Werewolf Woman

Poor Daniela. She was raped by a brute at age 13 and her family has a history of lycanthropy. Nevermind that she looks just like her great great aunt, furthering her delusions she's a bonafide werewolf. She's been having nightmares where she wolfs out and kills pilgrims, after dancing naked in a ring of fire (a very fine opening scene).

Daniela's wealthy daddy is concerned, moves her out to his Italian country home, and enlists the help of a doctor to figure out what the hell can cure Daniela from her mind. The doctor spends most of his time musing upon the obvious, such as, Daniela has sexual phobias because of her rape. Oh, really, doc? Why ever would you suspect that? And, Daniela is obsessed with antiques and old documents because she spends most of her time in the attic. Okay. Sure. Whatever you say.

Daniela does seem to get a little better after the doc's visit, but pretty redhead sister Irena decides to pay a visit from America where she's been studying Nuclear Physics. She brings her very masculine new hubby and fellow nuclear scientist, Fabian, to meet Daddy and Daniela. Daniela is instantly attracted to Fabian but since she has sexual phobias and all, she retires to her room quickly after dinner on the pretense that she's tired. There's a full moon after all.

Irena and Fabian decide to retire as well and end up naked in bed together. They're married, so it's okay. Daniela hears their lovemaking session and, in her extremely flimsy (read: completely see-through) nightgown, spies on the newlyweds, only after she sees a bloody vision of herself (?) and has a komodo dragon crawl around on her body (double ?). She touches herself a bit outside their bedroom door and then makes her way out into the night.

Fabian hears a door slam and leaves his lovely bride to go investigate. Daniela sees a vision of her dead relative she is supposed to resemble in front of a skeleton with a still human face attached. Another vision? It's never explained. Daniela then begins hyperventilating, but sees Fabian, strips nude, and calls him to her. She kisses him deeply and pulls him down to the ground, and instead of a sex session, she goes ahead and rips his throat out with her teeth and then rolls the body into a ravine!

Next cut and Daniela's confined (read: restrained) to a hospital bed in a mental ward. The doctors thinks she's suffering from nocturnal schizophrenia because they can't find anything else physically wrong with her, her symptoms seem to be those suffered by teens in puberty, but Daniela's an adult. Wow, doctor, thanks again for that sage observation.

Irena and Daddy come to see Daniela and Daniela gives the performance of the movie when she tells Irena, 'You liked Fabian. You liked making love with him! You were obscene! Disgusting! But you liked it! I hate you, you whore! Go fuck yourself! Whore!'That's pretty much what I'm going to say to the judge next time I go to court or maybe next time I'm in a really long line at the post office. Daniela has a total meltdown right there and it's freaking awesome. And I thought it was cool when she got all wolfie on Fabian.

She freaks out again when the nurse won't release her from her restraints. 'Damn you, you whore, you pig! You murderer!' It's another epic freakout. I'm beginning to really like Daniela.

The night, the nymphomaniac in the room next door to Daniela's dresses up in sexy black lingerie and red pumps and garish makeup and goes over to Daniela's 'to get to know her.' She rubs all over Daniela's restrained body and promises to release her, but not until after she goes down on her. Daniela bites her, but the girl releases her anyway, and gets scissors to the back of her neck as a thank you! So much for psycho lesbian hospital sex!

On the loose, Daniela steals a red raincoat and hides in a pretty doctor's car. Once on the road, Daniela pummels the doc's face into the steering wheel until it's a bloody pulp, the car crashes and she's free! She sneaks over to a nearby barn were a couple is getting it on and of course, ever the voyeur, Daniela spies on them. The lovers part ways eventually (it was a pretty long sex scene) and Daniela rips out the girls throat with her teeth.

The girl's body winds up in the morgue where the same two detectives that examined Fabian's body notice some similar injuries. The dumber of the two detectives muses about a story he used to hear his grandma tell about if you were born on Christmas, you'd probably become a werewolf (something I had never heard before). This information for some reason leads the smart of the two detectives to Daniela's dad, and they want to find her immediately.

Meanwhile, Daniela breaks into a house and steals some clothes and hitchhikes with an older gent who she gives a sob story about a husband that beats her to explain all her bruises and cuts. He immediately invites her to move in with him, but guess what happens when he wants to have sex with her? Yep, she bashes his head into a bedpost until it's unrecognizable. He did use this pickup line on her. 'Come on, ya big whore! I'm gonna rape ya!' How she could resist, I have no idea.

After killing this dude, she gets picked up by a movie stuntman, who fixes her dinner and relinquishes his bedroom to her, opting to sleep downstairs. This is obviously a decent fellow and Daniela decides to stop thinking she's a werewolf for awhile and allows herself to fall in love with him. She watches him and pretends to shoot him while he practices his stunts, they have sex, they get in the ocean with all their clothes on, have more sex, you know, stuff you do when you love someone.

Daniela decides to call her dad to tell him about her boyfriend, but at the pay phone, she garners the attention of a shady character. He's shady because he has a mustache. He, and three of his friends, follow her home and brutally rape her on the stairs and in the room she shares with her boyfriend. In the midst of this, the boyfriend returns home, and being a stuntman and all, gets kung fu on the attacker's asses. But he's no match for a knife and takes a stabbing in the guts. It's all pretty brutal and violent and I feel really bad for Daniela. Here she was with a decent dude that cared about her and he had to go and get stabbed but a bunch of fucking losers, one of which was wearing a black pleather suit.

Here comes the tonal shift. Until now, we've had a fairly violent tale of a woman's descent into madness, her dealing with this descent and then the subsequent ascent over the recesses of her illness. After the boyfriend gets stabbed, this becomes a revenge tale.

Daniela find out two of her attackers work at a junkyard and wastes no time clonking one of the dudes on the head with a giant wrench, luring the other one to the car to check on the passed out guy, and lifting the car with that claw thingy they have in junkyards and smashing it until both men are pulp.

She then takes the liberty of lighting the other one's house on fire while he's asleep, burning him alive! Then she cooks him and eats him while looking completely and utterly unhinged! Go, Daniela!

The ending is all very abrupt and not very satisfying, but the ride there was certainly madcap enough that I can forgive. I think what's most interesting that a film with werewolf in the title has an almost appalling lack of werewolf action, save for one opening dream sequence. The werewolf-ism in this movie is more of the mental variety in that it's all in Daniela's head, which is somewhat refreshing than the whole curse thing. And it could have gone a menstruation route that most werewolf movies involving women tend to go, and I didn't really detect that subtext anywhere. There is the one mention about puberty, but nothing female-specific. It's almost original, except that it is completely seventies. And it's certainly violent enough and it's a woman doing all the good killing.

I watched some of the special features with interviews with the director, Rino di Silvestro and the woman that played Daniela, Annik Borel, was in no other movies, at least to his knowledge, and he had lost touch with her many years ago. A quick IMDB search revealed she was in Ted V. Mikels' picture BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS as a witch who gets stoned (I'm assuming with stones, rather than the other way), as well as a French film called TRANSVESTITE that sounds pretty awesome, as well as guest appearances on the sitcom THE ODD COUPLE. Weird. I absolutely loved this blond bombshell as she appeared to really think she was a werewolf and therefore, appeared to be certifiably insane. It truly must have been her standout performance, for sure.

I can't say no to werewolf movies in general and I certainly can't say no to voluptuous females who think they're werewolves and call everyone whores. I love movies where the word 'whore' gets used in freak outs. So by default, I must love this movie.

The Werewolf and the Yeti

I'm a little keyed up, perverts. Ever since the Vicar and the Duke announced they were spearheading a Paul Naschy blog-a-thon, I've had Jacinto on the brain more than usual. I know it's not quite here yet, but I thought it couldn't hurt to watch THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI for a sixth time and impart to you the lurid details. I have more in store for the actual blog-a-thon, but consider this an early gift. You're welcome.

The feature opens in the mountains of Nepal. In the first ten seconds, two men are attacked by a Yeti. Guns are fired, roars are roared, and cue the opening credits. Back in civilization, our man Waldemere Daninsky (Paul, of course, this is the eighth in a cycle of thirteen Daninsky films) meets up with The Professor and his pretty daughter, Sylvia, to discuss the missing anthropologist, Silas, the unfortunate who got himself offed by the Yeti.

Silas' mission in Nepal was to find the Abomindable Snowman, but he didn't return, obviously. However, his diary was found, along with an for reals yeti scalp! 'No doubt about it,' the Professor says. 'It's authentic!.' There's no evidence to the contrary, so we have no other option but to believe him.

So far we've got a yeti scalp and a for reals picture of the yeti, so the Prof is chomping at the bit to get to Nepal and hunt this thing down. Waldemere is an obvious choice to accompany him because he's an anthropologist, psychologist, and fluent in Nepalese! Is there anything Paul can't do? I mean, really.

The party leaves for Katmandu immediately, but there's a impenetrable snowstorm and the expedition is forced to hole up in a hotel. Not for long though, because there's inexplicably a sweaty white man who seems to be on an opium bender that knows a secret pass through the mountains. Despite that he's a junky, our buddy Waldemere is ready to rock and hires him - his name is Joel, which I find hilarious - and they make their way for the secret pass san prof and the rest of the team.

It doesn't take long for Waldemere and Joel to wind up lost and, despite his reputation (?), Joel freaks, hears demons of the red moon, and goes headlong into the snow. There's some back and forth with poor Waldemere wandering lost and the team back in civilization. The team wants to assemble and find Waldemere and prepare for the trip. Tiger, a hulking Nepalese guide the prof hired, warns of those red moon demon guys, but winds up going on the journey anyway. The Sherpa crew does a dance to ward off evil spirits and the trip begins for these guys.

Meanwhile, Waldemere trudges on. It doesn't look too pleasant. It's cold and stark, but after a few stumbles, our hero finds a cave decorated with idolatry. There are two sexy cave dwelling sisters who decide to sex up on Waldemere because 'he's very strong. He will make a splendid companion, and a good lover.' I second that one, ladies. I mean, really, how could you resist? Only Paul could find two sisters to do it to in a cave in the Nepalese mountains. The women nurse him back to health with blow jobs and intercourse.

Later, Waldemere wakes up alone and decides to explore the cave, literally time. He get dressed and finds the girls cannibalizing some arms and legs. He grabs a torch (how I've always wanted to wield a torch in a cave!), find a tomb, and but shit! The moon is coming up! Waldemere takes the time to stab another vampire cannibal woman and attack another, but not before the last one sinks her teeth into his chest, giving him that sweet pentagram-ish scar. Dazed, he stumbles out into the wilderness. In a painful exertion, Waldemere changes into a werewolf! Yay!

He attacks some bandits sitting around a campfire speaking of selling women. See, that's what they get! And carries on to find the camp where the prof and Sylvia might be. Maybe he does this - I"m not sure. (The copy I have is a bootleg and looks like it was drug across the ocean floor and then stored wet in a draft basement for about fifty years. Sometimes the minutiae is lost on me.)

Sylvia decides to stray from the camp for a walk, because that's a really good idea, and then must thwart the sexual advances of another team member. Waldemere shows up just in time to save Sylvia. It's a morality tale, you see. You want to do violence towards the females, you get eaten by a werewolf. Simple, really.

So that's that and Tiger is still rambling on about demons but none of these white motherfuckers want to listen. The expedition decides to return to base camp but they run afoul of some bandits and there's a shoot out of western proportions, until the party finds themselves captured. Seems like they are going to meet Sekkar Khan, and evil ruler in the mountains.

Sylvia escapes momentarily and the Yeti attacks. Well, I think it's the Yeti, because it's day. But that's the thing about this movie. One second it will be raging snow and ice, the next it's verdant and green. I think Yeti's can be out during the day, unlike werewolves. So let's just say it's day. Who care, really?

Walemere wakes up on the forest floor in human form and not too worse for wear and runs headlong into Sylvia. She catches Waldemere up and they find another member of the expedition on a stake, but still alive. The unfortunate tips them off that the prof has been taken to see the Khan at his palace.

Cut to the Khan's palace. The evil son of a bitch is getting his 'treatment' administered by the beautiful, but oh-so-evil, Wandessa. He's got some kind of skin thing on his back and uses the women he captures for their skin. But we'll get there in a second.

Waldemere and Sylvia find a ramshackle monastery in the middle of nowhere, where they meet a monk and a retarded mute. The monk knows of Waldemere's affliction and promises the curse can be lifted by some rare flower and the blood of a young girl are given to him. The monk also warns of the Khan and how ruthless he is. Wandessa has a nasty reputation as well, although no one knows her origins. But from what the monk says, Wandessa is worse than the Khan.

After some sex with Sylvia, Waldemere decides he's going to leave her at the monastery. The monk chains him to a tree to try to contain him, but no stinkin' chains can hold Waldemere! He wolfs out and some good werewolf action occurs. Meanwhile (damn there are a lot meanwhiles in this film), Sylvia gets schooled by the monk on how to kill the werewolf. Use the flower portion or here, stab him with this silver knife!

It starts to get real choppy here, as the Khan and Wandessa play chess for the professor's life, Khan's men go to kidnap Sylvia, they capture Waldemere, Wandessa makes out with Waldemere while he's in chains and then carves up some beauties to give the Khan his 'treatments.' She skins the ladies alive in front of Waldemere so he can see what will happen to Sylvia if he doesn't submit.

Sylvia and a captive princess trick a guard and kill him with the silver dagger and escape. Sylvia finds Waldemere and let's him go and they make a run for it. And what a run it is! Waldemere does his best Chuck Norris interpretation (or has it been Chuck all these years doing his best Paul interpretation?), complete with flying roundhouse kicks and everything! Then Waldemere wolfs out again to fight the Yeti (remember the Yeti?) and it's the first werewolf/Yeti fight I've ever seen. Tell me of another one and I'll watch it.

At the last minute, after these epic battles are waged, Sylvia randomly finds the cure-all flower, mixes it with her blood and gives it to the now unconscious werewolf. Ta da! The curse is lifted - they just know this - and head back in the direction of civilization, despite the fact they have no coats. The End.

I love this shit. It's got Yetis, werewolves, Sherpas, Khans, evil witches, naked ladies, cannibal vampires, Nepalese dancing, karate, torch bearing, caves, snow, mountains, a little dash of mad science, inexplicable stuff, and Paul. So it's got a of little everything that is good in life, which is basically all I need.

Now go watch Paul for yourself. Get ready for the blog-a-thon! It's November 29th through December 3rd.

Liberace Meets Vampira!

Yes, this exists. Yes, unfortunately there's no sound. But seriously, watch and marvel as Vampira vamps it up in her usual sexy way while the gayest man ever wears a jester suit. No foolin', I couldn't have made this up!

More loveliness to come and adventures to regale you with the tales of - namely I saw DANZIG last night, got everyone at work to start howling, and started a poll as to whether you would be a werewolf or a vampire. Personally, I'd rather be a werewolf. Oooowwlllllll!

Thoughts?

New Tattoo!

He's barely an hour old and still pretty gross! But I wanted so badly to share him with you. It's my Paul Naschy/Wolf Man tribute and he's exactly perfectly the way I wanted him! Rawr!

Friday Night, Pervs!

Greetings and salutations, perverts, it's been a minute. Although I suffered through THE RED SHOES yesterday, I won't put you through a review. Maybe if you had a penchant for unattractive ladies pumps filmed s-l-o-w-l-y and you asked me real nice, I could might whip something up for ya. But don't hold your breath.

After a few more glasses of wine, I'm venturing out to finally see THE WOLFMAN, although everyone keeps saying how terrible it is. I mean, come on. If anyone is going to get anything out if it, it's going to be me AND even though I've seen the original enough times to quote it by heart, Sam and I watched it last night after work for comparison purposes. Although I think I passed out halfway through. And seriously, how could Claude Rains possibly be Lon Chaney's dad? I've forever had a problem with that.

Here, enjoy these two excellent illustrations. Thanks, Bruce, for the cool pics, as usual. Shit, bitch. you is fine.

Cool-Ass Halloween Cookies

Check out these cool cookies I found at the grocery store! The top one is supposedly a werewolf, but really, doesn't it look more like a sasquatch? Or some sort of retarded bear? I kinda don't even want to eat the poor guy, but you know all that icing is going to be damn delicious.

Then I found this dude - a gingerbread pumpkin guy and I've already eaten most of his legs. Which were really, really tasty. In fact, my mouth is watering for his torso. Literally. And he goes really good with pino noir. Pleasant surprise.

Finally, here's the cookie incarnation of Dracula. There was an unfortunate accident in transport, seems like he wasn't traveling in his own earth or whatever, and his side got mostly squished. I guess I'm just going to have to help him shuffle off his immortal coil and gobble him up.

I'm totally the Queen of Halloween today - I got these literal cookie monsters, baked two pumpkin pies, bought a pumpkin, am currently in the process of carving it, and am also roasting the seeds. I'm also having a werewolf movie marathon and just finished THE HOWLING. Gonna follow that up with Hammer's CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF and drink more pino noir and hopefully get this jack o'lantern carved without anyone requiring medical attention. Something about me and knives and carving up squash, I just get stabby. Happy Halloween Eve, ya'll!

Werewolf Soda

Picked these babies up at Target last night. Werewolf soda! So cute! And it's candy corn flavored. Too bad I hate soda, as well as candy corn. Can't stand the stuff. But these were too adorable to pass up. Bruce sampled the contents and it resembled Mountain Dew (another supreme hatred - it is just the worst beverage out there. If I was going to die of thirst and someone offered me Mountain Dew, or its even lesser cousin Mello Yello, and the only way I was to survive was to partake, I would choose death, just like that. I wouldn't even have to think about it) and tasted kinda like creme soda. Yuck. I'm gonna keep the cans though. Gotta go back for the mummy and the vampire sodas. And it was only $1.99!

Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory

With a title like Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory, what are the first images that spring to mind? I think of non-stop, bloody werewolf attacks resulting in a veritable werewolf/co-ed orgy ensuing after plenty of shower scenes, some lesbian lovin', and lots and lots of bare breasts. This is just one of those movies that was just begging for a remake in the 80's. Instead, what we get is talking, lots and lots of talking, and then a bit more talking.

The whole tale begins with Dr. Julian Alcott arriving at a girl's school, a sort of reformatory for young women who have fallen in trouble with the law. Alcott's a cutie, by sixties standards, I guess, and the girls are excited that he's in their midst. One girl, Mary Smith, even faints at the sight of him, as he makes his way to meet Director Swift. Upon meeting with the director, Alcott alludes to a mysterious past but we learn he was cleared of all charges. He's at the school to start fresh and leave his old life behind.

The night of Alcott's arrival, Mary, the girl who fainted earlier (or was she faking it to get out of gym class?), sneaks away from campus to meet a lover, presumably, as wolves howl menacingly. Make no mistake, this is a meager attempt at atmosphere, and by no means sucks the viewer in. It's like, oh, some wolves are howling. How scary. Hold me please. Mary meets up with Sir Albert Whiteman and tells him she's gonna blackmailing him. Seems they were knockin' boots maybe and now she wants Albert to spring her from the school. He tells her no, she was sentenced there by the court, and he can't get her out. But isn't she already out? She broke out of the school pretty easily, she just climbed over a wall, no alarms or releasing of the hounds or anything, couldn't she just run away into the night? She doesn't do this and decides to get mad at Albert and huff off into the night. As she storms off, a wolf man pursues her in a classic scene we've all come to know and love - young woman runs through the woods pursued by beastly other and is subsequently killed and possibly violated sexually (although that's pushing it here).
I can dig it.

Alfred, unawares of Mary's fate, returns home to his wife, Sheena, who is not at all befitting of the name Sheena. When I think of the name Sheena, I think of a teenager with drawn on eyebrows who works at a smoothie place in the mall part-time, is addicted to text messaging, and will cut you if you look at her wrong. Sheena in this movie is an aging old bitch given to wearing flowing robes and and berating her husband. There's lots and lots of talking between Alfred and Sheena and she may or may not know about Alfred's affair with Mary and she also kind of alludes to the fact that Alfred's a wolf man, but not really.

The next morning, Mary's body is discovered and taken back to the school. The coroner's report names wolves as the culprit, but Alcott and Sir Alfred, upon examining the body, know better. Priscilla (who is at least ten years too old for her role) enters the picture at the point, and as a friend of the deceased, she's determined to find out what really happened to her friend. Seems Priscilla knew about Mary's blackmailing scheme and sees Director Swift about it. But since Sir Alfred never signed the letters and Priscilla doesn't have them in her possession, nothing can be proven. It's also at this point that Priscilla sees a telegram alluding to that mysterious past of Alcott's. So there's all this correspondence flying about and speculated on and blah blah and Priscilla starts to think Mary was assassinated.

So Priscilla strikes a deal with creepy grounds caretaker, Walter, to find out more about Mary's death. He leads her off grounds to a house, where she meets with Sheena, who gives her a wad of cash in exchange for her to stop meddling, I suppose. I was kinda unclear on why Sheena gives her the dough. They talk and blather about stuff, it all pans out very slowly, and Priscilla leaves and runs into Alcott, of all people, in the woods in the middle of the night. While Priscilla and Alcott discuss wolf traps, Sheena returns to her other house (the previous house was just her meeting and giving money to people in exchange for their silence house), and is injected with something that kills hers by a black gloved killer. Then Priscilla gets attacked by a wolf man but a dog comes out of nowhere and bits the wolfie on the hand, so Priscilla can live and keep meddling.

The next day at Sheena's funeral, Walter, Alcott, and Sir Alfred are all limping or holding their arms funny. Anyone of them could be the wolf man. Sandy, another friend of Mary's and Priscilla's, fingers Alcott as the killer since the killings didn't start happening until he arrived on campus, and then the truth of Alcott's sordid past is forced to come to the surface. Seems he meddled in a lycanthropic viral infection of some sort back at an asylum for the criminally insane where he use to be a medical doctor. He fell in love with a beautiful patient suffering from thinking she was wolfen, and he had to put her down. He was, of course, discredited, and was forced to become a Teacher of Science at the girl's school. Oh, and he injected himself with the virus once, to see what effect it might have had on a human. It's shaping up that Alcott's our wolfie, but don't be so sure yet. I'm sure you're just dying with suspense.

In what I'm sure the filmmakers thought was a delightful twist, the identity of the lycan is revealed (it's not Alcott, Walter, OR Sir Alfred) and since I can't remember properly because I was so bored, it's unexplained as to why this individual is the wolf man or why he's doing what he's doing. I guess he got injected with the virus somewheres along the way. Seriously, I was in an out of consciousness while watching this snoozefest, you're lucky (I'm lucky?) I remember what I do. I had to bear in mind since this wasn't an exercise in sleaze, that it's also not a movie about the struggle of the wolf man, like the Universal Larry Talbot movies.

So instead of being a sleazy bestial orgy with lots of shirt ripping, werewolf transformations, and unbridled sexuality like the title invokes, we get a tepid, soggy whodunit that happens to feature a wolf man virus. And there aren't even that many wolf scenes! Maybe three? Four, tops. To its credit, the acting is solid, I suppose, and Priscilla isn't terrible to look at, either, yet she's missing something and is kind of annoying with all her meddling.

If you dig your werewolf yarns ramped up, and and you don't mind cracking a book, I highly recommend Ray Garton's werewolf novels, Ravenous, and its sequel, Bestial, which I just finished. I think those two books have threatened to ruin me on werewolf cinema for the rest of my life, since they are just so filled with werewolf sex and werewolf violence, in a good way.