L'empreinte de Dracula

Outing based on the mythic Wolfman Waldemar Daninsky always played by the great Paul Naschy . Acceptable 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 passable entry . This time , once again Waldemar stricken by ancient curse that turns into Werewolf at the full moon . During Middle Age , a nasty inquisitor named Ireneus Daninsky (Paul Naschy or Jacinto Molina) has Countess Bathory ( Maria Silva and in ¨The night of Walpurgis¨ played by Patty Shepard) burned alive on a pole and her women followers hanged . Before dieing in the flames the countess puts a curse on Daninsky and his descendants . Things happen that have never been seen by human beings, the blood flows like vintage wine . Four centuries later, Waldemar Daninsky accidentally shoots a gypsy while chasing a wolf. The angry gypsies, who knew of the curse, summon up the Satan and the gorgeous Ilona (Ines Morales) is chosen to seduce the young lord. During a night of love, Ilona bites Waldemar who turns into a werewolf killing his preys on full moon nights. Waldemar whose ancestors executed a witch is turned into a werewolf by modern-day descendants of the executed witch. His murders are first attributed to a mad killer escaped from the asylum . Meantime a constable (Mariano Vidal Molina) is investigating the violent and ominous killings . Waldemar, who suspects the murderous is none other than himself, falls in love with Kinga (Falcon) , the daughter of a professor from Budapest who lives at a countryside house along with his wife and another daughter . While Waldemar goes on a murderous rampage every time the moon is full and unleashing his powers at night to terrorize innocents round abouts . When Maria (Maritza Olivares) , Kinga's jealous younger sister, manages to love Daninsky and sleep with him , but Waldemar , once again turned into a werewolf seeking vengeance .

Continental Europe's biggest horror star again with his classic character and horrifying to spectator . 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 , gratuitous nudism 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 attacks , curses, and several other things. This time Paul Nashy/Jacinto Molina exhibits little breast but he was a weightlifting champion. Here Waldemar takes on villagers , gypsies and a constable in some moving attack scenes. Pretty slow going, but hang in there for the nice make-up Daninsky turning into werewolf . In the film turns up usual actors from the 60s and 70s who starred as secondary cast many Spaghetti , horror , Gialli co-productions such as : Mariano Vidal Molina ,Jose Yepes , Eduardo Calvo and Maria Silva . Acceptable and atmospheric cinematography by Francisco Sanchez . Filmed in Toledo , Manzanares and Navacerrada, Madrid and Talamanca De Jarama, location in which were shot most part these horror movies. Eerie and creepy musical score by Anton Garcia Abril , saga's usual . The motion picture with Spanisth title ¨El Retorno de Walpurgis¨ has various international titles as Curse of the Devil" , "Return of the Werewolf" (informal literal title) "The Black Harvest of Countess Dracula" , "The Return of Walpurgis was written by Naschy and professionally directed by Carlos Aured , a slick craftsman who directed all kind of genres, especially Erotic and Terror for Paul Naschy as ¨Horror rises from tomb¨,¨Vengeance of the mummy¨ and , ¨Return of Walpurgis¨ . The picture will appeal to Paul Naschy fans and terror genre enthusiast

On the surface, this movie uses the same basic plot as several other of Jacinto Molina's movies ... he is cursed with lycanthropy and must find a woman who loves him enough to kill him and end the curse. However, it is the setting and the back story which makes "Curse of the Devil" stand out.

Four hundred years ago, an ancestor of Daninsky executed a bunch of satanic witches who swore a rather drawn-out and unfrightening curse upon him. One day, Waldemar is out hunting a wolf and is shocked and saddened when he shoots it and discovers that it is a man. Apparently he didn't know he was hunting a werewolf (why was he using silver bullets then?), and he also didn't know that the person he killed was a descendant of the previously mentioned witches. As a result of this, the witches finally take their revenge upon him, sending one of their minions to curse him on the night of the Walpurgis ...

This yet another stand-alone movie which doesn't appear to fit in with the rest of the Waldemar Daninsky saga. However, it can be thought of as an improved remake of his first movie "Mark of the Wolfman", and it kind of works as a historical prequel to the other movies as well. It's certainly one of the more entertaining Daninsky movies ... the opening sequence is one of the funniest things I've ever seen (unintentionally, of course), but mostly due to the awful dubbing rather than anything else. Yes, awful dubbing. Awful, awful. Bleurgh. In fact, all pretty much all the problems here seem to be caused with the dubbing. I believe that in it's original language this may in fact be (shock horror) a GOOD horror film. Often these movies can feel like a bit of a chore to watch, but not this one! The period costumes and settings are realistic and cool. There's a very nice castle, for all you archaeologists out there. Most of the women once again wear those flowing sheer nightgowns which Jacinto Molina seems to love so much ... and they, of course, throw themselves at Waldemar screaming "deflower me! deflower me!" The acting seems decent all round, but you can't really tell due to the terrible, terrible dubbing. Director Carlos Aured worked with Molina on several movies, but this was the only Waldemar Daninsky movie he directed -- he did later do some uncredited work on Alice Cooper's "Leviatán". His directing is pretty good for a Daninsky movie, although the editing and placement of the scenes is a little off sometimes.

"Curse of the Devil" is one of the better Daninsky movies of the seventies, and certainly among the more entertaining. And it has a great ending, too.

Paul Naschy, Spain's numero uno horror star of the 70s, hams it up in this cheesy slice of Euro-schlock.

From the impressive opening scenes (in which we get a beheading, a cut throat, several hangings and a burning at the stake) right through to the end credits, this fun film delivers the goods – gratuitous nudity, some none too convincing gore and hammy acting from all involved.

Waldemar Daninsky (Naschy) falls foul of a curse (placed upon his family by a coven of witches centuries before) and becomes a werewolf when the moon is full. His only hope of salvation is to die by the hand of his true love.

Curse of the Devil boasts pretty good production values and at times is very stylish in execution; at other times it is unintentionally funny. Whilst never up to the standards of a Hammer horror, which it resembles at times in plot and content, fans of this kind of stuff will find enough to enjoy for it to warrant a viewing.

I'm like the Energizer Bunny when it comes to Paul Naschy – I keep going and going and going with the hope of one day finding a Naschy film I really enjoy. I know the man has his fans, but I've yet to see the appeal. My latest excursion into Naschy's filmography is Curse of the Devil. It's certainly not the worst Naschy film I've seen (that would be Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf), but the best I can do is call it an average horror film.

The film gets off to a good start. The story explaining how Daninsky (Naschy) became a werewolf is well done. Much like Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf, the backstory presented in Curse of the Devil is nice as it provides a reasonable (well, as reasonable as horror movies can be) explanation behind lycanthropy. Too often, horror movies expect us to accept a person is a werewolf without any explanation other than they were bitten by a werewolf. It's as if it's always been that way, so just accept it. I really appreciated and enjoyed this portion of the film. These early scenes also have a nice Gothic feel to them and an attention to detail that really adds to the atmosphere.

But then Daninsky changes into a werewolf and the whole thing goes downhill. It's the same old story we've seen numerous times. And, if you've seen many Naschy films, you'll definitely feel like you've seen it before. If Naschy is anything, he's consistent and predictable. From what I've seen, his films rarely stray from the tired and true path. But more specifically, there are a couple of things about the werewolf scenes that bother me. First, how is he able to sneak up on everyone? Wouldn't the sound of a hulking, snarling werewolf be a tip-off that something's not quite right? Second, the "special effects" are abysmal even when taking into account the time period in which the movie was made and any budget limitations. Most of the werewolf victims in Curse of the Devil look like people who have, for whatever reason, poured marinara sauce on their faces. It's not very effective.

As I always seem to write when discussing a Naschy film, I'm not giving up. Even though I've yet to find that Naschy film that clicks with me, I'll keep going in hopes that sooner or later one will.

Hahahaha, that should be my review but IMDb doesn't allow that so here we go. First of all it's a Paul Naschy movie which means you are against him or you love him. Secondly, it's a low budget flick. In the beginning of the movie we have some slicing of a throat, easily to see the fake flesh, or blood running out of the knife and not from the wound. We move on to the next scene were they hunt a dog, oops, I mean a wolf. Once shot they go looking towards the wolf but it's a man's body laying there. Must be a werewolf. Over to some nice scene's about hanging some women and the burning at the stake of Bathory. But before she dies she cursed the Darinsky family. Of to some summon of the devil, you guessed it a man in a suit with a shot revealing the zipper of his suit. The devil chose the perfect girl to do the cursed ritual on one of the offspring of the Darinsky's(that's Paul Naschy). Girls disappearing at night....before the wolfman appears we are having a lot of nudity, full frontal. But the movie does have his failures. It's never scary and sometimes it really becomes laughable. The wolfman reminded me of the 1941 version. The way he changes from man into wolf is the same as they did in 1941. But the most frightening part of this flick are the moments of the full bushes, go figure out you have to bite that! They're more hairy than the wolfman. But some shots are gory for the time being even as you can see that it is a cheap effect. The blood really looks like ketchup and reminded me of the blood used in Blood Feast. Be sure to watch the uncensored uncut version.