Crying the Wolf Guy Must Die

 

  The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973) is another one I’d wanted to see since I was a kid. A friend had a book of movies monsters featuring this film and the photos of this werewolf scared the hell out of me, all wild hair and huge eyes. Time has cooled my fear, as this film is aimed less at a horror audience and seems a bit more for kids as well as their folks, and the werewolf is a bit silly. The first film I saw in a cinema was The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), and this film brings back two of the main players from that film, director Nathan Juran and Sinbad himself, Kerwin Matthews. Matthews plays a recently divorced father, Robert Bridgestone, who takes his doting (and frankly irritating) son, Richie, for a weekend at their cabin in the woods. No sooner have they arrived and strolling through the woods, then they are attacked by a werewolf who has been stalking them since they drove up the road – no sense of anticipation here, the werewolf is in display form the first moment, and not all that scary, aside from some interesting guttural growls. Said werewolf is dispatched (with relative ease, it must be said) but not before dad has been bitten, and when dad starts to turn, Richie starts to suspect but, of course, no one believes him. Until it’s all too late.

 

Visually, it all feels a bit TV movie of the week, but there’s some interesting stuff going on here, with a boy’s growing fear of his father after a divorce, and an identity crisis for 1970s middle aged divorced men. There are some ropey gender politics going on but those are a product of the time this was made. The werewolf make-up seems less actual make-up and more of a mask, allowing for a more pronounced snout, as opposed to the blackened, dog nose of previous werewolves. I kind of liked that here, even of the snout seems to be open a good deal of the time, precluding much expression, but that comes from Kerwin Matthews’ loud and crazy eyes. It's a memorable werewolf for me. A sub plot involving Christian hippies is relatively amusing, their buffoonish leader played by the screenwriter, Bob Homel, but a buried head in Matthews' cabin is a Chekhov’s Gun which fails to go off.

 

OK, I admit it; The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad was technically the second film I veer saw in a cinema, being part of a double bill with The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie (1979). Chuck Jones and Ray Harryhausen was a decent start for me.

 

This werwolf is a LIE.

The Beast Must Die (1974) is the film which sparked this whole idea of watching werewolf films during October. The last of Amicus’ horror films, and not an anthology film (something they excelled at), it’s a grand and pompous affair, starring Calvin Lockhart as a millionaire big game hunter, Tom Newcliffe, who seeks the ultimate prize – to hunt down and kill a werewolf. To accomplish this, he has brought a selection of the great and the good to his mansion, all selected due to their proximity to gruesome murders which could be attributed to werewolves, and he’s convinced one of his guests is one. He makes to secret of this and even becomes obsessed with one particular guest, Paul Foote, played by Tom Chadbon, who should be familiar to fans of classic Doctor Who as Duggan in the classic story, City of Death, looking like a drunk Rick Wakeman. Michael Gambon also makes an early cinematic appearance as a classical pianist.

 

The Agatha Christie roots are obvious and it kind of works, even if it all gets a little rushed; this is no Death on the Nile. Newcliffe is basically a rich maniac who has pulled all of these people together to use as bait. As expected, some of the guests are picked off, leading to a grand finale, but not before innocent people meet with grisly deaths along the way. But there could be something to be said for casting a black actor who has brought a lot of very white English/European types to his mansion to his amusement. The film doesn't appear too bothered with much of this, even if his wife, played by African American actress Marlene Clark, is dubbed by white Scottish/US singer Annie Ross. Annie Ross will forever be ingrained in the terrified minds of 80s kids as the woman who gets turned into a robot in Superman III (1983). And being Jimmy Logan’s sister. Ross’ voice is very distinctive, and the use of her in the dubbing was just distracting. The presence of what they call a "werewolf break", where the filmmakers stop everything to ask the audience who they think the werwolf is is incredibly distracting, apparently producer Milton Subotsky''s idea, but it does lend itself to the evening dinner part feel the film seems to be aiming for, alongside the deaths and ripped out throats.

 

I had a bit of an issue where the werewolf itself, played by a big black dog (no anthropomorphic Wolf Man here, folks) takes on Lockhart’s own dog and the two fight. It looks like the filmmakers did indeed encourage two dogs to actually fight each other and that’s an unacceptable line crossed for me. As stated, the werewolf itself is just a big black dog, even though the poster for the film clearly shows a full-on Wolf Man as the monster – this image being “borrowed” from The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, quite the cheat indeed. Anton Diffring and Peter Cushing emerge with most of their dignity intact, if not one of their throats, while Charles Grey seems mercifully ignored. The film begins with an interesting fake out regarding the main character and ends with a supposedly noble sacrifice, but the hubris and arrogance of the main character seems forgotten by this moment. Over-acted and rather full or itself, with some brilliant actors a bit wasted. The score is that unique UK 70s jazzy funk thing I remember hearing on The Professionals and The Return of the Saint in early childhood, lending a sense of cool to the daft proceedings.

 

At no point does Wolf Guy look like James Bond

Wolf Guy - Enraged Lycanthrope (1975) is a Japanese wolf man tale starring Sonny Chiba as Akira Inugami, the last survivor of a wolf clan, now almost exterminated by locals. Based on a manga and actually a sequel to Ōkami no Monshō (1973), Chiba’s werewolf doesn’t assume the form of a wolf but does gain special feral powers when the moon is rising, his powers peaking when the moon is full, and weakneeing during a new moon. Unlike Lawrence Talbot, this werewolf actually looks forward to a full moon, so he can use his abilities for good, being kind of a superhero – I think his actual job is journalism, but I don’t think it’s explicitly stated in the film. But he's played by Sonny Chiba and can therefore kick the living shit out of people, so there's that. He's also bullet-proof at the peak of his powers. A transfusion of his blood to one of the villians does result in a bit of a more wild appearance, but I suspect that's simply because he's a bad guy and this is that kind of film.

 

Not our Wolf Guy. A different, brief Wolf Guy.

Coming across a crazed man who claims a tiger-woman is coming for him, the poor guy is ripped to shreds by an invisible force right before Inugami’s eyes. He investigates and discovers that the victim is a member of a pop group who gang raped a young woman, Miki, at the behest of a business magnate who didn’t want his son to marry her. Her rage now manifests in this invisible tiger and all she hates are doomed to die horribly. Chiba wants to help her and lift her from her life of abuse and drug addiction, but other powers are interested in both of them. A shadowy organisation, possibly the government, abduct them both. The emotionally fragile Miki has no choice but Chiba resists, leading to a gruesome scene where he is surgically cut open, while awake, and his intestines are left exposed. This is a nasty scene, featuring real surgical footage but the image is turned negative to avoid too much audience vomit. This also leads to a fantastic scene where, as the full moon appears, he uses his powers to draw his horribly exposed guts back into his body, sealing the open wound. It’s bonkers.

 

A bit of Noir.

Much of the film is, indeed, bonkers, with every woman with a speaking role throwing themselves at Chiba almost the moment they meet him, and a wonderfully funny moment where a thug is shot in the head, screams in the most over the top manner, and falls down a cliff, crap dummy used to full comedic effect. This might make me sound sick, but it is honestly hilarious. Tt seems to jump between genres at will, from crime drama to film noir to action spy caper with the greatest of ease. I had a top time watching Wolf Guy and it’s a shame no more were made.

Mark of the Wolfman aka Frankenstein's Bloody LIES!

 Breather was a bit longer than anticipated. But I return.

 Spain’s Paul Naschy is a name that’s popped up quite a few times when compiling a list of werewolf movies to watch – it seems, to date, that he’s portrayed werewolves more than any other actor. Real name Jacinto Molina Alvarez, he was advised to change his name for international markets by the German distributors of this, his first werewolf move and also his first appearance as the mysterious Waldemar Daninsky. He would play the part another 11 times, each film unconnected to the others, So, he could be killed at the end of one film and then just turn up in the next with no explanation; not unlike Lawrence Talbot and Dracula in House of Dracula (1945), after they were seemingly permanent demises in House of Frankenstein (1944). Logic’s not always great, and that’s just as applicable here in La marca del hombre lobo (1968), which translates as Mark of the Wolfman. The version I managed to see was actually titled Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror and promises a Frankenstein Monster which becomes a wolfman!  This does not happen. Nope.

 

 Waldemar is bitten by a formerly dead werewolf, of the family Wolfstein (as close as this affair gets to the broken promise of a lycanthropic Frankenstein), after he is accidentally by a drunken Romani couple seeking shelter in his ruined castle. Now cursed, he seeks help from his two “friends”, Rudolph and Janice, only after stealing Janice from Rudolph, as is the way with mysterious chaps like himself. They call on two strange doctors, who claim they can help cure Waldemar, but in fact turn out to be vampires who want Waldemar’s werewolf for, well, it’s never really explained. Even less makes sense after this turn of events, with the original werewolf somehow resurrected again for purposes as unclear as anything else.

   The version of the film I saw was dubbed, atrociously, with the entire soundtrack replaced with some weird 60s sounds that were quite distracting. I’d be interested in seeing it in the original Spanish, with its original soundtrack intact. Scenes in this version also play out strangely, sometimes just ending. Other times characters appear in the next scene in a totally different location, seemingly at the same time, and then they jump back conveniently to the original location, as though someone got happy with a razor blade if re-editing for other markets. Hairstyles change sometimes instantenously between scenes that take place immediately after the previous one. I cannot stand dubbed films, unless they involve Kaiju in the 1960s (gimme some of that Showa Toho energy!). But this kind of dubbed crap appraoch is the ultimate phoniness.

 There’s a decent sense of gloom across the film, even with the garish and slightly overdone production design. We get treated to Waldemar’s first transformation through a weird, blurry lens effect. The make up design is not bad, clearly your average wolfman, but the difference is in Naschy’s wild performance, as he jerks unpredictably from side to side, almost like a crab, on his haunches. His first victims, who coincidentally speak to each other about werewolves just as Waldemar burst into their cottage and engages in what a police report might refer to as a frenzied and sustained attack. Naschy’s werewolf is a little dynamo, full of manic energy. He would play the part again and I’m intrigued as to what the rest of his films are like.But good to see werewolf films from other parts of the world.

Moon Shadows & Dust - Curse of the Werewolf

 

Moving on to the 1960s, it wasn’t just the US studios who were going back to the werewolf well. And this is, I think, my first non-US werewolf film of this blog series. UK studio, Hammer, was beginning to carve out a solid reputation as horror filmmakers, after The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959) amongst others, and so it was only natural to turn to the next obvious monster icon, the Werewolf. But no Christopher Lee as the titular monster here. Hammer were after younger blood for this beast.

 

1961’s Curse of the Werewolf is another one of those films I’ve been wanting to see since I was a kid. The images of Oliver Reed’s werewolf were striking, with that kind of contained cruelty I felt Reed’s face contained now fully unleashed; I always felt intimidated just by his face, no matter the role. But this was quite the disappointment. It takes a full 50 minutes for Reed to even appear in the film, with the first half dealing with the origins of his characters, Leon, being born of a mute serving girl (Yvonne Romain) who was raped by a mad imprisoned beggar, in 18th century Spain. Given sanctuary by a kindly don (Clifford Evans), she dies in childbirth and Leon’s baptism is accompanied by lightning and a demonic presence. This werewolf’s curse is bestowed upon his baptism, giving the proceedings a very Catholic guilt/original sin feeling. Once again, our werewolf has done nothing to deserve his curse, other than being conceived in violence and born on Christmas Day.

 

What follows when Reed does turn up, is the kind of stuff we’d expect to see far earlier in the film, giving the whole thing a very odd pace. The first half is slow as hell while the second half feels rushed. Bright Young Thing of the time, Oliver Reed’s performance seems dominated by histrionics and director Terence Fisher doesn’t seem to realise the pure threat contained in Reed’s general demeanour. Roy Ashton’s make-up allows Reed’s performance to show through (the fur looks very different than anything I've seen so far, wiry and feral) but it’s also very blocky in its design, looking like he can’t turn his head. It does cut a fine silhouette, though, and works well in a great close shot where he hauls himself into a bell tower in the film’s climax. This make-up does seem more savage in its appearence to me and there is far more blood in this film than in any previous werewolf films I've watched - the BBFC were not happy about this film. But, Curse of the Werwwolf could have been so much better with a differently structured screenplay to give it all a bit of breathing space. As such, there’s not a great deal of tension and it's ultimately disappointing. But it’s a Hammer film, so there is obviously an appearance from Michael Ripper, which is always oddly comforting.