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.

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".

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 ****

Someday somebody is going to write an essay comparing Paul Naschy's "Fury of the Wolfman" to the great Spanish surrealist films, "L'age D'or" and "Un Chien Andelou". The Naschy film is a masterpiece of delirium from beginning to end. Dali and Bunuel probably loved it, and ate their hearts out seeing someone do with such apparent ease what they had to rack their brains to pull off.

The film lacks cohesive structure even though it does have a plot that moves from A to B to C. Some mishmash about a "Professor Walterman" -- his first name, mind you -- who was bitten by a Yeti monster during an expedition to Tibet and hasn't been the same since, which is understandable. One of his jealous colleagues, the insane daughter of the noted Doctor Wolfstein, knows about his condition and reveals that his wife has been cheating on him. But its a setup for a twisted scientific experiment to unleash his inner beast.

"Walterman" flips out, turns into a werewolf, kills a few people, is electrocuted, dies, is buried, unburied, taken to a castle filled with circus freaks, wired to various machines, zapped with assorted electronic effects, injected with potent elixirs, is chained up, turns into a werewolf, a woman in an evening gown with thigh-high Nazi fetish boots whips him, he escapes, helps the pretty female doctor find her way out of the castle, fends off the circus freaks with a battle axe, eventually turns back into a werewolf, and has to fight to the death against the female werewolf incarnation of his cheating wife. The lady with the Nazi boots shoots him with silver bullets from her Luger pistol, they die together, and the pretty doctor walks off into the morning with the studly reporter, who did nothing. "Look! What a beautiful day it is!"

"La furia del Hombre Lobo" was written by Paul Naschy in a hurry. Original director Enrique Eguilez was fired and replaced by José María Zabalza, a drunk who was infamously intoxicated throughout the production. He was often unable to work (though he did find time to instruct his 14 year old nephew to make some alterations to the script) and Naschy ended up directing much of the film uncredited. Zabalza did rally enough to clip some action scenes from one of Naschy's previous movies, "Mark of the Wolfman". The scenes were fortunately good enough to use twice even if the costumes were different, and helped pad out the runtime after Zabalza refused to get out of bed to finish the movie. Post production was a nightmare. Nobody knew who was doing the editing, the money ran out, the master print disappeared for a while, and then at a pre-release screening for a film distributor the executive arrived to find Zabalza urinating into the gutter in front of the theater. He was too drunk to find the restroom but at least he made it to the curb.

Yet somehow the film works, if you let it. It keys into those atavistic memories we have about murky castles, vaulted catacombs, chains, whips, gloomy moors. Fans of those sort of things will find it hypnotically watchable even if the story as a whole doesn't make much sense due to the fractured discontinuity of the execution. In one scene its pouring rain and the wolfman howls at the lightning; in the next shot its bone dry and he's howling at the full moon. Then its raining again. And yet you don't look at it as a gaffe. Its like an unfolding dream where contradictions are possible, opposites are the same, and effects proceed causes; First the wolfman picks up the power cable and screams, and then the cable starts sparking with electricity. People say its low budget hurts the overall effectiveness -- I say the film would have been unwatchable if they had a dime more to spend. It is a marvel of making something out of nothing, and succeeds not because of what it could of had, but because of what it does. It's easy to laugh at stuff like this and even easier to dismiss it. The trick is being able to see through the mayhem, or rather to regard the chaos as part of the effect.

Paul Naschy died last week at the age of 75. He had been ill with pancreatic cancer for a year or more, was working on film projects right up until his last days, but passed away in Madrid, Spain, with his family while receiving chemotherapy treatment. His rich, varied, and surprisingly lengthy career is a legacy to a man stubbornly pursuing his artistic vision in the face of universal mainstream disinterest. And yet in all of us there is an eleven year old kid who will watch his movies like "Fury of the Wolfman" in rapt awe. Even people who don't like Euro Horror will discover something in this movie to marvel at, if only for just a minute in a couple spots. You can find it for free at Archive.Org or even buy it on a DVD for a nickel. It's worth far, far more.

Amusingly, Naschy was horrified to learn that many others like myself regard this twisted, sick, demented little movie as a classic, if not an outright masterpiece of Cinema Dementia. The problems he encountered during the production and the mess of a film that was left after were perhaps too personal an artistic disappointment for Naschy to forgive. I would never presume to dare to forgive it for him, but I will say this: I'd rather watch "Fury of the Wolfman" in its dingiest, most cut and degraded fullscreen public domain print than ever sit though the overbearing, obnoxious crap churning out up at the Swine Flu cineplexes this or any other weekend.

The world lost a great artist this month. Watch his films, and remember.

9/10

Inferior entry about Werewolf with the unforgettable Waldemar Daninsky-Jacinto Molina , under pseudonym Paul Naschy . The king of Spanish terror cinema as immortal Wolfman Waldemar Daninsky in this lousy entry . Third time in which Waldemar stricken by ancient curse that turns into Werewolf at the full moon . Waldemar , the notorious adventurer scientist joins a journey accompanied by friends , all of them to find the mythic Yeti in the Himalayas . Paul Naschy is transformed into a werewolf when an annoyed Yeti attacks and bite him . While on the expedition , with the crew who accompanied him disappeared . Daninsky looks desperately for a cure as he has had a werewolf curse cast upon him . If he doesn't get rid of it, he turns into a killer werewolf when the moon is full . He finds out that the pentagram mark on his chest might function as a sign of what ails him , and Daninsky asks for help to fellow scientific , Dr. Ilona (Perla Cristal as mad she-doctor ) and famous for her innovative experiments in the control of the human mind . Later on , Waldemar learns through an unnamed source that his spouse , Erika( Zorrilla) is having an affair with another man . What he doesn't know is that the couple are secretly scheming to murder him , tampering with the brakes causing a car crash when his vehicle to hit a tree . While not dead, Daninsky seeks the help of Ilona , who will exploit his unfortunate lycanthrope condition for her own experiments on the human brain . Then , Daninsky escapes and accidentally electrocutes himself on a fallen power line . Ilona will later dig up his undead corpse , forcing him to do her will , with assistant-student Karen (Verónica Luján) resisting her teacher's philosophies falling for the victimized Daninsky . Waldemar is locked into Ilona's castle, a place where many crazy patients are held in chains. Meantime , Karen's boyfriend, journalist Williams (Miguel De la Riva) will unite forces with detective Miller to discover the one responsible for the rash of killings and werewolf attacks plaguing the community . While Waldemar goes on a murderous rampage every time the moon is full and unleashing the werewolf from his chains to terrorize innocents round abouts .

Continental Europe's biggest horror star again with his classic character and horrifying to viewer . Jacinto Molina Aka Paul Naschy ,who recently passed away, was actor,screenwriter and director of various film about the personage based on fictitious character, the Polish count Waldemar Daninsky . The first entry about Waldemar was ¨The mark of the Wolfman (1967)¨ by Enrique Eguiluz , it was such a box office hit that Jacinto went on filming successive outings as ¨Night of Walpurgis¨, ¨Fury of the Wolfman¨ , ¨Doctor Jekill and the Wolfman¨ , and once again¨The return of the Walpurgis¨, ¨Howl of the devil¨. After ¨The craving¨ it was such a box office disaster that Jacinto was bankrupt. He was forced to turn to Japan for making artist documentaries, as he filmed 'Madrid Royal Palace and Museum of Prado' and he gets financing from Japanese producers for ¨The human beasts¨, the first co-production Spanish-Japan and followed ¨The beast and the magic sword(1982)¨ that is filmed in Japan and for the umpteenth time ¨Licantropo(1998) and finally even directed by Fred Olen Ray in ¨Tomb of the Werewolf(2004) with Michelle Bauer.

It's a B series entertainment with abundant sensationalistic scenes and a Naif style and plenty of flaws and gaps .The movie has a bit of ridiculous gore with loads of blood similar to tomato and is occasionally an engaging horror movie full of fights, curses, and several other things. This time Paul Nashy/Jacinto Molina exhibits little breast but he was a weightlifting champion. Here Waldemar takes on a mad doctor , freaks and a werewolf in some moving fighting scenes. Pretty slow going, but hang in there for the struggle Daninsky versus another she-wolf . Very bad cinematography by Leopoldo Villaseñor is accompanied by a lousy remastering . Filmed in Manzanares and Navacerrada, Madrid and Talamanca De Jarama, location in which were shot most part these horror movies. Eerie and atmospheric musical score by Angel Arteaga, saga's usual .The motion picture written by Naschy is absurdly directed by Jose Maria Zabalza and regularly played by Jacinto Molina , a slick craftsman and mediocre actor . The flick will appeal to Paul Naschy fans and terror genre enthusiast.