La loba

"La loba" is a curiosity in Mexican cinema and perhaps the only motion picture this film industry ever dedicated to a she-wolf. It was written by Costa Rican Ramón Obón, the man behind Fernando Méndez's classic "El vampiro", and played by a cast of prestigious performers. The problems start when a physician (Joaquín Cordero) arrives at the farm of a senior colleague (José Elías Moreno), to ask for the hand of his daughter (Kitty de Hoyos), not knowing that she turns into a she-wolf with the full moon. This is not all: the film reserves a few more surprises for the viewer. It is interesting that the title character, when transformed, is played by an acrobat, and apparently the movie included a nude scene by De Hoyos, one of the pioneers of female nudity in commercial Mexican cinema, although the copy I saw only ran 78 minutes and there was an obvious cut when her full naked body was about to be revealed. Recommended to all horror film fans.

This film opens with a fierce creature emerging from a concrete tomb in a graveyard, then launching into a nighttime killing spree in the woods under a full moon. After attacking three victims, the creature returns to the concrete structure, which a muscular man named "Crumba" (Crox Alvarado) unlocks, leading to a large house nearby. Once inside, the beast writhes on the floor before transforming into a beautiful woman named "Clarisa Fernandez" (Kitty de Hoyas)," who has no memory of recent events. The scene then shifts to a man named "Dr. Alejandro Bernstein" (Joaquin Cordero), who introduces himself to the house's owner, "Professor Fernandez" (Jose Elias Moreno), to ask for her hand in marriage. Although Dr. Bernstein seems to be a reasonable suitor, Professor Fernandez appears hesitant and does not explain why. It soon becomes clear that Professor Fernandez is conducting an experiment involving the metamorphosis of cell structures, while Dr. Bernstein is engaged in a similar experiment related to lycanthropy. Instead of sharing more, I'll just note that this film stands out from the typical werewolf scenario because the remedy for lycanthropy involves an ivory-handled knife and a specially trained dog rather than a silver bullet. It also features a bit more violence than similar films of this era. That being said, although the photography could have used some improvement, I still enjoyed this film for the most part, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Deciding to visit a friend, a doctor arrives at the home of a famous scientist to ask about marrying his daughter, but realizing that he's arrived in the middle of a series of attacks by a fabled creature that has ties to his daughter's strange condition and tries to help him solve it before more are killed.

This was a massively entertaining Gothic horror effort. Among the best aspects to be had with this one is the solid and engaging backstory that merges traditional folklore with localized elements. The main setup of the film working on a slight change to most traditional werewolf efforts in that there's a strange disease-like infection causing the transformation and witnessing the father try to treat it with his latest experiments, adding a slight spin on the traditional formula. As we still get the transformation metho through the same Full Moon triggers and the affliction being treated as a curse that her father and his friend try desperate to cure, there's a great connection here to allow for it's more exotic dalliances including the idea of having the whole thing be impeded by the romantic relationship at the core of his visit to the house. This all comes together for a rather solid and somewhat intriguing setup for this kind of feature. That allows for the film to maintain a solid series of impressive and high-energy attack scenes with the werewolf running wild through the community. The opening attack showing the creature emerging from it's tomb and running through the local woods taking out several individuals each in graphic detail including unnatural leaping through the air, vicious snarling, and rabid pawing at their faces and body resulting in several vicious attack scenes that are quite fun starting the film on a hot streak. Later scenes involving the creature attacking others around the hacienda she lives at with her father or stalking others in the house as it leads into the thrilling brawl in the finale involving the werewolves clawing and brawling throughout the hose leading to some rather shocking and brutal attacks, which given the chance at showing off the fantastic make-up for the creation are enough to hold this up over its minor drawbacks. There isn't much in the way of drawbacks here, but there are some slight issues. The main element with this one is the series of slight changes to the werewolf origins that are featured here. The idea of this one focusing less on the idea of a curse transferred to survivors and taking it with a more chemically-induced affliction that her father and his friend are looking to cure it is taken to such a degree that it introduces a different means of stopping the beast as well. There's such a bizarre change to the eventual defeat that it comes off more as a comical letdown than anything, which is a setup for the other issue in its sense of goofiness despite the sense of class in the rest of the film. From the design of the creature to the behavior it exhibits during the attacks and the overwrought melodrama for the romantic relationship, there's a silly sensibility to it that it doesn't need compared to the more serious attitude featured here. These are the film's few detrimental factors.

Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence and Brief Nudity.

Mexican horror movies of the 60s featured a lot of vampires and mummies (and wrestlers), but not very many werewolves; in fact, this is the only Mexican lycanthrope movie that I can recall. We do, however, get more than one hairy horror for our money...

Joaquín Cordero plays Dr. Alejandro Bernstein, who visits Profesor Fernandez (José Elías Moreno) to ask for the hand in marriage of his daughter Clarisa (Kitty de Hoyos); Bernstein's arrival coincides with several brutal slayings by a creature who prowls whenever there is a full moon.

The werewolves in this film are particularly savage: snarling ravenous beasts that stalks their prey before leaping into action (with the help of a carefully hidden springboard) and ripping them to pieces and tearing out the victim's heart (which means we are treated to some brief black and white gore). The film is also unusual in the fact that a werewolf can only be killed-not by a silver bullet-but by a dagger with an ivory blade or by a specially trained dog!

The vicious monster(s) and the film's more unique elements help compensate somewhat for an otherwise rather pedestrian plot. And we should always be grateful, I suppose, that there isn't any wrestling!

This is Mexico's first effort to produce a film devoted to a werewolf, in this case a female one as the title suggests "the She-Wolf". Transformations are pretty lame and based entirely on the effects designed for Lon Chaney's The Wolf Man, a character that has been around for quite a while and so, the producers had to come up with something different, though not really original: The Wolf Woman. This film comes close in time to the Mexican wrestler mania that "El Santo" took to a heyday in a sort of surrealist vision of movies. However, La Loba does not have any wrestlers and masks, but a rich Mexican girl cursed to become a wolf at night to kill, hunt and feed upon people. Very daring film for its day, as it openly suggests nudity during one of the transformation scenes. No novelty elements are brought to the genre, though, as Hollywood has given out enough materials on the subject by the time this picture was produced. It has some good atmosphere and it is the first movie to grow hair on a girl's soft face skin. Not to mention fangs and claws. Worth looking at, as it is one of the few "serious" attempts of the Mexican film industry to enliven the horror genre without escaping its campy nature.