Fury of the Wolfman

Apart from some luridly wonderful poster art from his previous efforts, I had no cinematic images buried in my past to associate with the cinematic output of Spanish horror flickmaker Paul Naschy. Having never been exposed (and hence having never caught the bug) for "El Hombre Lobo," a.k.a. the Paul Naschy werewolf pictures, I had very little preconception going into viewing my first Naschy effort.

Effort is the word. What can I say, except: you either like the local flavor of paella, or prefer your own country's bastardized versions like shrimp creole. Maybe it has to do with order of experience, but watching FURY OF THE WOLFMAN (1972), I seriously doubt it. So while you can intellectually make the argument Lon Chaney's versions are stagier and less realistic, you'd lose your battle if Naschy's flicks were your only offer of filmic proof. Unless of course you speak Spanish as your native tongue, in which case, all bets are off.

But flag-waving Loyalists aside, FURY is a melodramatic mess that no amount of hero worship of Naschy himself can totally redeem. To encapsulate the plot would make about as much sense as the effort to distill it. Suffice to say, our story concerns one Professor Waldemar Daninsky (and before you Nation of Naschy-ites lynch me via email, I know full well his character is usually known in this series as 'Count' not 'Professor,' so blame FURY's dubbers!) and his ongoing efforts to avoid falling prey to his eternal curse of becoming... the Wolfman.

This time around, Daninsky is screwing around with Frankenstein-type experiments he calls "chemotodes." That basically translates into a masking tape strip across his forehead that miraculously holds the toy electro -- er, chemotodes in place despite the profuse sweat Naschy is eternally producing. It must be from the lights, as there's no reason on hand to see where any creative sweat went into the making of FURY.

The one big positive? It's got scenic locales. Shot in Spain, it has the prerequisite castles (Castle Wolfstein!) and dungeons and the like; this look is now considered 1960's "Giallo Gothic" as personified by such maestros of the genre as Mario Bava. But Naschy is no Bava, at least in this effort. The lighting is murky at times (which one would be hard pressed to comment upon any Bava effort, which tends towards the opposite albeit with great impact), and the makeup effects -- while decent for the era -- are familiar, right down to the time-lapse cliche of transformation "right before your startled eyes" (yawn).

If you grew up in one of the syndicated markets in the United States that regularly showed such fare as this, then FURY will probably be a fun hour and a half of nostalgia. And at least here you won't have to sit through the awful local car dealer commercials every fifteen minutes. But unless you're a Naschy Nastie or dye-hide lycanthrope, this flick is more apt to engender your own personal FURY OF THE WOLFMAN. -- Notes by Larry Talbot.

What Critics Say:

"A perverse, highly-erratic gem." -- THE MARK OF NASCHY

"Paul Naschy. What can we say about Paul Naschy? Probably, we could call him the Spanish answer to Lon Chaney Jr. Except that at least a few of Chaney's Wolfman movies were good.” -- COLD FUSION VIDEO REVIEWS

“Sequel to (FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR), which Naschy also directed... will only make horror fans furious.”-- John Stanley, CREATURE FEATURES GUIDE