1970
D: Leon Klimovsky
P: Alberto Platar for Plata Films (Madrid), Hi-Fi Stereo (Munich)
S: Jacinto Molina, Hans Munkell
M: Anton Garcia Abril
Cast: Paul Naschy, Gaby Fuchs, Barbara Capell, Patty Shepard, Andres Resino,
Jose Marco, Yelena Samarina, Julio Pena, Barta Barry.
Filmed in Eastmancolor and Widescreen
Running time: 86 min.
Review: This is a film which falls between LA FURIA DEL HOMBRE LOBO and EL RETORNO DEL HOMBRE LOBO not only chronologically but in style and content. It is not as free-spirited as the former, and nowhere near as technically proficient as the latter. Naschy looks quite good here, lean and interesting facially, even handsome; and there's a creepy, almost hallucinative atmosphere to the vampire sequences, courtesy director Leon Klimovsky's use of slow motion and the eerie muscial score provided by Anton Garcia Abril. Klimovsky makes the unseen presence of the chief vampire woman, Countess Wandesa Darvula de Nadasdy (played by Patty Shepard), genuinely felt, and there are some quick, unexpected shots of her that send the proverbial chill down one's spine. The few nude segments (mostly cut from Blood Moon, AIR's domestic version of the film) seem like inserts, and one particular shot, after the title sequence, is really out-of-place, as it pauses to gloat over the breast of the female victim, even at the expense of fully showing the blood spurting from her wounded throat. (The savage attack on her, however, is one of the best moments of the film--a real jolt of amazing animal ravenousness.) This is a respectable film, nothing consistently great, nothing really bad. Naschy opts to tell a simple romantic tale of horror, and there's a somberness to the proceedings that suggests that Naschy as a screenwriter was getting serious about mythicial storytelling, a development which eventually would bloom into the impressive El Returno del Hombre Lobo, a film that shares certain elements with this one. The success of La Noche de Walpurgis in Europe kicked of the official Spanish Horror boom in the 1970s, and provided Naschy with impetus for more Daninsky films, a thankful outcome in both cases, to be sure. (Source print: Luminous Film & Video Wurks, a dupe of a Dutch print--titled WEREWOLF'S SHADOW--which itself is pale and grainy [a problem also with AIR's version], with a very minor widescreen ratio.)
Patty Shepard, as Countess
Wandesa/Waldessa, is about to sacrifice Naschy's love interest in La Noche
de Walpurgis.
Dutch WEREWOLF'S
SHADOW version
Italian pressbook spread
Spanish poster art
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