Wilczyca AKA She-Wolf (1983)

Wilczyca AKA She Wolf

Directed by: Marek Piestrak

Starring: Krzysztof Jasinski, Iwona Bielska, Stanislaw Brejdygant
Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin 

Boy did I want to like this one! The opening to similar to "Don't Torture A Duckling", with horrific images of animals eating one another. In this case, a bird picks at a dead, mutilated horse, that looks much too realistic. Matter of fact, there are many scenes of animal cruelty in this that are pretty questionable. Are they real? Are they not? Horses basically scream like crazy in one scene and a dog looks like he's really hurt. The rarity of this film makes it difficult to trace the origins of its creation, so we don't know for sure if there were any animals actually hurt in the making of this movie.

I chose to watch "Wilczyca" solely based on the poster artwork. I know, I know, that could totally go either way. I know I was definitely duped by the Giallo film, "Eyeball". The poster is crazy! So of course, how bad could it be? Well, it stunk! haha. I've even done a past review here on TOG for it. Here in "Wilczyca", we're in Poland, which is unusual within itself. I don't know of too many Polish horror films in particular. They certainly run the gamut on insane poster artwork though. I guess I should've let that be a hint as to the incoherent storytelling I was about to suffer through. I actually did some reading of other reviews after I watched it, which I never do because I don't want to influence my opinion of a film before I start writing. In "She-Wolf's" case, I had to because I had no idea what was going on. There is so much regional, political back story that I didn't understand the events taking place much. There's a pretty concise review on Braineater that explains the plot completely. Even so, it still doesn't save this movie.

From what I could dig up research wise, those who are familiar with the Polish language have pandered the subtitled adaption to be pretty inaccurate in some spots. I'm just thankful that there's any attempt at a translation. I've watched a few movies in the past, (such as a VHS copy of "Cristo Te Ama" which is a 1970s drug infused Mexican exploitation film), that had no subtitles at all, so I had to sort of connect the dots based on visuals only. Apparently in "She Wolf", there's a scene where he refers to somebody as a "bumpkin", which is a goofy word to use within itself, but he actually meant something more complementary than that. Pretty funny. The main character, Casper is completely unlikable, scratch that, no one is likeable! hahaha. He beats his wife Myrna, who lays dying after after a botched abortion (scandalous!) in the opening scene. Casper's been away for months and has just come back. She says that she'll die like a bitch! Whoa! What a thing to say! Turns out, she's a bitch indeed-a dog, er, werewolf! She's even clutching a wrapped up paw from a wolf! Ewww! I guess the best thing to do when your husband is an asshole that beats you and then leaves you for months at a time, is to just pick up witchcraft to pass the time. I mean, hell, it's the 19th century, what else are you going to do? In a later scene, Casper's brother describes Myrna's bizarre behavior, while they're pulling her rough looking casket in the terrifyingly snowy backdrop. Other reviews of "Wilczyca" have described the drenched in snow scenery as "beautiful", but personally it creeped me out. It seemed like the most depressing place to possibly be. While they're burying her, the older brother (I forget his name), starts whittling a wooden steak and says nonchalantly that Casper has to hammer it into his dead wife's heart. Ughhhhh.

From here, the movie draaags. They introduce some more unlikable characters such as Juliet, who is played by the same actress as Myrna. I actually did not notice that until towards the end when Casper realizes it himself. The print of this I watched was pretty grainy, so that may have been why I didn't notice. Or maybe, I just didn't really care, haha. I'm sure there's more I could say about the actors, but I guess if you can't say anything nice, you probably shouldn't say anything.

Besides the beginning scene, the steak hammering and the real or not animal cruelty, the gore in this is pretty minimal. They basically save it all for the end of the film, which is a pity, because it's hard to say if anyone's even made it that far. Thankfully the film clocks in at about an hour and 38 minutes, so it's not excruciatingly long. "Wilczyca" has received some mixed reviews from what I could dig up. People seem to either love it or hate it. I can't say that I hated it, but I don't think I'm going to be watching it again anytime soon. It definitely did its job in creeping me out, but probably not in the way that the filmmakers intended.

RATING: 👨🏻👨🏻 2 mustaches!

Watch if you dare!

Buy if you'd like (scroll down!)

Take a gander at my buttons/pins I make!

Curse of the Devil

Curse of the Devil Directed By Carlos Aured, Starring Paul Naschy (1973). 

I'll get to the obvious, Paul Naschy doesn't receive much love here at TOG, I can relate that many fans of his feel that he's been cheated and lampooned unfairly by society at large. Those ravenous devotees of the Spaniard Wolfman, think that he hasn't been given a fair chance. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because I can appreciate the art of stop motion werewolf transformation and am a monster nerd (I mean I am a regular contributor to Monster)! According to Chas Balun, this is apparently the Nasch-man's "Citizen Kane" and I've enjoyed some of his work in the past, so I'm sure it will be at least a good time. 

The credits prominently feature the voice talents of Ed Mannix (who for years, I thought was the voice of Al Cliver but I was misled by IMDB.com because it's actually Nick Alexander). Mannix has dubbed lots of actors in Lucio Fulci films like The NY Ripper, House by the Cemetery and also worked on Pieces and Burial Ground. With most of these dubbed eurotrashy films, your ears get more acquainted with the overdub, than the actor's real voices. 

 Two knights start clashing metallic weapons on horseback, one of them is related to Countess Bathory (who's been immortalized in countless metal songs) and the other is the star, Paul "The Spanish Wolfman" Naschy. Nasch slices off the head of his oppressor while two women conduct a black mass and recruit Satan's help in their vengeance. Paul wears different hats and costumes, playing a few roles at a time, possibly for economic reasons. Witches are hanged and burned lickity split, while they curse the family name of Waldemar Daninsky, the character Nasch plays in almost all of his movies.

Hey bring back my head!

He shoots what he thinks is a dog on a hunting trip and it turns out to be a shape shifting man.  In a witches dungeon, a flaming pentagram spawns a naked hippy chick who takes a magic skull (not of the crystal variety) and plans on making things shitty for Paul. He finds the hippy babe, who sort of resembles Joan Collins, and brings her back on his horse drawn carriage. 

They mention "The Night of Walpurgis" a lot, which is when witches meet in obscene revelry, it was depicted in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain and also in Goethe's Faust. It was also a hardcore song by Integrity.

Ooops, I accidentally turned into poodle man!

Naschy (who in some scenes looks like George Costanza to me when he wore that hairpiece that Elaine tossed out the window), falls for his new witchy girlfriend. It's all according to plan and she harbors no true feelings for him. She punctures his chest with an animal skull covered in blood and it turns him into a -- you guessed it -- snarling hairy beast! 

He blames himself for her death and even has nightmares about it. I can't understand why he likes her, she gave him the mark of the werewolf and was soon after killed by some random maniac out in the forest with an axe. 

CONSTANZA! see it works sometimes

Out in the green countryside, he finds a blonde in distress and helps her by a waterfall. There are lots of dull Hammer-esque shenanigans going on that slow down the plot. I used to think Hammer films were very dry and boring until I got older and saw ones like Vampire Circus and Twins of Evil (2 of my absolute favorites). I appreciated them a lot more now than I did in high school. I'm aware of the Naschy fanbase who defend his work with a venomous passion, but I don't really get it! I loved Inquisition and a few others we've reviewed (excluding The monsturd Werewolf vs The Yeti)! 

Mama-Mia, thissa some spicy red-a meatsauce

The characters are seriously one-dimensional and the dialogue adds nothing other than "uh oh, look out something might happen pretty soon!" OK I'm waiting! 

He does get involved in a love triangle with the two blondes (one of them looks like Shakira and has a giant hairy bush). Remember when Lon Chaney Jr. was like "Lock me up before I start killing the ones I care about", well as Paul starts boning his blonde friend, he accidentally transforms and eats her like a delicious mutton chop. It's handled in the most awkward silly way possible (the poster paint blood trickles over her nose). 

A lot of useless situations occur (blah blah, more boring dialogue) and than the wolf goes out bitch-smacking gypsies in the dead of night, it's pretty hilarious! The stop motion werewolf effects look almost identical to the ones you've seen in other PN films, they're so similar that it reminded me of how in He-Man, they constantly recycle the "Greyskull footage" over and over ad nauseum.

Come on wolf, you're making us canines look silly!

Later on, he gets down to some fornicating with the other blonde (who looks like a more Latina Catherine Hicks). I like how whenever the moon is full, they play this synthesizer ZIIIINNNNNNGGGGG noise, that wouldn't sound out of place in an 80's videogame. Even though I've had terrible sleep inducing moments with this director's work, I must be a glutton for lychanthropic punishment because I'd watch another one just to see how wacky it is. Naschy has that effect on people that loathe him and die hard fans who know what to expect and love his style, it's irresistibly inept.

Citizen Kane, you say? More like Orson Welles doing Paul Masson Wine ads, completely drunk off his ass (Drunk Outtakes). 

WATCH HERE! FOR NASCH-FILES ONLY 

Did you fall asleep under a rock again?

Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies Directed By Krishna Shah, Starring "The Usual Gang of Idiots" (1985).

Perhaps you fancy yourself a metal movie maniac and think you've seen it all. Maybe you've read the book Heavy Metal Movies by Mike "McBeardo" Mcpadden and consider yourself a scholar in metallurgy or metalology. There are all kinds of rad heavy metal films out there, you've got the so shitty, they're good ones like Rock n Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare (starring Thor)! And the barely watchable ones like Terror on Tour, Slaughterhouse Rock, Rocktober Blood and even higher grade trash like Trick or Treat (with Ozzy and Gene Simmons as a dumbass Wolfman Jack impersonator named Nuke). So what's left at the bottom of the Showbiz Pizza ballpit, but Hard Rock Zombies, which according to Chas is the Plan 9 or zombiedom! 

   John Carl Buechler completists should have this on their bucket list as well because he was the Assistant Director and chipped in a few special effects here and there. Plus it's got all the Charles Band kind of garbage any self respecting gore hound should run away from in terror! 

   I recently watched this over at Sharky's (Hollywood High's #1 fan) pad and maybe it was the booze, the Chex mix or the double feature pairing with Shock 'Em Dead; but I didn't want to immediately slit my wrists like I imagined I would and even stayed awake throughout the entire film! 

I'm warning you though, this is a special case, so act accordingly when you view Hard Rock Zombies (you'll notice it's not called Heavy Metal Zombies--that should scare you already)! Watch this sufficiently baked, drunk out of your mind or dump 1000 cups over your head or you'll never make it out alive!

Not Enough Beer!

   We start off in the desert with a blonde skinny dipper, who kills two of the wimpiest kids on the road as midgets in tuxedos frolic with delight across the pond. She hacks off an arm and does a Beatles joke and we're off!!

Coke party at Jeff Dunham's house!

   At this point in time, I must stress that we've got at least an hour and 20 minutes left, so start boozin' early!

   Then we're thrust face first into a concert where a dude with hockey hair and a peach fuzz mustache plays what I can only describe as "New Wave Bob Seeger". Their solo guitarist holds a rose in his teeth (reminding me of another awesome metal movie Black Roses with rocking Howard the Duck looking demons). The room tone is extremely loud for some reason and when you hear the rocknroll, it sounds like its blaring from a busted transistor radio. A droopy eyed girl with french fried hair named Cassie (Jennifer Coe) shows up in a sea of groupies and warns them not to go to their next gig. Later on she becomes the object of Jessie (E.J. Curse) the lead singer's affections; He's 40, she looks like she's 12 and you thought Winger's "She's Only 17 was scandalous!"  

Ride away on my back, I'm a pedophile unicorn!

   The country bumpkin locations remind me a little bit of Please Don't Eat The Babies (man I thought I blocked that one out of my mind forever)! 

   They pick up the same blonde from the beginning out hitchhiking and she leads them into a trap. Oh yeah and her mother is a werewolf, howling up in the attic. She makes more "hilariously unfunny" hand jokes and the band ditches them to act like The Monkees. They spray beer at people over at a Bank of America line, bust out a giant cardboard cut out of themselves and do some mime-- I mean these guys know how to party!

Peter Frampton in Kiss makeup

   It turns out the midgets aren't just regular little people, but the inbred offspring of an elderly Adolf Hitler (in a Rip Taylor wig no less, perfect disguise if you ask me). This was the true story of the Ratt "Round and Round" video, it turns out Hitler's master race plan was to have butlers and sexy rodent hybrid girls painted silver look like new wave dicks and rock out with Milton Berle!     

Ratt and Roll, more like Reich N Roll

    Jessie (played by E.J. Curse), the leader of the miscellaneous band (they don't bother to mention their name) starts to fall in love with Cassie, who's criminally underage. I'm guessing she's the Tory Spelling of this film and got the job because her father is the producer or something.     

   They try to play a song for the Nazis in their courtyard that sounds like fake "Hysteria" era Def Lepard and wind up getting electrocuted. 

Working on a SEX FARM! 

   The repressed authority has a council meeting to try and stop the band from playing and giggle a lot about various types of sex that's are forbidden in town. Hard rock Zombies has got some real gusto, I mean they even decide to throw in a reverse Psycho shower scene, where one of the males in the band is stabbed by a woman. I've noticed a pattern with terrible directors who think they're doing us a favor by tossing in an Alfred Hitchcock homage, just stop right now! Birdemic is another wretched example I can think of.

Do I hear Hitchcock spinning in his grave again?

   Cassie plays a shitty song over the bands gravesite (they are all buried in about 3 inches of dirt, right next to each other). The beat makes the dead band pop out of the ground and march around like Thriller extras. 

Why the hell is Hitler so chipper?

   I think Jack Bliesener, is not an actor at all, but a genuine Hitler impersonator, because he's uncomfortably gleeful in his role and wears out the welcome mat really fast. The contrast between Holocaust humor and unfunny comedy is very unsettling--I also have to mention that I'm watching this again sober! The zombies strut around like undead mimes and start killing all the Nazis that murdered them. They play this awful fake Peter Gabriel song during the montage of them slaughtering their killers. 

Not a Kids in the Hall sketch

   A scuzzy promoter who looks like Dennis Miller or Rich Hall shows up to watch them play that Hysteria "Ode to Cassie" song on stage. Now here's a relationship too forbidden-- I mean he's a walking worm feast in his 40's who should be arrested for statutory.

  After awhile, I know it's hard to believe, but they run out of script and it turns into a wacky comedy, complete with Benny Hill music and too many severed head gags!

Man, I love Der Wienerschnitzel!

   One Nazi dwarf sits at a table and eats himself to death in different meal courses. Phil Fondacaro, the famous dwarf actor from Troll and Willow tries to eat a giant cow, I mean these are some cheap gags folks! The promoter freaks out over the zombie band and has a "Back to the Future" Chuck Berry's cousin moment.

I CAME UP WITH THE BEST SNIGLET EVER!

   I know its crazy to apply logic to this film, but that's my job here over at the TOG headquarters. I wonder why they keep the blonde who helped kill the band in the first place around and don't kill her. If anything she's more crucial to the plot then killing Hitler, they even encourage her to dance on stage!

   Toward the end, it gets so dark that it looks like they sent the lighting guy home! This movie is even worse the second time! I like how they took the slogan from Return of the Living Dead and paraphrased it to the effect of "They came back from the grave to misbehave"! Your patience may just completely run out as you watch this film and degenerate into a puddle of goop. 

ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER! MAKE SURE YOU ARE SMASHED BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION BEFORE WATCHING! 

WATCH HERE IF MUST

I came back from the grave to get some RC Cola!

Groupies!

Nothing scarier then an elderly dog with a switchblade

    

The Werewolf And The Yeti

The Werewolf And The Yeti (Night of the Howling Beast) Directed by Miguel Iglesias, starring Paul Naschy (1975). 

This film has a reputation for being one of stupidest of all time and is the prime example of just how ludicrous and hypocritical the Video Nasty list was. It is fun to see what they deem offensive though and "Sharky" one of Hollywood High's number 1 fans convinced me that I should give this trashter-piece a closer look. God help us all, for what terrors I'm about to unearth onto the internet. Needless to say if you plan on watching this yourself, keep your expectations on the level of the deepest darkest basement. Don't watch the Youtube version it's broken and censored.

you forgot the "D"

   It begins with extra loud wind noises as Paul "Wolfman" Naschy, lookin' like Chewbacca on meth, slaps around some skiers out in the snow. The animated credits float over his mugging face. I can't imagine that even in the non-dubbed version anyone besides hardcore Naschy fans could take this one seriously, but then again I'm not in that sect of devotees. 

 Naschy playing a character named Waldermar is an expert Nepalese speaking archeologist, who sees photographic evidence of Yetis and agrees to travel into the frozen tundra to capture the rare beast. The Winter Sasquatch picture looks suspiciously like the famous Patterson-Gimlin one.   

Sheesh, this parka is alittle too snug

   This is my third Naschy flick, I enjoyed what I'd seen and I know to watch what I say around ravenous fans of the Spanish wolfman, because alot of them (oddly enough) have no sense of humor. I'm not going to pull punches though and so far the best I can muster up about the film is that the goofy dubbing is mildly amusing. The Yeti scares the shit out of some locals and they refuse to join the expedition for fear that "the demons of the red moon" will strike!

   The local Nepal musicians play a song over a religious rite that sounds like a honking strangled goose. This is the ultimate in moronic behavior as far as the Video Nasty list goes, maybe those Brit's had lycanthrophobia or were scared of that ugly dog on the video box. 

The Spanish wolfman accidentally stumbles into a strange cave for shelter. This turns out to be the worst place for him to end up, because he encounters a gaggle of wolf-babes who attack and bite him. Then a full moon rises in the sky and you can guess what happens next!

I dunno about you but mine tastes exactly like Oscar Meyer Bologna

   The transformations are of the stop motion Lon Chaney Jr. type, which are always good for a laugh. Practically all the the secondary characters are stupid hunters that add nothing to the plot aside for quick easy wolf meals!

I swish the marinara around in my cheek before I spit it on the pizza fuggetabout it!

   The werewolf sometimes has long Spock ears and looks like he has a mouth full of tomato paste after a snack. 

   All of a sudden a Khan shows up with backne, he has a harem of babes and thinks the Dr. (I'm guessing the wolfman is also a doctor as well as an Archeologist) will help cure his back problems. This is where the gory back transplant for the Khan scene shows up, you could inject whatever elements from more entertaining horror flicks and this wolf diaper would still stink!

   I'll say this for this film, I like the snowy locations--there's a positive!

   It starts to get like a very special episode Kung Fu as a bearded medicine man surrounded by candles agrees to help Naschy with his wolf-itus. 

   I'm still waiting on that Yeti, there's this evil Khan character who threatens to take over the entire second half. Even if this film is a total waste, I'd be slightly satisfied if at least there is a monster mash at the end.

  OK, they deliver a piss poor day-for-night monster battle in the lowest light conditions possible, I mean it looks like to shadows chasing each other (I can't tell who's the Yeti and who's the wolf)! It ends on a happy note, which is good for them but shitty for everyone else, especially the "Yeti", who we never get to actually see, well we see him for a split second! Even if you're the kind of horror fan that can tolerate the most tediously dull shit, you'd be hard pressed to find something to latch onto here. Or maybe I just don't get Paul Naschy, I want to like him and know there's another film I've yet to see that's alot better then this wolf dump! 

SKIP IT AND WATCH THE HOWLING AGAIN, NO FUN! 

Don't forget about me, I'm still here!

  Special Thanks to Bruce Holecheck for posting this rare VHS cover for this film on his site http://bruceholecheck.blogspot.com/

MAMMY!

KRIS GILPIN'S Unearthed Works Dept.

 By Kris Gilpin

Crank here (or Erok as people now know me on FB), Here's one of many unearthed works by Mr. Kris Gilpin, originally printed in Wet Paint, a zine by Jeff Smith.

The first time I read anything by Kris was in the Horror Handbook, where he interviewed celebrities. The Lynn Lowry interview when she mentioned how the naked girl from "I Drink Your Blood" pulled out a tiny comb and fluffed up her pubes--is the kind of hilarious antidote you can only expect from such a seasoned professional. We feel privileged and honored that he decided to unveil these works for us and the readers as well, most haven't been seen since they were first published in the early to mid 80's!

    Thanks to Greg Goodsell for finding this rare treat, now sit back and relax, we'll soon be taking a time machine back to when George Romero and Tobe Hooper's projects were looked upon with more anticipation then Meh kind of responses and zombies were popular among underground circles and not in the mainstream (or on baby clothes)! Puke! 

   In the most stupid, wasteful act of booking during the weekend, George Romero (the only real reason I wound up schlepping all the way to the other side of town for the event) was tossed on stage to spend a scant 45 minutes with three other people too: John Russo, Tobe Hopper, and author Gary (The Howling series) Brander, who later signed 75 free copies of his latest book on a first-come, first-served basis. This meant questions were taken on a round-robin basis, with each person only having time to answer a handful each (and they were typical dead-head questions at that). For us Romero fans, it was a shameful waste of a semi-rare opportunity to get into this filmic craftsman's mind a little more. What follows is only the most interesting dialogue from the panel:

Russo, fatigued from flesh eating 

John Russo: "I just finished a year and a half of 10-12 hours a day at the word processor, so I'm all spaced out;
I did a novel called MAKING LIVING THINGS and a non-fiction book called MAKING MOVIES, which is about the whole business from the ground up and how to do everything from making a TV commercial to making your own feature. Interviews with George and Tobe are in the book, along with 10 other directors."

   Scott Holton, the panel's moderator, told all that Hopper's latest project was directing the highest-rated episode of THE EQUALIZER TV show (the one dealing with the homeless). 

Brandner wrote The Howling series, Floater and Cameron's Closet (R.I.P).

GARY BRANDNER [apparently the oldest on the panel]: "I can't say how thrilled I am to be on a panel with men who've been my heroes since I was a small boy [all laugh]. The next thing coming out that I was involved with is a movie called CAMERON'S CLOSET. FLOATER [the Tobe Hooper project] is the dark side of an out-of-body experience; I thought, what if somebody floated around and came back, and their body wasn't there to get into anymore?" (Floater was an abandoned project for Empire Pictures. ed). 

RUSSO: [on the proposed remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD] "Some of the offers we got kind of melted away; I think we might get back on that. I'm going to be writing and directing my novel THE AWAKENING as a movie this summer in Pittsburgh."

   Half the place raised their hands for Romero questions, of course.

ROMERO: ["Anything else in the vein of MARTIN coming up?] "Anything in that vein? [laughs] MARTIN was a very personal film and my favorite of my films. I glad you like it too; thank you [smiles].

OK, Gunnar chew on these Coca Leaves so you don't pass out from exhaustion.

HOOPER: [on more TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE] "The whole Ed Gein thing was in the back of my mind when I made the first film; some of my relatives are from Wisconsin and, when I was a small boy, they used to terrify me with those Ed Gein stories. Leatherface and wearing real-skin masks did not come [from the Gein legends]; that came from the family physician who told me about going to a Halloween party as a pre-med student. He'd skinned a cadaver's face and worn it as a mask. [Crowd murmurs, quite audibly freaked out] I don't know what else to do with Gein; he's dead and gone. I don't know if there'll be a third film or not. There may be. There're aspects of the second film I like better than the first and vice versa. I think the less gore you see the better. Having hired Tom Savini for the FX I had a tendency to want to use him, but I worked myself into a corner with the MPAA, because when we skinned that guy in the sequel there was just no place to cut to, and the removal of that scene wouldn't have made any sense at all".

Shit, I forgot something-- I left my keys in that human skull candy dish

BRANDNER: [I had to change tapes at this point, and can't remember what film he's talking about; sorry folks! What movie is he referring to?] "The general feeling about Carlo Rambaldi's creature was a disappointment; I think the director, Armand [HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE] Mastroianni, and the editor did a hell of a job in making the final movie scary but the creature didn't come out really looking the way anybody wanted it to."

 (They mention the lame creature from Cameron's Closet).

RUSSO: "Some of my books have just been submitted for Movies of the Week; we don't know yet whether that'll happen. I wrote and produced the movie MAJORETTES, directed by Bill Hinzman, who was the ghoul in the cemetery in NOTLD; he then went on to make commercials."

Tight bros from waay back when.

ROMERO: [On Dario Argento, Italian horror filmmaker] "I think Dario's work, on these shores, is misunderstood by distributors and, to a great extent, by audiences; you have to be an aficionado to like his stuff. It's very operatic and stylish; I love his stuff!

I think the distributors can't find a way to sell his stuff over here and probably rightly so; I think those films'd have a hard time crossing Middle America and finding an audience. DAWN OF THE DEAD was half-financed by Titanus Films, which was a company Dario brought into the deal; part of that was that Dario had control over certain cuts in the film for the European market, and he had the right to use his own score and I had the right to use as much or as little of that score as I wanted for the English-language version. I liked that music by Goblin, and I used quite a bit of it."

The most half baked out of the 3 picture Cannon deal

HOOPER: [On his three-picture (LIFEFORCE, INVADERS FROM MARS, CHAINSAW 2) deal with Cannon Films]; "Before I'd finish one picture I'd start the next; they all overlapped; when I was cutting one I'd be casting another, etc. And always something'd go wrong in the Cannon [administration]. I was cutting 22 minutes out of LIFEFORCE--it was called SPACE VAMPIRES then, after Colin Wilson's novel--and I got a call from the story editor on INVADERS at Cannon. He said, 'We're having a lot of problems with the script; why do they have to come from Mars? 

I said 'Well, you spent a lot of money securing the remake rights to this title--where do you want them to come from?! I was real sorry I couldn't get that sandpit music 
[from the original]".

BRANDNER [On HOWLING 2, the film] "I was completely bummed out; I did a screenplay for it, none of which shows up in the final version. I think I spent about $12 on special effects and they shot in the dark so no one'd notice. As Joe Dante pointed out they had one terrific shot of Sybil Danning tearing off her bodice and showing her aptitudes; that was really the only good part in an awful movies; if you haven't seen it, don't!

HOWLING 3 I haven't seen; it's the same director as the last one, so I'm anxious to see it. There is a HOWLING 4--I don't know anything about that! They bought the rights to the title; heck, I'll sell 'em that and they can go on and do as many Roman numerals as they want! Somebody asked James W. [THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE] Cain, 'Aren't you worried about what [the movies] are doing to your books?' and Cain turned to his bookshelf and said, "They're not doing anything. They're still up there!"

OK, STAY TUNED FOR PART 2, which will be up in a few weeks!  

The Beast and the Magic Sword

"in distant times and when all fantasy was possible

the tragic legend of Waldemar Daninsky and his eternal 

curse was born."

-Reviewed by Skunkape-

The Beast and the Magic Sword directed by Paul Naschy  (1983)

 The Beast in the Magic Sword stars Spain's legendary Wolfman Paul Naschy . It has castles,demons, witches, magic, kung fu and boobs but even with all these elements combined it's still a huge bore. I can certainly respect Naschy for his contribution to low budget horror, but here he's got as much screen presence as an ingrown butt hair. No one in this film seems to be having any fun whatsoever with their roles. All the actors deliver their lines like they're in a trance. Maybe Werner Herzog dropped by the set and hypnotized them before working on his own experimental film Heart of Glass.

"My beard is better than your beard!"

  In the year 938 during the residence of the Emperor Otto The Great . Naschy plays a great warrior who does battle with a demonic ogre. After decapitating this monster and oppressor of the people, Otto The Great gives him the choice of anyone of his daughters' hands in marriage and of course he chooses the youngest.(Hey, you would too!) An evil witch and loyal follower of the demon then puts a curse of vengeance on his new pregnant wife.

"I'm gonna skull fuck that bitch!"

Flash forward and we meet the son of the cursed family,Waldemar Daninsky and carrier of the curse . What is that curse, when the moon is full he becomes a werewolf! Waldemar and his woman visit an alchemist who can help. But nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition and they arrive, killing this man for blasphemy. Waldemar may be to late to save this man but he does single-handedly fuck up the Inquisition. The dying alchemist tells him there is one last hope, that he must go to Japan and find Kian (Shigeru Amachi) a man who may have the cure. But he will only tell him where to go, if he promises to take his blind assistant along and since his blind assistant is a pretty good-looking woman, he agrees.

Put this with the 7 other heads in Joe Pesci's duffel bag.

"I'm gonna make you howl tonight babe."

"My father was killed by a six fingered werewolf."

 He finds Kian and while being treated for his wolf man illness the moon turns full again and again, he wreaks havoc all throughout these once peaceful lands destroying dojos left and right . The movie may not be as horrible as I first described but it should be so much better, the story was great and the locations are beautifully shot. I'll give you some even more reasons why it sucked though, the fight scenes are horribly choreographed and Naschy's werewolf costume makes him look like a wet puppy with matted fur. One major reason for seeing this film would be when the werewolf is forced to fight a real tiger by an evil sorceress. It's pretty bad ass, but doesn't quite rival Fulci's  zombie versus shark scene in Zombie aka Zombie 2. Maybe it just needed a score by Fabio Frizzi to bring up the tension a little.

4 out 5 Japanese alchemists choose bayer.

Wolfman "Jack"Off

"This is what should of happened in the Life of Pi!"

"Can somebody get me a napkin?"

"Beast and the Magic Sword" is a wasted opportunity. A great idea executed on a completely average level. It certainly wouldn't ruffle my feathers if a remake were announced.

4/10 ON THE CULT-O-METER
Hardcore Paul Naschy Fans Only

Theater of Guts Tribute Trailer 

A Spanish Werewolf in Japan!

An awesome poster!