La Furie des vampires

I have to agree with others that this film is much better than "Fury of the Wolfman" - in fact it's one of Paul Naschy's best films - specifically his werewolf films. I didn't expect a whole lot from this movie (I expected it to be so-so) but it came as a pleasant surprise - it's good and I like it!

To some, this type of film is considered Euro-trash, tasteless and bad - well the film might be all those things but it's so bad it's good. If you like werewolves and/or vampires then this one is worth watching if you happen to see it on TV or acquire it in a film pack as I did.

The copy that I have came from the Legends of Horror 50 Movie Pack. It's a fairly good copy - but not digitally corrected. The voice dubbing into English is good enough for me to enjoy.

7.5/10

Although this movie obviously suffered from a lack of budget and resources, it is pretty well done by a crew who made the best of what they did have. I saw this as " The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Women " and despite the ridiculous title there actually were some effective and artfully done scenes, especially with a slow motion, day-for- night cloaked figure lurking in some windy ruins. Also very interesting are the last few scenes, shot in slow motion, of the title's vampire women (who are both really hot and reasonably talented) running from the rising sun.

I had this film on one of the cheapo Brentwood DVD sets but didnt watch that version opting to buy the Anchor Bay restored version so I could see the complete film. DOH!

Don't bother spending the extra $$ on the complete film. Definately not worth it.

I heard some buzz about Paul Naschy and I'll admit that I enjoyed Horror Rises from the Tomb.

Werewolf Shadow on the other hand is really really lame. The plot is as deep as a Scooby Doo episode. The pacing is mindnumbingly slow. Naschy is a truly awful actor. He doesn't do a lot of line intensive "acting" in Horror Rises from the Tomb, so in that film he is easier to take. In Werewolf Shadow though - his scenes are ENDLESS....After about the half-way point in the film the very sight of him was triggering fits of yawning. The scenes where he turns into a werewolf are particularly embarassing - just him roaring like a 4-year-old pretending to be an angry dog - while they do the most rudementary special effects. His make-out scenes are even worse. Dreadful.

Only for the compulsive completist. The Brentwood print is dark and scratchy and 10 minutes shorter than the complete Anchor Bay version, but after seeing the complete film, darkness, and brevity are good things. Go with the Brentwood version.

This barely keeps afloat and is so slow in parts that when one of the characters falls asleep at the table we think for a moment she has dropped off in a state of boredom. And it is such a shame about the pacing because there are decent moments, lovely girls, lots of nudity and blood, even a little gore. The slo-mo gliding of the lady vampires is good too and there are a few minutes somewhere in the middle where it looks as if the film is rising to some altogether different level. But no we are soon back to a plodding Mr Naschy and the plodding script. It's the extras on the disc that tip the scales and the interview with Mr Plod is welcome and goes some way to helping one understand his popularity!

Noche de Walpurgis, Nacht der Vampire, Blood Moon, Werewolf Shadow ... the amount of alternative titles that this movie has, annoying as it may be, is a testament to it's international success.

So why is it that the world cared so much about some Spanish horror movie? Well, the fact is, it was simply better than most of what everyone else was doing at the time. But like "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" did in the late fifties, this movie sparked off a whole new generation of similar werewolf movies such as "The Beast Must Die", which attempted to emulate it's atmosphere precisely.

But has it stood the test of time? Lead actor and writer Jacinto Molina certainly thinks so. Others are less certain. For instance, it's easy to put off by the cheesy soundtrack, complete unsuited to what the mood of the movie should be, and the script definitely has it's dull moments. There's a whole sequence towards the end of the movie, when a policeman comes to investigate the murders and seems to spend half an hour in pointless conversation with the villagers. Oh, and the 'romance' aspect of the film feels both rushed and forced. The blood often looks fake, and the clearer the picture is, the less convinced you are by the makeup. It's one of the few movies that fails to benefit from a restored DVD version.

However, there's still plenty of good stuff here that help it to rise above the 'trashy horror' category for some parts at least. There's only a small amount of nudity in the film, gratuitous though it may be, and the dialogue isn't half as bad as most horror movies of this period. The historical sequences are surprisingly good, and the vampires are particularly creepy -- thanks to Molina's insistence that they should be filmed in slow motion. His performance is easily the most notable, and it's likely that if he'd been given more creative control over the production of these movies, they would have been much better.

All in all, this movie may well be for genre fans only. Most will probably find it dull and dated, but at the time it was definitely something pretty special.