La louve se déchaîne

This is NOT a good movie. Nor is it really even "so-bad-its-good", but it is kind of interesting in a twisted, car wreck sort of way. The movie is about a young woman who due to an ancient family curse and implied childhood sexual abuse is suffering from a kind of "hysterical lycanthropy". She believes herself to be a werewolf, so she starts killing (and eventually eating) her male lovers. Her actual lycanthropic status is left kind of ambiguous throughout the movie, making this more interesting than most. It kind of aspired to be what "Ginger Snaps" was years later. But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) it was directed by Rino DiSilvestri, a notorious Italian exploitation hack who had absolutely no sense of his own limitations. Still I vastly prefer a movie like this that tries to be serious and stumbles into camp, to one that intentionally aims at camp (like so many alleged "cult" movies do today) and fails just as miserably.

Of course, DiSivestri WAS pretty good at sexploitation, and he always had a very decent female cast. In his earlier movies he worked with a whole bevy of Euro-beauties (Anita Strindberg, Jenny Tamburi, Paola Senatore, Krista Nell, Magda Konopfka, Orchidea DiSantis, ad infinitum). Here he's reduced to the lovely Dagmar Lassander, who has probably the longest and most gratuitous sex scene of her career, and the lead, the much more obscure Anik Borel, who was cast because DiSivestri, according to his DVD commentary, thought "she looked like a wolf". She is kind of weird looking I guess, but her body is pretty impressive and you get to see a whole lot of it here. (Interestingly, her only other notable screen credit is in "Weekend with the Babysitter" a very 70's and very American sexploitation film directed by Tom "Billy Jack" McLoughlin). This movie is certainly not for everybody, but it works for me

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.

Daniella Neseri raped as a girl,channels her hatred towards men by summoning and becoming possessed by a deceased and vicious female werewolf ancestor.She lures victims by her charm,sexual drive and seduction before turning into the Wolf-woman to graphically take a bloody revenge and kill them."The Werewolf Woman" by Rino Di Silvestro of "Deported Women of the SS" fame is a very sleazy Italian horror film loaded with gore and graphic nudity.The first dreamy sequence in which Annik Borel is writhing and dancing naked before transforming into werewolf left me stunned.The film is occasionally quite dull,however it surely contains lots of nudity,soft core sex and bloody mayhem.I particularly liked the supernatural aspects of the story.The acting is bad and the dubbing is even worse,but overlook that and we have an enjoyable piece of Italian sleaze with no artistic pretensions.I wanted nudity and gore and that's what I've got.7 out of 10.

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

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.