Our story begins on a deserted road, where a blonde woman runs her car into a tree and goes off to a nearby mansion to investigate. From the mansion emanates the sound of beautiful piano music, but as soon as she knocks on the door the sound disappears and is replaced with eerie scratching and growling noises as a desperate voice pleads with her to take a key that's lying on the ground and open the door. She does so, and the last thing we hear is her scream. She is discovered at the side of the road by a man, and she promptly collapses and dies. Intriguing.

We are then introduced to our protagonist (the 'maestro') a once-great pianist who has now moved out to a small village to reside in the aforementioned mansion with his creepy mother, where he has been mentoring a young woman to become the next greatest piano player in the world. He himself claims not to play any more, though, since his 'hands tremble so'. However, it's pretty clear that there's a lot more going on here and that the maestro himself harbours a dark secret. It is soon revealed in a conversation with his mother (there's a real Norman Bates vibe going on here, complete with literal skeleton in the closet - which is interesting since this came out the year before "Psycho") that he has sold his soul to Lucifer and has been cursed with a terrible affliction every time he plays the piano.

This is very much a movie that's in touch with the stuff of nightmares; a genuine horror film. It's an extremely well-shot and pleasantly haunting tale. Aside from the routinely terrible dubbing (couldn't find a subtitled version for love nor money), I have nothing but praise for this little Mexican gem ... possibly the first ever movie from Mexico to center on our lycanthropic brethren, so that makes it noteworthy regardless. It certainly wasn't the last; the Mexicans and Europeans were still crazy about classic horror stories even when for decades they had largely fallen out of favour in Hollywood. This movie wears its influences on its sleeve, and ends up as equal parts Universal horror and Alfred Hitchcock. Wonderful stuff.

If you can get your hands on a copy of this obscure film, it's well worth a watch.

I liked it. The only thing was the piggish nose on the monster which in fact made look quiet silly. It good film, worth a watch. You can find a DVD copy on Amazon or Netflix.

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The Wolf A genuinely original and engaging tale of lycanthropy always makes for a welcome break from the repetitiveness of the majority of low-budget US werewolf movies of the time, which tended more often than not to simply ape the 'Wolf Man'. There's none of that here ... I don't recall ever seeing Lon Chaney Jr sitting down at a piano to churn out a bit of Bach before going all mongrel-esque on us. The idea of selling your soul to devil and becoming cursed with lycanthropy is one that has cropped up a few times in werewolf mythology, but the idea has rarely been explored in film. I believe this was the first one to do so, which makes it a truly original tale. Unfortunately the special effects here don't really match the concept, and the wolf man looks kind of silly really. The funny little pig-nose is a peculiar touch. Our werewolf transforms every time he plays piano, which is done through the use of simple crossfades as was standard for the time. It doesn't exactly give Rick Baker a run for his money, but I suppose they did what they could with the resources available.

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