La furia del hombre lobo

Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) returns from Tibet bearing a scar on his chest in the shape of a pentagram, a pentagram, a pentagram. Cursed to change into a werewolf under the full moon, he seeks help from ex-flame Dr. Ilona Ellman (Perla Cristal), who is conducting experiments on mind control, but finds his animal side taking over when he discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, unfaithful, unfaithful.

Electrocuted after tearing out the throats of his wife and her lover, Waldemar is believed dead by the authorities, but Ilona know otherwise and returns him to full strength, attempting to make him her slave with the use of chematrodes, chematrodes. This can't be scientific, this can't be scientific.

Fury of the Wolfman, the dubbed U.S. version of Paul Naschy horror The Wolfman Never Sleeps, appears to have suffered under the censor's scissors, for it is remarkably light on the both the blood and boobs that one might reasonably expect from such fare. However, what remains is so utterly bewildering and completely boring—easily one of Waldemar Daninsky's least entertaining adventures—that I imagine an uncut version would still be a chore to sit through.

Moments guaranteed to confuse: a bunch of hippies (including a dwarf) chained up in a basement; Ilona's supposedly dead father lurking around in rubber mask and a suit of armour; bloodhounds that look suspiciously like Alsatians; and a pair of corpses inexplicably sealed up behind a wall.

If you're a die-hard Daninsky fan and are determined to sit through this incomprehensible tripe, try taking a big swig of liquor every time someone repeats part of their dialogue for no reason. That should ease the pain a bit, ease the pain a bit.

Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy stars in this, one of his weakest werewolf films... but bear with me for a moment. Most people will be familiar with it under its most common television title, THE FURY OF THE WOLF MAN, and there have been many home video versions of it over the years. If you want to be serious about giving it a fair shot though, the most workable edition I've seen of it goes by the title THE WOLF MAN NEVER SLEEPS, and it's an unedited and complete European version which restores a couple of disturbing scenes and contains the original nude shots which are missing from FURY's print. It is also letterboxed.

Naschy plays Waldemar Daninsky, returning home from a trip to Tibet only to find out that he's contracted a werewolf curse and that his wife has been having an affair. He takes care of her and her lover while in animal form, but then becomes a guinea pig for a sexy woman doctor and her female assistant. Apparently, the doc attempts to "tame" the werewolf, and there is a very strange sado-masochistic love scene between her and the hairy and fanged Daninsky who is under her trance, at least in the original version. Ultimately we get two werewolves for the price of one as Daninsky battles a she-wolf!

The biggest problem with the movie is that the director (according to Naschy's claims) was often drunk, and the results are indeed rather incoherent. When watching THE WOLF MAN NEVER SLEEPS copy, it's not quite as difficult to make out what's going on, though the editing remains atrocious in spots. Worst of all is occasional non-matching footage of Naschy's ravenous werewolf swiped straight from another previous film (LA MARC DEL HOMBRE LOBO, aka "FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR") and mixed into this one without any sensible reason! The wolf's clothing changes from black shirt to white and back again, as does his demeanor; one moment the wolf is walking around lethargically in a hypnotic trance from FURY, next he is growling and running around savagely from BLOODY TERROR. Really bizarre. *1/2 out of ****

This is one very confusing movie. The film is very hard to follow and the plot just didn't seem to make any sense. The Fury of the Wolfman was made in Spain and I think that when any film is dubbed from one language to another, it doesn't translate exactly as it was first meant. Maybe this is part of the problem but I doubt if it can account for all the problems with this film. The dubbing is pretty bad and the voices don't match the characters very well. The scenes are choppy, there is an array of strange and irrelevant characters that do little more than confuse the viewer even more. What I did like about this film was the look of the wolfman himself and the scenes where he attacks. Now if they could have put it all together and had it make some sense, they might have had something. Don't waste your time on this one.

La furia del Hombre Lobo AKA Fury of the Wolfman (1972) is not as bad as it's rating or as the critics say it is. It's not the best film Paul Naschy has been in nor is it the best "Wolfman" type of film out there but it's a better film than it's given credit for.

One of the biggest complaints I've read is voice overdubbing. The copy of the film I've seen the the voice overdubbing is fine - really good. It was synced nicely with the film. And the voices that were used to overdub with are good. I don't understand the complaints here.

Another thing is is slowness - that it is. It does build very slowly and could have been a little faster by leaving out some of the things from the other science experiments and getting to the point(The Wolfman) a bit faster but overall it's not a bad watch. Towards the end we get more of the wolfman - the heart of the story.

The music chosen for this film I'm not overly crazy about - it really does not fit the film to me. But that is a very minor thing.

5/10

This thing has it all.

We've got the plot that can't be deciphered, bad acting that can't be stopped, large dogs that serve no purpose, fully visible full moons during horrible storms. You've got the tortured soul Wolf-guy, the mad scientist gal, dungeons with prisoners hanging from chains, orgies where the males expose more flesh that the ladies. There's grave robbing and revived corpses and we can't forget the masked phantom guy who resolves a plot issue with his dying three words. Revived dead lady becomes zombie-werewolf and dukes it out with leading wolf man. For the science freaks there are Chematodes that allow one to control a brain, whether in a lady friend or wolf changing thingy. Nearly non-existent color, Twilight Zone theme moments ... and the name Wolfstein (get it?).

Horror hauled itself out of the dark with movies like this Spanish production. For those of us who sweat every step with them, these films, as sorry as they are, are cause for celebration when we happen upon them on cheap DVDs.

If you're riding the current wave of horror (a really, really rare happenstance these days - most of that which passes for modern horror doesn't reach deeply enough within us to trigger the "horror" reflex) please don't waste your time with this. Honestly.

If you're an old codger and can remember tricking your parents so you could get with an older friend to a showing of "Lady Frankenstein", this one will make you smile.

"The Fury of the Wolfman" is one of the loyal thankless that trudged and lugged and slogged horror along the decades. So, like the focus of their stories, "it wouldn't die".