Having grown up as a fan of Eurotrash, Euro-slash and all things Euro-sleaze (I'm fairly sure I was the only person at my school with a VHS copy of Jess Franco's Vampyros Lesbos, as evidenced by the amount of my fellow pupils who asked to borrow it) I've always had a soft spot for the horror emanations of the Iberian peninsula; whether it be the works of Franco, Amando de Ossorio, Leon Klimovsky or Jorge Grau. I was so there for it as I'm sure the youths still say. That being the case, the works of Paul Naschy (or Jacinto Molina Alvarez to his mum) hold a very special place in my blackened heart as Naschy's name conjures so many joyfully ghoulish images to my mind, whether it be Morgue-dwelling hunchbacks, headless mediaeval sorcerers or (and especially) the tragic Polish lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky (a.k.a. El Hombre Lobo). Naschy's most famous role of the many he essayed in his multi-decade career, Daninsky partook of his carnivorous lunar activities over eleven - or twelve if we are to believe in the mythic 'lost' 1968 entry Les Noches del Hombre Lobo (The Nights of the Werewolf) - movies between 1968 and 2004
And so it was a happy surprise of serendipitous proportions when one evening roaming about the byways and highways of the interwebs I stumbled across the Youtube channel of Eric Yoder, a make up effects guy and short film maker. Among the lovingly-crafted brief but brilliant tributes to classics such as William Lustig's Maniac (Night of the Maniac), Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case (Belial), Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper (The Los Angeles Ripper), Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (a spot-on trailer titled Within the Woods) and John Carpenter's The Thing (Who Goes There) I found, to my delight, a 40-minute tribute to Naschy's lupine alter ego and his adventures: the appropriately reverently-titled The Legend of El Hombre Lobo.
As someone who finds joy in retro minutiae such as "They got the font right!" or recognising a familiar musical cue or even film stock/grain, whether real or digitally achieved (as you can imagine, things like Tarantino & Rodriguez' Grindhouse project or even the Stranger Things opening titles moistened my eager gusset), I was almost clapping with glee as the film opened with appropriately applied film scratches and the caption 'Baliavasta, Transylvania - 1972'. Baliavasta is, I guess, to Naschy's wolfman what Vasaria was to Lon Chaney and the Universal monsters. Opening with a sequence of grave robbers in a moonlit, fog-shrouded cemetery who inadvertently revive the werewolf (just like in the 1943 Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man as well as Naschy's 1970 Assignment Terror) by removing the silver cross of the Mayenza chalice from his heart and get appropriately slaughtered for their troubles, we cut to a daylight drive through the rural Romanian woodlands where Paul (Matthew Thomas Stallings, also of other Yoder vids such as the aforementioned The Los Angeles Ripper), Jasmine (Anna Townsend) and Anna (Reese Gizzarelli) are searching for the last resting place of Jasmine's late parents.
After an encounter with a local villager who warns them away from the old cemetery as it is the cursed burial place of Count Vladislav (Cody Ruch) who was executed for witchcraft and vampirism - a sort of spear (as opposed to distaff) version of Patty Shepard's Countess Wandessa. Of course they ignore him and go, where we find out from the tombstone that Jasmine's deceased mother's name was Elvira Shepard: after both Naschy's wife - and a frequent female moniker throughout his filmography - and Patty Shepard, the titular Vampire Woman of The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman a.k.a. Werewolf Shadow, and her father's name was Leon: possibly a reference to Oliver Reed's Leon Corledo from Hammer's 1961 The Curse of the Werewolf - the pioneering Spanish werewolf. Whilst Anna finds herself irresistably attracted the Count Vladislav's Black Castle on the hill, Paul and Jasmine find themselves victims of Imre and Justine's fate in Dr Jekyll and the Werewolf - Paul is murdered by robbers who then attempt to rape Jasmine, who is rescued by a bearded Waldemar Daninsky (Shane Ronzio, who was cinematographer on Yoder's Thing tribute Who Goes There, going from camera man to wolf man). Anna finds the tomb of Vladislav and manages to cut her hand and bleed all over it, prompting a prompt resurrection for the vampiric villain who looks a little like Bruce Payne's Nosferatu-styled Harker from Howling VI: The Freaks in a monk's habit. As she is baptised in blood to become a sexy vampiress, Jasmine awakes to find herself tended by Waldemar and his elderly housekeeper-cum-witch Uswika Bathory (Nicole Albert).
When the vampires hunt Jasmine and wolfy Waldemar goes on the prowl (complete with red tinted lycanthropic POV shots reminiscent of Freddie Francis' Legend of the Werewolf), obviously the undead and the lupine clash but I really don't want to go into detail on the last part and spoil the end. Rather, I urge genre fans to seek it for themselves. It's 40 minutes of your time well spent that you could have wasted on some copaganda or lame spin-off show. Plenty of those about. But if anyone has affection for Gothic Euro horror - and in particular Werewolf Shadow, Dr Jekyll and the Werewolf or Night of the Werewolf - I think you'll love this. I wonder if Rod and Troy from the Naschycast know about it?
Oh, and I must mention Mr Yoder's short The Old Man in the Rocking Chair, probably in both versions. It hits all the right giallo notes, with characters called Dario, Daria, Lucio, Lenzi and Mr Bava. Tres gialli. I think I slightly prefer the original 2019 version to the - admittedly better made - 2022 remake, if only for the superior use of Fabio Frizzi's 'Voci dal Nulla' from The Beyond at the climax. Though the remake does boast a brilliantly Fulci-esque eye trauma. I wonder if Katie of the Night and Sweet 'N Spooky Celise know about these flicks? Not that I internet stalk women who are into Euro horror. What? I don't!)
And I look forward to Walpurgis Night, in the hopes that it sees release, still being credited as being in post production on imdb. This looks like it sees Ronzio return as Daninsky in a full-blown Dr Jekyll and Werewolf remake. I do hope it sees the light of day. We need more Daninsky in the world.
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