FURY OF THE WOLF MAN (1972)

"HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CEMETERY?! 

 LA FURIA DEL HOMBRE LOBO is the umpteenth installment of Paul Naschy's Valdimar Daninsky werewolf movies.  But for me, it was not only the very first Paul Naschy movie I ever saw but also the very first Alpha Video DVD I ever bought.  I was working at Borders in the very early 2000s and we got a big shipment of Alpha Video DVD's (which I'd never heard of before as DVD's were pretty new then) to set up a browser display for a promotional sale.  Now, not only had I just recently gotten myself a DVD player but I was also a life-long horror movie fan and, for the most part, these were all horror movies as well as other grindhouse genre fare.  So, my interest was definitely peaked and I vowed to by some at the end of my shift. 

Of course, friend/co-worker Rob the Bishop gave me a friendly warning saying that he'd watched a couple of them and Alpha Video seemed to have less-than-exquisite film prints.  The expectation (even in those very early DVD days) was for the best in picture and sound but Alpha wasn't hawking that.  Their extremely low cover price -- they were five bucks a piece -- kinda gave that away.  However, I wanted to watch the movies; perfect or not!  Especially since, a lot of them, had not been available anywhere before.  Case in point:  FURY OF THE WOLFMAN starring Paul Naschy as the werewolf Valdimar Daninsky.  I'd read about them but never seen them.  And so, I thought, I'll buy THAT one because, well, I'm not likely to see it anywhere else and, well, how bad could it look.  Turns out, it wasn't bad at all.  Sure the audio wasn't tip top and the print was scratched but it was perfectly watchable and didn't bother me at all.  And I was finally watching a Paul Naschy movie!  

So yeah, about the movie itself.  Not one of the best Paul Naschy movies, it must be said.  It's OK.  A LOT of dialogue scenes which aren't really riveting and don't do a lot towards propelling the plot.  Of course, this Alpha DVD was the dubbed version so there was the traditionally goofy dub actors voicing lines which were undoubtedly better in the original Spanish!  But oh, when we got to the werewolf transformation scenes and saw Paul Naschy ripping the throat out of his bed partner immediately after hearing Daninsky pledge his love and say he would die for her, we're into some Naschy goodness.  Now, I didn't know then but I'm pretty sure this film came directly after the Video Nasty THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI; dialogue and flashbacks scenes mention a recent encounter Daninsky had with a Yeti in Tibet.  And yes, my first thoughts when watching this movie was that finally I knew what it would look like if John Belushi made a werewolf movie; I always thought there was more than a little resemblance between Naschy and Belushi.  So despite the draggy bits, this movie was still fun for me and took me back 20 years to when I first watched it.  Sure, this time around, I rewatched it on the slipcovered, beautifully mastered Scorpion release and it looked great; but there's still a part of me that misses the scratchy, spliced print.  I don't know, it's kinda the experience I had with old horror movies back in the VHS days or on cable TV where the print wasn't the greatest but that only added to the charm of the whole horror movie experience for me.  So yeah, as far as the plot goes, there's not a lot that matters too much other than the scenes where Naschy wolfs out and rips someone's throat out.  Do we need any more than that?  In this case, that'll do me.

Oh yes, and here's the DVD cover of that original Alpha Video release I bought.  And yes, after seeing the totally acceptable quality of this one, I would eventually buy tons and tons of Alpha Video DVD -- I've probably got hundreds of them and I love them all (owing greatly to the absolutely beautiful and exceptional cover art every single one of them sported).  The second Alpha Video DVD I bought???  Yes, I remember that as well.  Is was Bruce Lee in THE CHINESE CONNECTION.  And that was awesome too!