Le fossoyeur de la pleine lune

A totally daft horror/comedy from Mexico that exists only in its original Spanish language version, but that hardly matters -- even if you don't understand what they're saying, the film is a hoot. Lon Chaney starts off playing a rather rotund mummy (in makeup that looks like a second-grade class attacked him with their paste jars) who is stolen during a press conference by a mad doctor, played by Boris Karloff-lookalike Yerye Beirut. The mummy miraculously gets revived and essentially turns into Larry Talbot, right down to the black clothes, and therefore into a wolf man (he is actually announced as "el homre lobo" while still in mummy form at the press conference, though no one appears particularly suprrised at this). Now add in a scared wax-museum caretaker (the funny German Valdes, aka "Tin-Tan"), wax figures that are really dead bodies, ala "House of Wax," spooky graveyard shots, a secret laboratory, a hirsuit Chaney chasing Tin-Tan around the lab, ala "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," a musical number (why not?) and a King Kong-like finale that has the werewolf climbing up the side of a building with the girl over his shoulder, and you have a film that manages to be like a lot of others, but at the same time unlike any other. Chaney's wolf man makeup is fairly good -- certainly better than the mummy makeup -- and his silent performance (apparently he didn't speak Spanish, either) provides occasional echoes of his younger, better days at Universal.

A trivia note: Footage from "La Casa del Terror" was cut into a mid-sixties Jerry Warren mess called "Face of the Screaming Werewolf," and a recent book on the notorious Ed Wood, Jr. states that it was Wood who directed Chaney dragging the girl up the side of a building in full werewolf regalia. A subsequent book on Chaney rationalized that claim by postulating that it had to be Warren, not Wood, who really directed the scene. But the sequence is there in the original Mexican version, which was filmed five years before Warren shot his new scenes for "Screaming Werewolf."

Mexican comedian, Tin-Tan, made a number of spoofs of Hollywood genre movies including La Casa del Terror (1960) and El Fantasma de la Opereta (1960). (Both are available on excellent DVD discs). The House of Terror is generally the one that fans go for, because it co-stars none other than Lon Chaney, Jr., as the Mummy who turns into a Werewolf! Lon could not speak Spanish, so he was given no dialogue, but he does seem to be doing his own panting and growling. And he has quite a lot of action footage, although it is Tin-Tan of course who romances the pretty girl (in this case, the lovely Yolanda Varela, whose career, alas, was drawing to a close. She married this film's producer, Fernando de Fuentes, Jr., and virtually retired). Director and co-writer Gilberto Martinez Solares, in collaboration with his brother photographer, Raul Martinez Solares, has brought off some nice action and tingling atmospheric effects, but Tin-Tan's material is somewhat below par. He spends half the film asleep – though these scenes are ten times funnier than some of his boring "comedy" routines, particularly an elongated sequence with a stammering Consuelo Guerrero de Luna.

To be fair, this review is based on a Spanish language version of this Mexican horror-comedy film, without dubbing or English subtitles -- and I don't understand Spanish. But in a way, it's a credit to the movie that I still consider it an "okay" time-killer for a monster movie, despite not being able to comprehend a word of dialogue.

The main interest in viewing this is for a chance to see Lon Chaney in the parts of a werewolf and a mummy for one last time in a feature film. He doesn't have any lines anyway, so you're not missing anything there. Though this is supposed to be a comedy (and may very well be if I could register the jokes), it also plays pretty well as a straight-ahead horror feature. There's a comical character played by Mexican comic Tin Tan, who seems to hang out in a museum full of wax figures. Then later on, a really bloated mummy (Chaney) is featured on display but gets stolen by a team of scientists. Back at their laboratory they un-bandage the carcass and he turns out to be a regular guy who resembles an over-fed version of Larry Talbot from the old Universal Wolf Man pictures ... even wearing his same dark shirt and pants. When the full moon rises, Chaney is at his old stuff again, transforming into a werewolf and causing mayhem. Considering this had to be made on a low budget, it's not too badly shot. The Chaney werewolf scenes are the main reason to watch this, and Lon looks good and fierce during his initial transformation, even adding a pretty terrifying growl. Luckily there is a lot of wolf man time on display, though once he's up and stalking around it is debatable whether it's all a stunt man or sometimes a mix, with Chaney alternating in the makeup.

There's more history to this movie. Later on, hack director Jerry Warren tried his hand at Americanizing this by cutting out all the comedy, slicing the running time by about 20 minutes, dubbing it into English, and adding different scenes from some other foreign mummy movie, which made no sense and dragged on. That version can be seen under the title THE FACE OF THE SCREAMING WEREWOLF, but most fans (including myself) would recommend LA CASA DEL TERROR as the more desirable of the two. It would be nice though if an English dub or subtitled version would be made available one day. Might even boost the rating by a half star. ** out of ****

This film essentially begins with a mad scientist by the name of "Professor Sebastian" (Yerye Beirute) attempting to reanimate dead corpses but finding absolutely no success in his endeavors. To further complicate matters, a large police effort recently been initiated to find the culprits behind the removal of those corpses from the local cemeteries. So, recognizing that his main source of supply has been temporarily negated, he quickly decides to steal a mummy from a local exhibit in order to continue his research. What he doesn't factor into his equation, however, is that this particular mummy had been previously infected with a form of lycanthropy and, when brought back to life, immediately goes on a killing spree. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this basic horror film tried to infuse a little comedy into the mix--with rather limited results as most of it wasn't really that funny and only detracted from the overall movie. At least, that's how it seemed to me. Even so, although it wasn't quite as good as it could have been without the comedic effect, I don't consider this to be a terrible film by any means, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

The first thing I have to say is I don't speak Spanish and the version I saw had no subtitling but I read the summary of the film so I knew pretty much what was going on - from everything I saw and understood about the movie it's actually a decent werewolf (& mummy) film.

Chaney gets a fairly good amount of screen time although he has no lines (from my understanding it was simply because he didn't speak Spanish). The role he was playing (the way the film played out) he didn't have to speak because he was a mummy that became a werewolf. He does get action - lots of jumping around as the werewolf.

Even if you can't understand a word of Spanish but enjoy Chaney then it's a good film to watch - just veg out in front of the TV with it.

Side note: I might have rated this film a bit higher if I understood Spanish. - Also see: Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964)

6.5/10