Got to see this last night playing in a theater, which is kinda weird because it was originally only released to video. Very basic 80s werewolf movie, with some fairly decent transformation scenes, thanks to director Ted Bohus, which are inspired by AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, mixed with an almost SAVED BY THE BELL plot involving a struggling up and coming rock band and high school kids all played by folks who could easily be in their 30s or 40s. Michael J. Fox and TEEN WOLF get name checked and our mysterious werewolf gets to slashing. Maybe worth a one-time watch if you're a werewolf cinema completist.
Peter Cushing and Calvin Lockhart(of COTTON COMES TO HARLEM fame) are featured in this British horror film that some call a blaxploitation werewolf movie. Despite the funky soundtrack and a couple of black characters it really isn't much like an American blaxploitation flick. Still a fun one that starts out like THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME before settling into a more typical whodunnit tale. There is a bit where they stop the movie and take a "werewolf break" so you can guess who's the wolfman(or wolfwoman) so that's something. The monster itself is kind of a letdown though being just a big fluffy dog
Released on VHS under this more exploitative title!:
I'll give this movie a little bit of credit for being something made in 2014 and not being a total CGI shitfest. Unfortunately the werewolves in this look more like they belong in a FRAGGLE ROCK episode than any kind of horror movie but at least they made the attempt. The movie itself is more of a character study of a blind vet played by Nick Damici placed in an old folks' community where a werewolf just so happens to be lurking about. One of his neighbors is GINGER from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. So if you want to see what Ginger looks like at 80 here's your chance. While nowhere near the top of the heap of werewolf movies this might appeal to someone looking for a slightly different take on the old wolfman story. AKA NIGHT OF THE WOLF
Alice Cooper was one of the biggest rock stars of the 1970s and then the 80s came along and he went into a bit of a slump. That explains how he ended up starring in this horror flick( which seems like an Italian film but was actually filmed in Spain, California and Puerto Rico) directed by the guy who brought us that beloved turd of a film TROLL 2(Claudio Fragasso). Cooper pretty much just plays his normal ominous character here except he's named Vincent Raven and he(along with everyone else) is dubbed with a voice that doesn't sound like Alice at all. The movie shifts from what we are led to believe will be an animals-run-amuck deal into a werewolf movie then becomes STRAW DOGS for a little bit before ending with a bit of confusion. This one always sorta reminded me of HUMUNGOUS probably because they both are set in a remote location where there's a bunch of wild dogs running around. Worth a look if you're a big Cooper fan, like myself, and want to see what he was up to in those in-between super stardom years when he got all new-wavy or if you just dig cheesy Eurohorror crap.
The great Paul Naschy appears in this as a Nazi-fied version of Dr. Moreau who has to leave his island of mutant creatures and start experimenting on the locals in The Amazon jungle. Oh and, as usual, he's also a Wolfman since he used some of his magic gene-splicing potion on himself. There's also a tribe of Amazon women that Naschy created just for fun and to occasionally have some sex with and some cannibalistic beastly monster folks that he keeps in cages. While this might sound like fun, sadly, since this was filmed in 2005, it's all pretty shoddily put together. You do get some nudity and blood and Mr. Naschy is fine in his scenes but mostly it focuses on a group of fairly annoying young people looking to get high and end up getting killed in typical slasher movie fashion. There's also a bit of strange attempts at comedy thrown in that fall really flat.
Director Ivan Cardosa did make the superior, and way weirder, SECRET OF THE MUMMY, back in the 80s when there was still a chance of seeing something good.
HARD ROCK ZOMBIES is a film that on the surface I feel like I should hate. It's a really dumb 80s film that doesn't take itself very seriously. Unlike the majority of other stupid 80s flicks though I find this one really entertaining and I've rewatched it so many times over the years that I have long ago lost count. I think it's the fact that they just throw everything into the mix that I find so appealing. Of course you get the zombies of the title, who do rock out after being turned into flesh-chomping ghouls, but in addition to that there's an old-lady werewolf, a couple of midgets, a bald Nazi weed-whacker killer, a pervy peeping-Tom, a sexy slasher-lady and to top it all off Adolph Hitler himself shows up. The music itself, while perhaps a bit too on the soft and poppy side to be truly called "hard rock" is still catchy enough in that bubblegum-rock kind of way(or maybe that's just because I've heard these songs so many times that they have ear-wormed themselves into my brain!). There's boobs, blood, a Nazi monster-faced midget eats himself down to just a skull, there's an "homage" to PSYCHO and Thing from THE ADDAMS FAMILY gets zombified and kills a guy, what more could you want from a stupid horror flick designed to be viewed whilst drunk and in a partying mood?
Known in France as just regular ROCK ZOMBIES which I suppose is a bit more accurate:
While Hammer studios' HORROR OF DRACULA and THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN were great and kicked off the resurgence in monster movies in the late 50s my personal favorite is this Oliver Reed-starring wolfman saga. The reinvention of the whole werewolf mythos(based on a 1930s novel) is pretty refreshing and Reed does a great job with imbuing the suffering monster with some expected pathos. While the transformation scenes are nothing amazing and were done better in the 30s the monster itself is pretty impressive-looking. The whole film also has a great fairy-tale-feeling to it and with the always amazing setpieces that Hammer used really stands out as a special classic horror film. While I wouldn't put this above the Chaney WOLFMAN it's a pretty close second and one of my favorites form Hammer studios line of monster films.
French poster!:
Italian poster!(except for the U.S. it looks like they tried to hide what the monster looked like):
On a double-bill with a Hammer film I've never seen:
Director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who is clearly the greatest Australian exploitation movie director, gives us a futuristic fascist government that throws people into re-education camps for the slightest of infractions and then murders them if they do not get with the program to become model citizens. Things start off with a very women-in-prison-feel(even though there are men prisoners also including Steve Railsback who will forever remind me of Charles Manson, whenever I hear his voice, giving me flashbacks to the classic TV-movie HELTER SKELTER, where he so expertly portrayed the world's most famous crazy person) before going into THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME-territory when a handful of prisoners are released only to be hunted down by our Nazi-like guards and warden named Thatcher(very subtle social commentary there!). If all this isn't exciting enough Mr. Trenchard-Smith also throws a naughty werewolf into the mix(I guess technically he's supposed to be some kinda mutant but he sure looks like a werewolf to me) who likes to rip off people's toes and chomp on them like wolf-people do. It's a great mix of action, there's some blood despite cutting away from a few graphic scenes(there is an uncut 90 minute version that is supposed to be quite a bit more graphic in this department), mandatory naked shower scene and heads get blown apart! AKA TURKEY SHOOT and BLOOD CAMP THATCHER(this was obviously the popular British title)
The title should technically be ESCAPE 1995:
"The blood and thunder shocker" of 1982!!:
This one is probably better known as ASSIGNMENT TERROR. Calling it DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN is pretty dumb since those 2 monsters never fight and are working on the same team and there is a crappy Al Adamson film under that title and also a Jess Franco film known as such. THE WOLFMAN VS. FRANKENSTEIN woulda made more sense since that actually happens but weird aka's is pretty standard for Paul Naschy werewolf flicks. This is the 2nd(or 3rd if you count the unobtainable/uncompleted? NIGHTS OF THE WOLF-MAN) Naschy flick as Waldemar Daninsky and one of the few ones that actually works as a sequel. The plot revolves around a mad-scientist-type, played by Michael Rennie from the classic THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, and just like in that movie he's actually an alien but instead of trying to warn the Earth about its impending doom here he's actively trying to bring that about by re-animating various monsters including a mummy, a vampire, a Frankenstein-monster(though he's called the Faranksalan-monster to avoid copyright charges?) and, of course, Naschy's Wolf-Man. Instead of conquering the planet though they all seem to just hang out in this old castle. It's a pretty convoluted(part sci-fi/part-horror) mess of a movie that's closer in plot to something like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE than any of the classic Universal films it's attempting to mimic but for monster fans like myself it's still a great wacky watch and where else do you get go-go dancers mixed into your monster-mash?.
I never knew that this Paul Naschy werewolf flick was presented in 3-D in the U.S.A. back in the 70s until just recently. I also never figured I would get a chance to actually view it like that but thanks to a newly refurbished print I caught it in all it's glorious dimensions recently.
The film itself is a pretty groovy monster-mash done Eurotrash-style. We get Mr. Naschy getting himself bitten and cursed while dispatching a Wolf-Man. Then in order to cure himself he ends up with a vampire couple posing as doctors who specialize in lycanthropy. It's got sexy ladies, blood and monster brawling(including vampire vs. werewolf and some werewolf on werewolf action!). The only thing really missing is anything to do with Frankenstein. The American producer, Sam Sherman, tries to remedy this a bit by calling the main family Wolfstein but this is a pretty tenuous link. If you can overlook that one little thing though this is a great ride for appreciators of monster cinema and it's especially sweet in 3-D. AKA THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN, THE WEREWOLF'S MARK, HELL'S CREATURES and THE VAMPIRE OF DR. DRACULA
This is the 1st of Naschy's Waldemar The Werewolf flicks to be released. There was supposedly an earlier one titled NIGHTS OF THE WOLF-MAN that was never completed due to it's director, Rene Govar, dropping dead.
There are 13 sequels(or more accurately just follow up werewolf flicks) to this including:
OK, so this was originally a Mexican serial featuring a masked(very Lone Ranger-like) hero battling various foes and they spliced 3 of these episodes together and released this. Because of this it does get a bit repetitive watching this as a feature-length film. On the plus side they do jam pack three ridiculous monsters into it including a ratty-ass Wolf man, or Lobo Humano in the native tongue, a vampire who has a hairy Wolfman-like face and frequently turns into a big rubber bat on a string and finally a Headless Horseman who manages to regain his big paper-mache head before battling our hero with the cool skull-covered shirt. There's tons of day-for-night shooting which leads to our vampire worrying about the sun coming up while clearly standing in bright daylight with shadows all around him. The werewolf has a unique way of transforming where he first completely turns into a skeleton before becoming a Wolf-Man. It's all very silly and watching this in a theater it was a bit difficult to stay awake during some of the drawn-out parts but worth checking out if you want to seem some obscure Mexican monster weirdness.
The director here, Alfred Salazar, is the brother of bigtime cult Mexican actor Abel Salazar. He also made some Aztec Mummy movies and a few Santo flicks. He has been dubbed the Mexican Ed Wood and that's not too far off from the truth.
For some reason I always assumed this was a prequel to the similarly-titled Mexican monster-filled flick THE SHIP OF MONSTERS but it isn't at all. This one is more like the Mexican version of ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN except that they replace the famous duo with only one moronic bumbling idiot named Clavillazzo. Most of the film is a pretty straight-on comedy until it finally ends up in a castle chock full of south-of-the-border versions of famous monsters of filmland including a Frankenstein monster(who's also a very Lurch of THE ADDAMS FAMILY-like servant), a Wolf-Man, a very skinny Mummy, a Creature From The Black Lagoon, an ape-man and a Dracula(played by German Robles who stars in a lot of these early Mexi-horrors including the title role in the EL VAMPIRO series). While our main funny-man can get a little grating at times this is such a goofy oddity that it needs to be seen by monster-kids who want to see a fairly obscure monster mash-up.
Dracula, or Alucard as he's called here gets himself a Wolfman, or a Jackal-Man as he's called here, servant to get him some ladies for his blood drinking and sexual needs. So it's sorta like that Bela Lugosi movie RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE except this is way more of a softcore porn situation where our vampire villain has sex with, aka rapes, naked gals while still completely dressed using some weird, rarely seen vampiric powers. Also it's dubbed to make it a comedy giving Drac a very Jewish accent and also strangely giving one of the ladies here an old grandma voice.
Apparently Woody Allen's first movie WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, made a few years earlier and similarly dubbed except a bit wittier, was enough of a hit that this was made along the same lines. It is pretty humorous for about half the movie then it starts to get a bit monotonous but still worth a look for lovers of obscure weirdness. Tits are bitten, Irving Jackal-Man gets in on the raping, women are insulted(or fat-shamed as all the sensitive types call it now) and it ends in a monster brawl.
Bela Lugosi plays a very Dracula-ish vampire fellow named Tesla who manages to keep coming back throughout the decades even after getting a stake through the heart. The coolest part to me is that he has a werewolf servant! Unlike most wolfmen though this one chats up a storm and stays in his wolf-form even during the day with no full-moon in sight! Also he doesn't seem all that tough or scary, almost getting his ass kicked by a couple of regular humans at one point, which is unfortunate. I think I just like the idea that he's such a helpful ghoul. Eventually Bela/Tesla has no more use for or silly hairy friend and he gets to play the redeemed hero bit. There's also a bunch of boring parts with regular boring people that wasn't all that interesting. Basically this is a weird Columbia Pictures version of a Universal monster movie which if they made it woulda most likely been called DRACULA MEETS THE WOLFMAN. I can't help but think they would have probably done a better job and for sure the Wolfman would have had some better makeup but this is still an interesting old B-movie monster mash-up.
This is my favorite Abbott & Costello flick and it's also probably the classic Universal monster movie that I've seen the most, due to it being played many Sunday mornings on TV back when I was a kid. The cast in this one is pretty sweet with Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man(also briefly the voice of Vincent Price as The Invisible Man). The only one missing is Boris Karloff, who Abbott & Costello would meet a year later in A & C MEET THE KILLER, but we do have Glenn Strange as The Monster(referred to as "Frankie" by Costello in what might be the first time in a film the monster is referred to as just Frankenstein??). While this is obviously a comedy the monsters are kept fairly true to their roots and never completely ridiculed the way I imagine most modern-day comedies would treat them. Memories of watching this film are so ingrained in my head that it's impossible to be very subjective about it but I feel very lucky to have been raised in an era when stuff like this was everywhere for free.
This has a really awesome opening sequence where we get the titular, hairy, gigantically-nippled, wolf-lady on a bloody rampage. Then she ends up getting the burned-at-the-stake witch treatment(although how they subdue her and actually get her onto that stake without losing a jugular vein is not fleshed out at all?). As with so many of these eurotrash horror flicks we then jump to the modern day where the past comes back to haunt a very unhinged gal who has some werewolf-like hallucinations and goes on a neck biting spree to combat the memories of being raped. The problem with having such a strong opening is that the rest of the movie inevitably will not hold up and that's very true here. Also once you get past the beginning segment not so much actual werewolf action occurs. Fortunately there's enough rampant nudity, bloody violence and would-be rapists(it seems that 90% of all the men our main character runs across are sexual assailants!) that it keeps things exciting although your mileage may vary depending on your propensity towards liking sleazy trash. Luckily I adore it! AKA THE LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN, TERROR OF THE SHE WOLF and SHE-WOLF.
In 1981 this film, along with THE HOWLING, took the werewolf movie and updated it for modern(at the time) audiences. Amazing special FX work and modern-day story-lines had a young me anxious to see what the future of horror would bring. Little did I know that these films would pretty much be the apex and horror, and film-making in general, would devolve into a lifeless form of commercialism over artistry. Watching this back-to-back with THE HOWLING recently I have to give it to WEREWOLF for being a slightly better-made and more fun watch. Then again if you're looking for a more straight-forward horror film with less comedic bits HOWLING is the way to go. Either way they do make a great double-feature!
Make-up artist Rick Baker won an academy award for this. 17 years later they made a CGI-laden lame-ass sequel, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS, and if you want to see how far movies had fallen in that time-span just watch 5 minutes of that crapfest.
This is the 6th film in Paul Naschy's Waldemar Danisky werewolf saga, not that there's really any chronological narrative between the films, and it features a meeting of our Spanish Wolf-man and Dr. Jekyll. Jekyll is played by Jack Taylor in his usual wooden-acting style but it actually works OK here. That's a few wacky things that take place in this movie. The main one is the sight of El Hombre-Lobo running around England, including tearing up a disco, like some-kinda hairy Jack The Ripper which predates AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON by many years except in that movie the monster was a giant ferocious wolf and in this one it's a guy with a furry head and hands wearing a shirt and pants which looks pretty ridiculous. Later on Naschy also gets turned into a Mr. Hyde-character which robs us of the battle promised in the title but is equally strange to see since he looks like he stepped out of the 30's and this part of the film seems clearly set in the 70's. Story-wise the most absurd thing is that somehow Dr. Jekyll figures out that turning a werewolf into a Mr. Hyde will somehow cure him of his wolf-curse? The mythological-logic here is a little hard to follow. On the plus side we get to see Naschy bear-hug a guy to death using his massive barrel-chest which is pretty bad-ass.
I've only seen the cut version of this but there is a longer version titled DR. JEKYLL AND THE WOLFMAN so I'm not sure what I missed exactly but it's probably some boobs.
This is a TV-movie version of a werewolf movie and it's really not all that exciting. It plays like a mystery for most of the film up until we figure out who the wolf-man is. Geoffrey Lewis who was in almost every show on TV in the 70's and 80's plays a hillbilly here. The monster in this might have the worst werewolf makeup ever which consists of furry gloves, a beard and a cute little black nose. As dumb as it is it's still better than anything produced for television in, at least, the last 20 years.
This is available on a bunch of cheap-ass dollar DVD's and they always use a much better looking wolf-monster for the cover photo, sometimes just slapping a pic of ol' Lon Chaney Jr. on there just for the hell of it. Very sneaky!
Was Tuesday night really a big movie-viewing night in the 70's?:
Hard to believe it took all the way up until 2006 for somebody to get the idea to mix a monster movie with a women-in-prison flick but it did. Of course since it's a newer movie it's not shot on film and looks more like a TV show but besides all that, and unlike most newer things I've seen, I have to give this movie credit for at least being an entertaining super low budget monster movie. The big plus here is that they use practical effects for everything, there's lots of gore, tons of tits on full display, lesbianism all around(including a tongue bath), cheesy cheap-shit werewolf suit with red light-bulb eyes, a puking scene and an homage/rip-off of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. There are way worse modern things out there you could waste your time on and I'd recommend this as long as you're not completely allergic to new movies.
I love how the DVD release shown above is just the poster for Jess Franco's BARBED WIRE DOLLS with some werewolf teeth thrown over it.
.jpg)
