O Lobisomem

This film scared the pants off me as a kid (which I loved!) and when I finally found it again and watched it as an adult I was pleasantly surprised to find that I still enjoy it. And parts of it, namely the cave sequence and the fight in the dark alley, still give me the creeps. I found this werewolf much scarier than Chaney Jr.'s version. Steven Ritch's portrayal has a wildness and rawness to it that gives his lycanthrope that extra edge. Watch how he drools as he sinks his fangs into that hunk of bait in the woods, for instance. Oh, there are a few flaws... and I find the scene at the doctors' lab very long, talky and dull... but all in all I'd recommend this to any classic horror film buff. Well done. Hard to believe something of actual quality was produced by the same man responsible for "The Giant Claw"!

Never seen this film before and was pleasantly surprised to see this film had some Sci-Fi effects and it involved itself with two doctors who find a man Duncan Marsh, (Steven Ritch) who was in a car accident who has no memory and they inject him with a serum which has some strange effects on his body. Duncan Marsh is a married man and has a son and he escapes from these doctors and runs into a bar and has a few drinks and tries to seek help but as he leaves the bar he is approached by a man who wants to take his money and something happens to this man. Soon after this incident, the town believes there is a wild animal on the loose because they find a man killed by a sort of wolf or wild animal. This is a rather low budget film, but it has real live background on a California park and has a great deal of realism and horror. Enjoy.

Steven Ritch plays a stranger who arrives in the small California town of Mountaincrest, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He also has the unfortunate tendency to sprout hair, claws, and fangs at any old time, and the townsfolk attempt to catch Ritch in his wolfish form. Then two doctors (S. John Launer, George Lynn) follow Ritch there, knowing full well that they're the ones who put him in his predicament, and try to cover up their actions.

"The Werewolf" is a well acted, modest production that gets great mileage out of its Big Bear Lake locations, as well as fine atmosphere. It also puts a fresh spin on the standard werewolf story, taking it into the Atomic Age and giving us a lycanthrope born of not myth and legend but of scientific meddling. Of course, like many a good werewolf story, it's also a tragedy, with a main character who does earn our sympathies. People like Dr. Gilcrist (Ken Christy) and his niece Amy Standish (Joyce Holden) work at convincing the law, represented by Don Megowan as the sheriff and Harry Lauter as his deputy, to please try to take Ritch alive, if possible, knowing that he is a basically good man who cannot control what is happening to him.

The werewolf makeup by Clay Campbell is decent, the stock music appropriated serves its purpose, and there is some very crisp black & white photography by Edward Linden. The performances are fine, with Megowan as a sturdy, jut jawed (if not that expressive) hero; Eleanore Tanin and Kim Charney are appealing as Ritchs' distraught wife and son.

Good entertainment, with a striking finale done in long shot at a dam.

Seven out of 10.

This B horror picture from Columbia with a cast of familiar players is better than I thought it would be. At the heart of it is a truly tragic figure in Steven Ritch who is just your average guy with wife Eleanor Tanin and son Kim Charney. He gets involved in an automobile accident and unfortunately gets himself treated by a pair of deranged scientists S.John Launer and George Lynn who decide he'd make a good test subject for an experiment.

Without the aid of the full moon and other bits of werewolf lore, Ritch goes in and out of being a werewolf day or night and without warning. He's pretty invincible when he's in wolf mode.. Sheriff Don Megowan and deputy Harry Lauter are tracking him, good doctors Joyce Holden and Ken Christy want to treat him. The bad docs want to kill him as a coverup.

Horror movie fans would do well to check this one out.

Interesting horror film about a man who becomes a werewolf because of science. A man is recovered from a car crash. A scientist injects him with a serum to fight radiation poison. A side effect causes him to (occasioanlly) turn into a werewolf. No full moon or silver bullets are involved here.

This might be the first horror film to have a person becoming a werewolf through scientific means! The performances are good (especially Steven Ritch as the werewolf), the scenery is beautiful, there are some nice directorial touches and the people talk and act like real people. The makeup is awful and I wasn't really scared, but I was never bored. Sadly, this isn't available on video. Well worth catching on TV.