Wolfen (1981)

Wolfen (1981) is a horror movie based on Whitley Strieber’s 1978 novel The Wolfen.

You’re probably going to assume that this will be a werewolf tale. It certainly has some affinities with the werewolf genre. Just as he took a very unconventional approach to the vampire genre in his 1981 novel The Hunger Strieber took an equally unconventional approach to the werewolf genre in The Wolfen. Not everybody likes Strieber’s fiction but I’m a big fan.

And the movie Wolfen is a long way from being a routine werewolf story. Some major plot changes were made but the clever central idea is retained.

A billionaire industrialist and his wife are murdered in Manhattan. Not so much murdered as butchered. They were under constant surveillance by an ultra high tech security and surveillance company but it didn’t help them.

Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is a police detective who has been slowly putting himself back together after a crack-up. He has a reputation for being a bit odd but for getting results.

The favoured theory is that this double murder was an act of terrorism. Dewey finds himself with a partner, counter-terrorism expert Detective Rebecca Neff (Diane Venora). Dewey doesn’t really buy the terrorism theory but he’s happy enough to work with Rebecca. She’s a good cop and she’s easy to get on with.

There are a couple of slightly puzzling things about the murders. And then a body, badly butchered, is found in the South Bronx. There is one very surprising common element. Two hairs. The hairs are not human.

From the title of the movie the viewer will guess that wolves of some kind are involved, but are they werewolves or actual wolves? Could it be a psycho with a wolf obsession? Or an elaborate attempt to mislead the police? But until a very late stage Dewey and Rebecca have no idea what they’re dealing with.

Although it takes a long time for Dewey to get on the right track this is not a slow-moving film. Right from the start there are graphic murders, and gore. But they’re filmed in such a way as to ensure that we don’t see what is really happening. Which is as it should be. This movie relies to a huge degree on an atmosphere of spookiness and weirdness. The fact that we don’t know what’s going on makes it all much more unsettling.

There are so many things that I love about this movie. And so many things that I intensely dislike. I love the urban devastation - this is like a city being consumed by a wasting disease. I love the slow reveal of the truth. I love the optical effects which really do make us feel that we’re seeing many of these sequences through the eyes of someone or some thing definitely not human. These sequences really are spooky and menacing. I love the central premise.

Unfortunately director/co-writer Michael Wadleigh added some additional elements to the story and these additions are not just tedious, they seriously undermine the central premise. The political subplots is not too much of a problem. It adds an interesting red herring for the cops to deal with and it’s not intrusive. The hippie-dippie mystical stuff is however a major problem. The movie would have been a whole lot better with all that stuff cut.

There’s also a particular point about the nature of the killers which is stressed in the book but somewhat overlooked in the movie, and this does lessen the impact a little.

These things are annoying but happily they don’t quite succeed in sinking the movie. There are still the cool visuals and the weird menacing atmosphere and some great suspense and some genuinely very good ideas.

Albert Finney is pretty good. He wisely doesn’t try to make Dewey too eccentric or too odd. It’s an effective restrained performance. Diane Venora is a reasonably likeable female lead.

Wolfen has some major flaws but it’s sufficiently interesting and unusual to still be very much worth seeing. It remains one of the most intriguing horror movies of the 80s. In spite of those flaws, highly recommended.

The Warner Archive Blu-Ray is barebones but looks great.

I’ve also reviewed the Whitley Strieber novel, The Wolfen.

Erotic Ghost Story (1990)

Erotic Ghost Story is a 1990 Golden Harvest release directed by Lam Ngai Kai. It’s one of those Hong Kong movies that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. It’s a horror movie, an erotic movie, a sex comedy and a quirky supernatural romance gone wrong movie. It’s a Category III movie, equivalent to a U.S. NC-17 rating.

There’s a strange opening sequence in which bandits take some girls into the woods for some fun but what the bandits get is horror and terror.

Mostly this sequence lets us know that we shouldn’t take any of the characters at face value and that we are going to be dealing with the supernatural.

We might three pretty girls. We assume at first that they are sisters. The way one of them (Pai, also referred to as Big Sis) deals with an importunate bandit suggests that they have some formidable kung fu skills.

Pai meets an old wandering Taoist priest. They have a bit of a fight but he is perhaps trying to tell her something. Something that she will remember later. She will meet the old Taoist master again.

The sisters encounter a shy young scholar. He is being pursued by brigands. He is rescued by the oldest of the sisters. He is horrified at the impropriety when she touches his hand.

But just as the three girls are not what they seem to be so the young scholar is not a shy sexually repressed bookworm. He’s a demon, and a very very lustful demon.

From the start you’re going to realise that there’s something odd about these three girls. Are they ghosts? Shape-shifters of some kind? Witches? The title (at least the English-language version of the title) might lead you to suspect that they’re ghosts. Given that ghosts in Chinese folklore are corporeal that seems plausible. Chinese ghosts can eat and drink and have sex. But these girls are not ghosts. They’re foxes. Fox spirits. Which are a big thing in Chinese folklore. Such foxes can assume human form. They’re slightly similar to the old European folkloric concept of fairies in the sense that they’re not evil but they can be troublesome and dangerous. Or they can be harmless. In this movie the girls are definitely not the least bit evil. Although they are rather lustful!

These three girls are trying by means of Taoist study to achieve a permanent transformation from their fox forms into human form.

Their problem is that they just can’t keep their clothes on when the young scholar is around.

The movie seems to be settling into being a lighthearted romance with some sex comedy touches. There are plenty of comic moments that are genuinely amusing. And lots of sex. This is a Category III movie. This is strong softcore with very explicit female nudity and fairly raunchy sex scenes. The sex is good-natured and joyous. These girls enjoy a good tumble with a man.

The girls and the scholar are having lots of good times until one of the girls notices something very disturbing about herself. Something is happening to her.

Now Pai remembers the old Taoist master. She may need his help. The girls’ kung fu skills will not be enough to deal with the situation.

The movie now becomes more of an action movie and much more of a horror movie.

The three lead actresses are all good and they’re all pretty and they’re likeable. Pal Sin is very good as the young scholar. All of the cast members are quite comfortable when it comes to handling the comic moments.

And it’s a visually impressive movie. It’s obvious that the aim with the special effects was to make them crazy and fun.

Erotic Ghost Story has plenty of style and energy and entertainment value. It’s a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

If this movie whets your appetite for Chinese folklore and especially for stories of fox-spirits get hold of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (readily available English translations).

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers a lovely transfer and quite a few extras including two audio commentaries. This is one of those rare cases in which an audio commentary really is useful. To appreciate this movie fully you need to know at least a couple of things about Chinese folklore, and about Category III movies.

The Bride from Hades (1968)

The Bride from Hades is a 1968 gothic horror movie from Japan’s Daiei Studio and based on one of the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, Peony Lantern (Botan-dôrô). The story exists in multiple versions and it has been filmed several times.

It is necessary to keep in mind that ghosts in Japanese and Chinese folklore are not like western ghosts. They are corporeal. They can eat and drink. You can touch them. You can even have sex with them although it may not be advisable to do so. You can become emotionally involved with a ghost. 

And it can be almost impossible to tell if someone is a ghost.

The setting is clearly sometime during the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Zenjiro, the ambitious second son of an important lord, married the daughter of a shogunate elder. It was a very advantageous match. Sadly Zenjiro died in an accident soon afterwards. Now the family has to decide what to do with his young widow. They do not want to give up the connection to the shogunate. The ideal solution would be for her to marry Zenjiro’s younger brother Shinzaburô. It would be a fine marriage for the young man. Shinzaburô does not seem to see it that way.

At a religious festival he encounters a young lady and her maid. Later they come to visit him unexpectedly. The maid, Oyone, unfolds a strange tale.

Her mistress Otsuyu is a high-born young lady but as a result of family misfortunes she was sold into a geisha house. She claims that she is still a virgin. Given the very complicated nature of the institution of the geisha that might be plausible. Either way she is being put under unbearable pressure to surrender her virginity to a customer.

Otsuyu also goes under another name in her professional life, a name taken from a species of beetle that changes its appearance dramatically in different lighting conditions. Perhaps this is a clue that Otsuyu’s story should not necessarily be taken at face value.

Then Shinzaburô makes an unnerving discovery. Otsuyu and Oyone have both been dead for a year. This is particularly unsettling in view of the fact that he’s had sex with Otsuyu. Having sex with a ghost is generally considered to be unwise.

What’s worse is that he has fallen in love with her.

But what does Otsuyu want? Ghosts in Japanese (and Chinese) folklore are not necessarily evil in a straightforward sense but consorting with them can be dangerous in various ways.

Japanese ghosts can fall in love with the living - is Otsuyu in love with him? She is certainly giving him that impression.

Shinzaburô also does not know the exact circumstances of Otsuyu’s death, and that could be important.

Shinzaburô already has a difficult choice to make, a choice which he considers to be a moral one.

A good gothic horror movie with a period setting should have a slightly other-worldly look and feel. Japanese gothic horror has a certain distinctive feel and Daiei’s movies in this genre have a very impressive visual style. The Bride from Hades is a great looking movie.

This is horror that relies mostly on creating an atmosphere of unease and a rather melancholy mood.

The makeup effects are restrained, and deliberately so. This movie is not trying to gross out the viewer but rather to be slightly creepy and unnerving.

Kôjirô Hongô is very good as Shinzaburô, a man who is a bit of an innocent. Miyoko Akaza is excellent as Otsuyu - seductive but in a way that makes us uneasy from the start.

The Bride from Hades is top-notch subtle gothic horror. And nobody does ghost movies better than the Japanese. Highly recommended.

This film is included in the must-buy Daiei Gothic Blu-Ray boxed set from Radiance Films.

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)

Count Yorga, Vampire had quite a cult following at one time. It’s a “vampires in the modern world” movie. I saw it years ago and was decidedly unimpressed. It’s now time for a rewatch on Blu-Ray.

The movie opens with a séance conducted by the mysterious Count Yorga (Robert Quarry). The object is to contact the spirit of the mother of Donna (Donna Anderson). The mother had been Count Yorga’s girlfriend. Donna’s friends are very sceptical about the séance but Donna believes.

Donna is now under the Count’s hypnotic control.

Paul (Michael Murphy) and Erica (Judy Lang) have an encounter with the Count.

Erica is not well. Her physician Dr Jim Hayes (Roger Perry) diagnoses pernicious anaemia.

Dr Hayes is a blood specialist. He immediately suspects vampirism.

Dr Hayes persuades Donna’s friends that Count Yorga is a vampire who must be destroyed.

Unfortunately they turn out to be less than skilful vampire hunters. They equip themselves with sharpened broomsticks and crude improvised wooden crosses.

They do not inspire confidence.

They don’t know if they’re up against a single vampire. They do know that they will have to deal with the Count’s manservant/bodyguard who looks like a mad scientist’s assistant. We expect him to be named Igor but in fact he’s named Brudah (Edward Walsh). He’s dumb but he’s scary.

The stage is set for a showdown between the vampire and the amateur vampire hunters.

Count Yorga’s lair in his mansion looks reasonably impressive. It really is a great location which is utilised to the fullest.

The vampire makeup effects are adequate. There’s some gore but it’s fairly tame.

The visuals overall are OK but not exactly inspired.

This is a very low-budget movie and it does look rather on the cheap side.

This an extraordinarily un-erotic vampire movie and if you’re making an un-erotic vampire movie you’re pretty much missing the point of the whole vampire mythos. Intriguingly this movie was apparently originally intended to be a softcore erotic vampire film which might have been rather more entertaining.

Robert Quarry makes a moderately good vampire but doesn’t quite have the charisma that actors like Christopher Lee and Louis Jourdan brought to the role.

The other performances are adequate but unexciting.

This was an exciting time in the history of the vampire movie. European directors were totally redefining the genre with moves like Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1970), Jean Rollin’s Requiem for a Vampire (1971) and The Nude Vampire (1970), José Larraz’s Vampyres (1974) and the underrated Paul Naschy vampire flick Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973). The Japanese were getting into the act as well, with The Vampire Doll (1970).

By comparison Count Yorga, Vampire seems old-fashioned, stodgy and clunky. It is in fact just another (unauthorised) retread of Dracula but with the action moved to 1970 California. The Count has been renamed, he comes from Bulgaria rather than Transylvania and a blood specialist takes the place of Van Helsing but it’s the exact same story.

This was of course the same approach that Hammer took with Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), relocating Dracula to early 70s Swinging London. But the Hammer film is more professionally made, it has more style, it’s more fun, it has Christopher Lee and it at least tries to take advantage of the idea of an ancient vampire suddenly finding himself in a world of rock’n’roll, miniskirts, flared jeans, sexual promiscuity and mind-altering substances.

Count Yorga, Vampire simply does not take any advantage of its contemporary setting.

This is not by any means a bad movie. It’s just that if you want a fairly straightforward Dracula adaptation then Hammer’s Horror of Dracula is superior and if you want a “Dracula in the modern world” move than Hammer’s Dracula A.D. 1972 does it better and in both cases Christopher Lee is a much better Dracula than Robert Quarry. Count Yorga, Vampire really doesn’t offer anything special. Worth a look but set your expectations fairly low.

The Sentinel (1977)

The Sentinel is a 1977 supernatural horror/occult thriller movie written and directed by Michael Winner. Or at least it might be supernatural horror, or it might not be.

I’m going to lay my cards on the table right at the start. I don’t care what anyone says I like Michael Winner as a director.

We start with a bunch of Catholic priests in Italy and they seem to be very concerned not just about evil in general but about some specific manifestation of evil.

Then the scene shifts to New York. Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a successful model. Her lawyer boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon) wants to marry her. They’ve been living together for two years. Alison says she needs space. She wants her own apartment.

She is troubled by a bizarre childhood memory. It involves her father, and possibly satanic influences.

She finds a nice apartment. Maybe she should have been suspicious when she found out that such a nice apartment was available for such a low rental but the real estate agent, Miss Logan (Ava Gardner), seems very reassuring.

Some of her new neighbours are a bit odd. Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) is a crazy old guy who lives with his cat and his parakeet but he’s very sweet and very friendly.

The two lesbians are more worrying. And the twins. Even fact all of the neighbours are worrying in various ways.

The noises from upstairs are disturbing.

Alison really starts to worry after she asks Miss Logan about the neighbours.

We might wonder a bit about that disturbing childhood memory. Is it a real memory? Could it be a false memory? Or just a dream? Or even a demonically inspired dream? Or is she remembering things that she misinterpreted at the time?

This is a “supernatural evil in the modern world” movie. But this is one of those movies that may or may not be actually about supernatural horror. Everything we see could have non-supernatural explanations. Somebody could be gaslighting Alison. Or Alison may in fact be crazy. That’s a possibility that will occur to us, and it occurs to Alison as well.

Alison goes to investigate those noises upstairs and she thinks she kills an old man. It might be her father. But her father died several weeks earlier. And the only blood the police find is Alison’s blood.

Detective Gatz (Eli Wallach) is worried by several things, principally by a case a few years earlier. A case that could have a link to these recent events.

Winner cleverly keeps things mysterious. He offers us nothing substantial that would back any of the theories we might have come up with to explain what is going on. He slowly builds an atmosphere of menace and paranoia but keeps it vague, which of course makes it all the more unsettling.

Alison is a really nice girl. She might be a really nice sane girl, or a really mad girl. Other characters are ambiguous as well.

And there’s still that niggling suspicion that supernatural evil might be at work.

I’m being deliberately very vague because I think this is a movie you’ll appreciate a lot more if you go into it not knowing what kind of movie it’s going to turn out to be.

Burgess Meredith gives the most memorable performance but all the cast members are fine. John Carradine is quite something as well. Cristina Raines and Chris Sarandon are effectively ambiguous. Look out for Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum in small roles.

The unease mounts remorselessly. The ending really is worth the wait. This is a movie that delivers the goods. Highly recommended.

The Universal Blu-Ray is barebones but looks good.

The Monk (1972)

The Monk is a movie I’ve been searching for for quite a while. I was delighted to find it on DVD. Not the greatest transfer perhaps but it is in the correct aspect ratio at least. This is a movie that definitely needs a full restoration and a Blu-Ray release. It was a Franco-Italian-German co-production shot in English.

It’s based on Matthew Gregory Lewis’s 1796 gothic novel of the same name. This is one of the most notorious most outrageous novels of all time. If you’re telling yourself that a novel written in 1796 couldn’t possibly still be shocking today then think again. The Monk still packs a punch.

It’s necessary to keep in mind that anti-Catholic bigotry was a major strain in English culture (both high culture and pop culture) from the 16th century right through to the 20th century. Anti-Catholicism was a common theme in the first wave of gothic fiction which lasted from 1764 up to around 1820. It found its most spectacular flowering in Lewis’s The Monk.

The gothic fiction of that early period invariably has hints of the supernatural but it almost always turns out that nothing was actually involved. The Monk is unusual in that it has overt and explicit supernatural elements.

This movie certainly has some horror an exploitation elements but it has some definite art-house credentials as well. The script was co-written by Luis Buñuel no less (with Jean-Claude Carrière).

In fact Buñuel had been hoping to film the novel since the 1950s.

For various reasons Buñuel lost interest in directing and the assignment was given to Greek director Ado Kyrou. The script by Buñuel and Carrière was retained.

The setting is presumably Spain, probably in the 17th century. Ambrosio (Franco Nero) is a monk renowned for his piety and wisdom, and especially for his passionate belief in the vital importance of chastity. Ambrosio is admired by all.

He is becoming a little worried about Brother John. Brother John is in fact a gorgeous young woman, Mathilde (Nathalie Delon), masquerading as a man. We will later discover that her motives are less than innocent. Even wearing a cowl nobody could possibly mistake Mathilde for a man. This might of course be a deliberate touch, perhaps an attempt to capture the somewhat outlandish feel of the early gothic novels with unlikely coincidences and implausible disguises.

Mathilde has no trouble seducing Ambrosio. He is wracked by guilt but he can’t give her up.

Mathilde has clearly awakened Ambrosio’s interest in women. He becomes obsessed with a young girl, Antonia. Antoni’s mother is very ill. Ambrosio offers her spiritual comfort but he’d like to offer Antonia comfort of a more carnal nature. By this time Ambrosio has surrendered to the pleasures of the flesh but with the added spice of lots and lots of guilt.

Mathilde tells the wretched monk that there is a way he can have Antonia. Mathilde has commerce with demons. She can summon a demon who will deliver Antonia into his hands. Ambrosio is horrified but his lusts have now taken control of him.

The wealthy and debauched and incredibly wicked Duke of Talamur (Nicol Williamson) also has an interest in Antonia. The Duke is a noted philanthropist. He is always looking for ways to help the unfortunate, especially if the unfortunate happen to be very young girls.

Needless to say these wicked goings-on attract the attention of the Inquisition. It seems that nothing can save Ambrosio.

The cast is fine. Franco Nero did this sort of thing well. On the subject of the blending of art and exploitation in this movie it’s worth noting that is star, Franco Nero, was an actor who shuttled happily back and forth between art movies and exploitation movies and popular commercial movies. Nathalie Delon as Mathilde is suitably wicked. Nicol Williamson oozes corruption and evil and uber-creepiness from every pore.

This movie really needed Buñuel at the helm. Ado Kyrou clearly has no feel for the material. The sleaze and trashiness is there in the source material and the movie doesn’t back away from admitting that shocking things are going on but the style is dull and too arty. With Buñuel unavailable it might perhaps have been better to pick a director with more of an exploitation movie sensibility. It would have been interesting to see Jess Franco let loose on this material. Alice Arno as Mathilde could have been awesome.

This movie came out the same year as Ken Russell’s The Devils. That’s the kind of approach The Monk needed. The Monk definitely needed some visual flamboyance and outrageousness.

The ending is cringe. The Monk just doesn’t make it. The 70s was the time when a great adaptation of the novel could have been made but this film represents a misfire and a lost opportunity.

Witchery (La casa 4, 1989)

Witchcraft (AKA La casa 4 AKA Witchery) is an Italian gothic horror movie shot in the United States in English. 

It was Fabrizio Laurenti’s first feature film as director. The producer was Joe D’Amato.

The setting is an old abandoned hotel on an island in Massachusetts, about 50 miles from Boston. Leslie (Leslie Cumming) is there to research a book on witchcraft. She is there with her photographer boyfriend Gary (David Hasselhoff). Linda is a virgin. That’s not Gary’s fault. Lord knows he’s tried his best but Linda won’t play ball.

They forget to ask permission to visit the island.

A rich middle-aged couple, Rose and Freddie Brooks, have just bought the island. They’ve hired architect Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland) to restore the place. They arrive on the island along with their pregnant daughter Jane (Linda Blair), Jane’s young nephew Tommy and a real estate agent. The fact that Jane is pregnant will also become important later.

What they don’t know is that living in the hotel is an ageing witch, an ageing witch known only as the Lady In Black (Hildegard Knef). She’s a super-evil witch and she has big plans.

The witch is opening portals. Jane falls through one, witnesses horrifying scenes of torture, but is then returned to reality. The witch has other plans for her. Rose Brooks falls through another portal. She is not so lucky.

Meanwhile Linda and the young estate agent have grown bored and have retired upstairs for some bedroom shenanigans.

The witch seems to be picking these people off one by one, in ways that seem appropriate to her given their sins.

Of course you won’t be surprised to learn that these unlucky people are stranded on the island. Yes, the telephones lines are down and their boat has vanished.

This is a gruesome movie with some definite gross-out moments and some nasty torture scenes. It doesn’t really need to rely on these since it has an unoriginal but perfectly serviceable premise, a superb location, some very fine creepy atmosphere and some good suspense.

The cast is quite OK. I’ve always liked Linda Blair. David Hasselhoff as always has plenty of charm. They’re by far the most effective members of the cast.

One amusing touch is that we’re told that the locals are a superstitious lot. They’re simple fisher-folk. Typical gothic horror movie ignorant peasants in fact. But this is Massachusetts in the late 80s.

The hotel is truly wonderful. This is not a typical gothic horror crumbling medieval castle but the hotel is very spooky and very gothic in a distinctively American Gothic way. And while Laurenti may not be a great director he knows how to use this location to best effect.

This is, to be brutally honest, a pretty bad movie. But it does have some interestingly oddball touches and a fine sense of evil and menace. The pacing is brisk enough.

The whole opening of the portal thing is a bit hard to follow but it’s one of the oddball touches that I like about this movie. The supernatural is not supposed to be rational!

The bathtub and fireplace scenes are memorable.

This movie is obviously in the witchcraft and devil-worship in the modern world mould. It has some slight affinities to the 70s/70s folk horror moves such as The Wicker Man and the excellent 1966 Eye of the Devil but it can also been seen as a kind of Exorcist rip-off, with hints of an Omen rip-off. It’s weird in ways that are unnecessary and make no sense and that makes it fun in spite of its faults. Recommended.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray looks very nice. I believe that there’s a US Blu-Ray release from Shout! Factory.

The Howling (1981)

Joe Dante’s The Howling was released in 1981.

The 80s was a mini-golden age of werewolf movies. It’s not hard to see why. There had been great werewolf movies in the past (The Wolf Man, Hammer’s The Curse of the Werewolf) but the problem had aways been that the look of the werewolves was so disappointing. They looked like guys who were just badly in need of a haircut and a shave. During the gothic horror boom of the 60s and early 70s werewolves were largely ignored. They would have looked too lame.

But by the 80s practical effects and makeup effects had become incredibly sophisticated. This was before CGI. CGI wasn’t needed. By the 80s old school effects could produce a genuinely convincing and terrifying werewolf. The result was movies like An American Werewolf in London (1980), The Company of Wolves (1984) and later, in the 90s, Wolf. And The Howling.

Interestingly enough werewolf movies would soon once more disappear into oblivion. Werewolves are the kinds of creatures that are always going to look lame done with CGI. CGI cannot capture that visceral feel that 80s special effects achieved so well. In The Howling you can almost smell the musky wild animal scent of the werewolves.

The Howling starts off as a scuzzy crime thriller. Newsreader Karen White (Dee Wallace) is helping the police to catch a psycho killer. He’s a media-obsessed psycho killer so he’s made contact with her. They arrange a meeting. Karen will be safe. The cops will be watching. Of course the cops, being cops, make an unholy mess of things. Karen finds herself trapped in an adult bookstore with a crazed killer. She is lucky to escape alive. The killer is gunned down by the cops.

The police have been getting advice from renowned psychiatrist Dr George Waggner (Patrick Macnee). You have to remember that this was the 80s, when people still took psychiatrists and the media seriously.

Karen is badly shaken up. Dr Waggner advises her to go his therapeutic retreat, The Colony. Her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) can accompany her. It’s in the middle of the wilderness. Karen is sceptical. Like any sane person she knows that the countryside is much more dangerous than the city.

The Colony is full of weirdos, perverts, burned-out hippies, drunks, druggies and assorted losers. Karen is not very happy. She’s even less happy when she sets eyes on Marsha (Elisabeth Brooks) and we can’t blame her. One look at Marsha and you know she’s a sexy dangerous bad girl who’s probably a firecracker in bed. Karen is not reassured when she’s told that Marsha is being treated by Dr Waggner for nymphomania.

And Marsha is already casting lustful glances at Karen’s husband. Karen suspects that Marsha will soon be tearing BiIl’s trousers off and that he probably won’t put up much resistance.

Meanwhile Karen’s media friends Chris and Terry have been finding out some disturbing things relating to that now deceased psycho killer.

And that’s before Karen finds out that the woods around The Colony are crawling with werewolves.

This was a fairly low-budget movie (made for $1.1 million dollars). When it was completed Dante realised that the special effects were hopelessly inadequate but luckily was able to pry some more money out of the backers and do some reshoots. The final results are quite impressive.

It’s an example of good low-budget filmmaking. If you only have one werewolf suit but you know what you’re doing you can convince the audience that there are lots of werewolves.

The gore level is moderate.

There’s only one sex scene and it’s great - it convinces us that this man and woman are no longer bound by civilised restraints. They’re werewolves and they’re coupling like wild animals.

The acting is mostly good. I liked Patrick Macnee. He’s playing a psychiatrist so he’s supposed to be weird and creepy, and he leaves us guessing as to whether this is just a regular creepy psychiatrist or a totally evil one.

Elisabeth Brooks as Marsha is not just mysterious, dangerous and sexy but also gives off some seriously wild vibes. She’s like a she-cat on heat. And she looks terrific.

The most interesting thing about his movie is how long it take for the werewolf elements to kick in. First it makes us think it’s a gritty sleazy urban crime drama, then it makes us think it’s a psychos in the woods movie. Don’t worry. Once the werewolf thing gets going there’s plenty of it.

The best thing is that this really feels like a drive-movie. In the best possible way. The Howling is highly recommended.

It looks great on Blu-Ray.

The first of the sequels, Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, has little connection to the first film but it’s great cinema trash.

Lady Frankenstein (1971)

You’re making a Frankenstein movie in 1971 but you want to add something different, to make your film look less like a rip-off of Hammer’s Frankenstein movies. So what do you do? You give Baron Frankenstein a beautiful sexy daughter who is also a mad scientist. And you make her the focus of the story. That’s the basis for Lady Frankenstein.

Of course you’ll need the right actress. How about Rosalba Neri? She’s sexy, glamorous, classy, she can act and she has the ability to be equally convincing as a heroine or a villainess. She turned out to be an inspired choice.

Joseph Cotten gets top billing but he actually has only a supporting role. This is totally a star vehicle for Rosalba Neri. She has to carry the film. And she does so with ease.

The setting is supposed to be England but it looks more like the Central Europe of Hammer’s gothic horror movies. In fact the whole visual style of this movie owes quite a lot to Hammer.

Lady Frankenstein adds some sleaze and some hints of sexual perversity. That was very much the trend in European horror at the time and Hammer were moving, a bit tentatively, in that direction. Lady Frankenstein goes a bit further than Hammer would dare to go.

Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) and his assistant Dr Charles Marshall (Paul Muller) are on the verge of the final successful breakthrough in their attempts to create a living man out of dead tissue.

The problem is that the brain they are using comes from a hanged murderer and this brain has a few malfunctions. They create a man-monster and bring him to life but they can’t control him and Baron Frankenstein pays the price for his error of judgment.

In the 1931 Frankenstein there is of course a famous scene involving the monster, a child and a pond. In Lady Frankenstein this scene is a little different - the monster hurls a naked young woman into a lake, having surprised her having sex on the lakeshore with her young man. This is the monster’s first killing but there will be plenty more.

Baron Frankenstein’s daughter Tania (Rosalba Neri) vows to continue her father’s work, which Dr Marshall’s assistance. This is where the movie gets interesting. Tania Frankenstein is not a mere simplistic evil mad scientist. She has a number of simultaneous motivations. Ambition is one motivation but she is also driven by both lust and love. Tania has a woman’s emotional needs and a woman’s physical needs. Dr Marshall can satisfy the former and she is attracted by his mind but his weedy middle-ged body does not set her pulses racing. Maybe Tommy, her servant, can satisfy her sexual needs? He has a strong masculine body. Unfortunately he is a halfwit. Tania needs a man with both an exciting mind and an exciting body. If only the dumb-as-a-rock but hunky Tommy had Dr Marshall’s brain!

It’s always difficult to judge acting performances when they’re dubbed, but Rosalba Neri smoulders when she needs to smoulder and she’s convincingly depraved. Joseph Cotten is very good - he did quite a few exploitation movies in Italy around this time but in this instance at least he is not just phoning it in.

Mel Welles directs. He doesn’t have much of a reputation as a director but here he is at least competent. It’s visually reasonably impressive with a fairly cool mad scientist’s laboratory (which was re-used in several other movies) and manages not to look cheap.

The big problem is the very lame monster. It’s not a fatal flaw because the focus is very much on Tania Frankenstein and her romantic and erotic entanglements that lead her to become a fully-fledged evil mad scientist. But the monster is seriously lame.

Lady Frankenstein doesn’t push things very far on the gore front. There is however a fair bit of nudity and sex. The movie’s selling point was clearly going to be the sexy lady mad scientist.

The movie was shot in Italy and partly financed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. The version released in the States was cut, apparently not so much to remove sex and violence as to get the running time down to the length Corman wanted. With the cut scenes restored the plot makes a lot more sense and the motivations of the characters are a lot clearer.

Lady Frankenstein isn’t one of the gothic horror greats but it offers plenty of enjoyment. Highly recommended.

This movie is included in Severin’s Danza Macabra Volume 1 Blu-Ray boxed set and it gets a lovely transfer. There’s an audio commentary by Alan Jones and Kim Newman which, as you would expect from those two, is both illuminating and entertaining. And there’s a second audio commentary and other extras as well.

The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975)

The Werewolf and the Yeti (La maldición de la bestia) is a 1975 Spanish horror film directed by Miguel Iglesias and starring Paul Naschy and it’s one of the long series of films in which he appeared playing the tragic tortured werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky. This movie was also released in English-speaking markets as The Curse of the Beast, Hall of the Mountain King and Night of the Howling Beast. Naschy as usual wrote the screenplay.

Waldemar Daninsky is now an anthropologist and he’s part of an expedition, led by Professor Lacombe (Josep Castillo Escalona), to the Himalayas to find the Yeti, the fabled Abominable Snowman. You have to admit that’s a setup that is very promising.

All the passes have been closed by bad weather. All except one. There is a man who knows of a pass open all the year round. The guy is unfortunately not entirely sane. He is haunted by nightmares of the Demons of the Blue Moon. They scare him more than the Yeti. He is however persuaded to act as guide.

The expedition sets off, with half a dozen or so men and two young women plus the guide and a team of sherpas. You’ll be amused to hear that one of the expedition members is named Larry Talbot.

Daninsky and the guide decide to scout out the pass on their own. They are soon lost and Daninsky finds himself alone.

That’s when he finds the cave. There’s some kind of shrine. And two gorgeous babes. The girls are very friendly. Daninsky has a most enjoyable roll in the hay with the girls but then things get weird and scary.

At this point it becomes obvious that the entire Daninsky backstory from the previous films has been scrapped. This is in fact a radical reboot of the franchise, with a brand-new origin story for Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf. It all starts for him in that cave, with those two scary chicks. Scary chicks with sharp teeth.

The expedition is attacked by bandits. There’s an evil warlord named Sekkar Khan (Luis Induni) to whom the bandits seem to be answerable.

More scarily there’s Wandesa (Silvia Solar). She is beautiful, sadistic evil and lustful. She has a dungeon full of babes and her plans for these girls are decidedly unpleasant.

Sekkar Khan is suffering from some horrible disease. Wandesa is trying to cure him. He thinks Professor Lacombe might be able to cure him. That enrages Wandesa. Her power rests on Sekkar Khan’s belief that she is his only hope.

Daninsky is now a werewolf. Professor Lacombe and the two girl members of the expedition are in Sekkar Khan’s hands. Then Daninsky falls into the hands of the arch-villain as well. Of course it isn’t particularly easy to hold a werewolf captive. Despite the wholly new origin story this is still recognisably Waldemar Daninsky - a brave honourable man cursed by a terrible affliction.

The bad news is that this is not really a yeti movie, although a yeti does put it a brief appearance. This is a werewolf movie. The good news is that it’s a very cool werewolf movie.

It also incorporates hints of other genres - women-in-prison movies, lost civilisation stores and mad scientist movies.

There’s plenty of mayhem and a fair bit of nudity. Exploitation movie fans will not be disappointed by this movie.

Naschy’s script is very good. There’s lots going on in this film. There’s that sense of tragedy about Daninsky, there are thrills and chills. And there’s a love story.

There’s a fine arch-villain and a memorable sexy sinister cruel villainess.

It was obviously made on a very modest budget but it looks quite impressive. The transformation scenes are amazingly well done.

The Werewolf and the Yeti is an interesting werewolf movie with some offbeat touches but enough conventional werewolf stuff to keep werewolf fans happy. Later in his career he made another excellent unconventional werewolf movie, The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983).

An under-appreciated Naschy movie. Highly recommended.

This movie is included in Shout! Factor’s Paul Naschy Collection II Blu-Ray set. The transfer is in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The transfer looks very nice.