El Retorno del Hombre Lobo

Night of the Werewolf
Return of the Wolfman / The Craving

Spain 1980
produced by
Modesto Pérez Redondo for Dálmata Films
directed by Jacinto Molina (= Paul Naschy)
starring Paul Naschy (= Jacinto Molina), Silvia Aguilar, Azucena Hernández, Julia Saly, Pilar Alcón, Beatriz Elorrieta, Luis Barboo, Narciso Ibánez Menta, Charly Bravo, Ricardo Palacios, Rafael Hernández, Tito García, David Rocha, José Cela, Ramón Centenero, Alexia Loreto, Manuel Pereiro, Mauro Ribera, José Riesgo, Pepe Ruiz
written by Jacinto Molina (= Paul Naschy), special effects by Antonio Molina

El Hombre Lobo, Elizabeth Bathory

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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The sixteenth century: Together with infamous Elisabeth Barthory (Julia Saly) - the real life countess who bathed in virgins' blood - Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy), the wolfman and her loyal servant, is executed.

Now: Graverobbers (Ricardo Palacios, Rafael Hernández) find Daninsky's grave, remove a silver dagger from his heart - and bring him back to life ... and it's not long before he turns into a werewolf and kills them ...

Meanwhile, three female students - Erika (Silvia Aguilar), Barbara (Pilar Alcón) and Karen (Azucena Hernández) - head off to the Carpathian mountains to find the grave of Elisabeth Bathory - but when they are almost at their destination, they are attacked by a group of thugs who want to rob them blind and rape them. The girls are only just saved by a mysterious stranger with a crossbow who turns out to be Waldemar Daninsky - in his human form of course. Daninsky proves to be the perfect gentleman, even after so many centuries of being dead, and offers them abode in his castle, but at the same time tries to dissuade them from looking for the Bathory-grave. Soon enough, Daninsky and Karen fall in love ...

What nobody knows though is that Erika actually plans to not only find the grave but actually resurrect Elisabeth Bathory,a nd eventually she does so draining Barbara of all her blood in the process (this is actually why she brought Barbara along). The centuries have turned Elisabeth Bathory into a full-fledged vampire and it is not long before she is roaming the countryside, with only Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf - her erstwhile servant who now wants to atone for his sins - standing in her way.

The finale has Daninsky - in hsi werewolf form - and Bathory clash after she has taken Karen captive, and eventually the werewolf stakes the vampire ... but then he attacks Karen who can't but kill her with the silver dagger he has given her for self defense, but not before he mortally wounded her as well. And as in every old-fashioned horrorflick, the ending has everything going up in flames ...

By and large, Night of the Werewolf is a remake of Werewolf vs Vampire Women from 1971, and taking this into account, it looks terribly dated, even for 1980, and old-fashioned and over-convoluted gothic much in the tradition of the later films of the classic Universal horror cycle - which Paul Naschy cites as one of his key influences anyway. As a result, Night of the Werewolf is not one of the better films of the Hombre Lobo series, it's highly derivative as well as a bit heavy handed, but somehow it still has the old Euro-shocker flavour and charm that make this kind of film so irresistible to some of us - me included, naturally.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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