compared to Werewolf Vs the Vampire Women which was a hit world-wide, Dr Jekyll was only fleetingly released in the US and UK, and today can only be found on tape from American public domain companies, releases drawn from badly transferred and tatty looking prints that can't possibly do this 70mm scope production justice. A real melting pot of a film, eclectic doesn't come close- Justine's fiance is built up as a major heroic character, but in a Psycho fashion is shockingly murdered half an hour in, then we settle down for a traditional werewolf picture, then suddenly this becomes a Mr Hyde picture with swinging Sixties overtones before the furballs and claws are brought back for the discotheque set climax. All this was obviously done to avoid routine (this was Naschy's sixth werewolf film). Unfortunately the same factors that made the Werewolf Vs the Vampire Women and the `groovy' Dracula Vs Frankenstein breath taking, seem plodding and unfocussed in Doctor Jekyll and the Werewolf. However the London scenes, the enraged teddy of a werewolf and Naschy's unusual looking Mr Hyde supply the film with more than its fair share of memorable moments, definitely enough to justify digging this up from the grave marked `Spanish horror cinema RIP', its certainly a better film than its obscure reputation suggests.