Lycanthropus - El terror de los lobos

Mystery ... intrigue ... actresses sounding like they're having an orgasm while being attacked by a monster ... this was what good film-making was all about in the fifties and sixties. Lycanthropus has all of this and more.

After murders begin to occur at a reformatory school, the students and indeed some of the teachers begin to suspect (rather randomly) that a werewolf is responsible. It quickly becomes a mystery to discover who the werewolf is, with several red herrings thrown in before the real killer is revealed to the audience.

This movie is notable as being probably the first Italian werewolf movie ever made. It was released as "Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory" in the US with the usual crappy dubbing, which is always good. The over-acting on screen coupled with the vocal over-acting will mean plenty of entertainment for fans of those awful old B-movies. However, aside from a couple of key scenes, it's not quite bad enough to be good. The guy who plays the creepy janitor reminded me a lot of Peter Lorre, so his performance was quite enjoyable, but basically there's not enough content here to fill the entire ninety minutes. There are large segments which are just plain dull.

It's pretty much an average B-movie, good for collectors and genre fans.

This early Italian horror mixes the werewolf horror film with a mystery story. Set is a reform school for wayward girls, there's a series of murders - could it be a werewolf? What do you reckon? It has a few pacing problems but it has some good sequences to make up for that. While its goofy title is a little misleading, as this one plays its horror fairly straight.

Most of this story is like a murder mystery and people are killed not by a werewolf. There is a werewolf but they do a fairly decent job keeping the audience guessing who it may be. It isn't a great movie but I've seen much worse horror movies from Italiy.

Everything is almost perfect in this underrated horror movie, except the stupid theme song, which was probably added for American distribution only. The scenes in the woods are atmospheric and thrilling due to competent cinematography. The main plot (who is the werewolf stalking a girls reformatory?)might be simple, but it is supplemented with an intriguing subplot of prostitution and blackmail centered around the reformatory. No surprise that the script is by Ernesto Gastaldi who wrote some of the masterpieces of Italian horror cinema in 1960s.

This isn't Jack Nicholson or Benicio Del Toro's wolf-man. it isn't even close to Paul Naschy's beast. This one doesn't even have a werewolf face, and only scratches the victims. Maybe that is why they changed the title from Werewolf to Ghoul.

But, to see one of the early classics is still worth the time.

It is more of a mystery, as Mary (Mary McNeeran) is blackmailing a professor (Maurice Marsac) with some old letters. She is the first victim. Is the professor the killer, or the new teacher (Carl Schell) in school?

Priscilla (Barbara Lass) comes into possession of the letters and tries to find out who killed her friend. (NOTE: Lass was briefly married to Roman Polanski, and, believe it or not, this is one of her best roles in a long career.)

Several murder and several suspects. Who is the ghoul in the girl's dormitory?