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Licántropo: El Asesino de la Luna Llena
Lycantropus: The Moonlight Murders
Spain 1996
produced by
Videokine, Television Espanola (TVE)
directed by Francisco Rodríguez Gordillo
starring Paul Naschy, Amparo Munoz, Antonio Pica, José María Caffarel, Eva Isanta, Luis Maluenda, Jesús Calle, Jorge R.Lucas, Javier Loyola, Rosa Fontana, Ester Ponce, Pablo Scola, Marcos Ortiz, José Truchado, Bill Holden, Carmen Mosquera, Rory Mullen, Julio Pimentel, Alicia Altabella, Pilar Ordónez, Marta Molero Alfonso, Teófilo Calle, Carlos Ramo
written by Paul Naschy (as Jacinto Molina), music by José Ignacio Cuenca, Tomky de la Pena
El Hombre Lobo
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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There is a serialkiller on the loose in some small village, and while
young inspector Demage (Jesús Calle) believes it's the work of a wild
animal, veteran inspector Lacombe (Antonio Pica) thinks the victims were
killed by a garden hoe ... Famed novelist Waldemar Daninsky (Paul
Naschy) experiences some strange condition of late, a condition that makes
him somehow feel responsible for the murders. He visits his friend Doctor
Mina Westenra (Amparo Munoz) for a checkup. She eventually finds out his
blood has some canine characterisics - which might have to do with some
family curse ... Daninsky's daughter Kinga (Eva Isanta) is directly
affected by the murders when her best friend is found murdered by who- or
whatever it is, and she turns more and more to Laurent (Jorge R.Lucas),
the priest's (Luis Maluenda) in the process. Then disaster strikes even
closer to home, when both Kinga's mother (Rosa Fontana) and brother
(Carlos Ramo) are found murdered, with Waldemar standing next to their
bodies, all covered in blood, and totally confused. The police puts
Waldemar above suspicion regarding the murders, but Doc Mina is not so
sure, does some readup on werewolves, and is paid a visit by the spirits
of Waldemar's gipsy mother (Ester Ponce) and the gipsies' patriarch
(Javier Loyola), who support her suspicions - and they tell her how to
kill a werewolf. All that has happened in recent days has turned Kinga
into a bundle of nerves, and who can blame her. She locks herself into her
family's house, but even there she's not save, as a masked man with a
garden hoe breaks in with the express intent to kill her. She manages to
unmask the man to reveal it to be ... the priest. She doesn't however
manage to slow the man down, but in the nick of time, she is saved by the
werewolf, who is of course also her dad. Weredad kills the priest, then
turns on her though ... only to be shot in the nick of time by Doctor
Mina, who fortunately enough has brought some silver bullets with her. The
first Hombre Lobo-film in almost one and a half decades -
not counting Howl of the Devil,
in which the character only had a supporting role - also proves to be one
of the most disappointing ones: Basically, the film is a (futile) attempt
to shake the character of its pulp roots and turn the typical Hombre
Lobo-storyline into some standard, TV-friendly thriller fare.
Likewise, the directorial effort is much too impersonally slick to really
generate too much interest or show passion for the character as such. On
top of that, the film's cast of characters is much too overcrowded to
really properly follow one single story, and the attempts to turn the film
into some kind of murder mystery are doomed to fail - after all, everyone
knows Waldemar Daninsky is El Hombre Lobo, right? In all,
a disappointment, and not the film everybody had been waiting for ...
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