La louve se déchaîne

Soft porn Italian she-wolf horror with loads of throat-ripping, c-word yelling debauchery to offend almost everyone. A young woman (Borel) believes she's the reincarnation of a two hundred year family link to lycanthropy, and duly turns into a savage she-wolf during the full moon. Complicating matters, she's also sex-averse due to a harrowing experience when she was younger, seducing her victims before gorging on their blood in retribution for their misguided advances.

Frequent disrobing by almost all of the female cast and a plethora of gory murders will appeal to some audiences, the line between mainstream feature film and sado-porn is sometimes teased, but never fully crossed. Dagmar Lassander has a largely extraneous and minor role, most of which is a sex scene, while Frederick Stafford does an amiable job as the inspector with an ever-burgeoning mountain of corpses, courtesy of our fair maiden Borel. For her part, Borel is intense and obviously committed to her performance, but the film's erratic narrative fails to focus and consequently, her role is shallow and uninvolving.

Director Silvestro seems uncertain whether he's making a werewolf movie, attempting a mental health statement, a rape and revenge flick, or just a softcore trip with apparently divergent themes awkwardly woven into the tale that seems at times never-ending (I saw an uncut 100 minute version which despite all the climaxing throughout the movie, fails to deliver one at the film's sunset). Little suspense, just buckets of gore, nudity, self flagellation, various sexual acts and grade A profanity to pass the time. Bring it on.

I started watching this movie expecting some barely tolerable Hammer horror film wannabe... and I wasn't far off. There's a fair amount of glimpsed gore, and they threw in lots of nudity, but the latter half of the movie presents a few ironic twists. Holy cow, they actually put a little thought into the story, and didn't completely fall into the predictable stuff one expected at the outset. And dare I say it, some of the "gratuitous" nudity wasn't so gratuitous after all, because it fit in with the story and setting.

Don't get me wrong, it's still overall a bad movie, but as bad movies go, it's a shade more intelligent than the REALLY horrible tripe like Mesa of Lost Women and Robot Monster.

First off - don't go into WEREWOLF WOMAN thinking that you'll see much actual werewolf action - you won't. The best part of this film is how goofy and inept it actually is. Bad acting, horrible (but hilarious) dubbing, some OK gore (for a 70's Italian joint) and a good bit of nudity make this one worth a look, if you dig this sort of stuff...

The "werewolf woman" in question, was apparently some chick that was raped who think she is a werewolf based on the fact that one of her previous ancestor was. Her rape experience makes her prey on men as a way of dealing with her experiences. The rest is a bunch of Italian sexploit nonsense that takes itself awfully seriously for such a cheezy-ass film...

Don't expect a masterpiece with this one. It pretty much looks visually like every other Italian sexploit film out there, and the "werewolf" angle is highly over-rated, as there is no real werewolf action to be had in this one other than the first five minutes or so. If you are new to Italian sexploit films, or have exhausted your choices and are a genre-lover, then check this one out...otherwise - it ain't bringin' nothing' new to the table...6/10

Now here Rino De Silvestro also talks a stroll down copious nudity avenue, but this seemingly has some sort of point to make about childhood trauma, the cycle of sexual violence and perhaps the menstrual cycle. Either that or those are all an excuse for copious nudity. Let's find out!

Daniela (played by Annik Borel) has a dream where she turns into a werewolf and gets chased by some villagers, resulting in one particular village getting his face split open in a rather nasty manner. But, a dream is a dream, and although Daniela's is having a spot of the old brain trouble following a rape when she was younger, her father would rather just get on with life. After all, they stay in relative isolation in a villa in Italy, and Daniela seems happy enough, although the prospect of her sister visiting with her husband doesn't please her that well. Oh, and she's also become obsessed with a picture of a distant relative and a curse that her family always end up turning into werewolves.

Her sister is played by Dagmar Lassander, and it seems that Dagmar is a lot fonder of her sister than the other way round. Also, Daniela spends most of the conversation just staring out at the moon, but later gets it together to go spy on Dagmar and her husband getting some (and strangely, Dagmar isn't a real redhead, I now know...). After spoiling it for them, Daniela is followed outside by Dagmar's husband, whom she comes onto and of course bites the throat out of. Sisters, eh? It's all written off as a dog attack but just to make sure Daniela is sent to a loony bin anyway. I forgot to mention that Dagmar's husband looked like that guy from Daniela's dream and her relative from the picture came to visit her in a vision, but attention to detail is not my strong point. Neither is being coherent.

Daniela ends up getting strapped to a bed for her own good but as this is an Italian film that just gives someone else the opportunity to feel her up, but luckily Daniela is tooled up with a scalpel and the next thing you know someone's dead, Daniela's escaped, and as an added bonus she seriously assaults a doctor. Time to start a new life, Daniela! Well, after you kill that guy that tries to rape you.

This is where Howard Ross comes in and he's a good guy AND a stunt man! This leads to a bizarre romance/stunt montage while Daniela realises that not all men are jerks, just 99% of them as she finds out when a bunch of guys turn up and rape her and kill Howard Ross. Is there any plot left that I haven't described in detail? A little bit I guess.

I've never been a big fan of rape in films, and the last three films I've watched from Italy in 1976 have all featured it, so that's no good. On the other hand, I think the director here is trying to say something or other about female power as Daniela just straight up murders every man who does her a wrong, usually powered by the moon. Or periods? I don't know. There is an absolute blizzard of nakedness in this film but none of it erotic. It seems to be there to add to the animalistic tendencies of Daniela. I had no idea what to expect from this film and despite the dodgy subject matter stands out as quite an original film. Not a very comfortable one, however.

This, one of the films in my 'Nightmare Worlds' 50-pack from Mill Creek, was much better than I had previously anticipated. The soundtrack was quite impressive, and readily brought to mind the finer moments the band Goblin had provided in their work for Dario Argento's string of 70's-80's giallo masterpieces. The production values were quite decent overall for such a film, and I loved both the premise and its execution.

Annik Borel was exemplary as the ill-fated protagonist Daniela, and takes a few lessons from Linda Blair's portrayal of the possessed in 'The Exorcist' for whenever she loses control of her inhibitions and resorts to her more animalistic urges. Kudos to the filmmakers for bringing psychological issues and the effects of sexual abuse and rape to the forefront, even if it's for an 'exploitation' film.

Yes, the story arc is predictable (though suspense-fully carried out), there is gratuitous sex and nudity at every conceivable moment (and a lot of inconceivable ones!), and you get that tired lie 'this is a true story--only the names have been changed', but it's as if you would think those are bad things. It was a great 79 minutes I will always fondly remember--unless I get Altzheimer's disease or something. Highly recommended to anyone who loves 70's horror movies, softcore porn, or exploitation films in general. 70's Italian movies aren't so bad.