Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman, Nacht der Vampire, Blood Moon ... the amount of alternative titles that this movie has, annoying as it may be, is a testiment to it's international success. This review refers to the region 2 english-dubbed version, widely released as "Werewolf Shadow" (the Anchor Bay print).

So why is it that the world cared so much about some Spanish horror movie? Well, the fact is, it was simply better than most of what everyone else was doing at the time. But like "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" did in the late fifties, this movie sparked off a whole new generation of similar werewolf movies.

But has it stood the test of time? Lead actor and writer Jacinto Molina certainly thinks so. Others are less certain. For instance, it's easy to put off by the cheesey soundtrack, complete unsuited to what the mood of the movie should be, and the script definitely has it's dull moments. There's a whole sequence towards the end of the movie, when a policeman comes to investigate the murders and seems to spend half an hour in pointless conversation with the villagers. Oh, and the 'romance' aspect of the film feels both rushed and forced. The blood often looks fake, and the clearer the picture is, the less convinced you are by the makeup. It's one of the few movies that fails to benefit from a restored DVD version.

However, there's still plenty of good stuff here that help it to rise above the 'trashy horror' category for some parts at least. There's only a small amount of nudity in this particular cut of the film, gratituous though it may be, and the dialogue isn't half as bad as most horror movies of this period. The historical sequences are surprisingly good, and the vampires are particularly creepy -- thanks to Molina's insistence that they should be filmed in slow motion. His performance is easily the most noteable, and it's likely that if he'd been given more creative control over the production of some of this installment, it would have been much better. Leon Klimovsky directed one more installment of the Waldemar Daninsky saga -- "Dr. Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo" which was released the following year.

All in all, even though this is the most well-known Daninsky movie, it may well be for genre fans only. Most will probably find it dull and dated, but at the time it was definitely something pretty special.

The Wolf Back in the days before CGI or even before convincing 'puppet' effects could be achieved, it was largely down to the actor playing the werewolf to give a good performance. And, well, Jacinto Molina (see top photo) has had more experience of that than any other movie actor who's ever lived. There are times when the wolf is completely vicious and uncontrollable, and there are times when Waldemar Daninsky seems to be able to exercise some degree of control over it, but overall Molina's performance is both excellent and memorable. Most of the time he still wears his clothes while in wolf form, which is helpful to the film-makers as it means they only have to concentrate on his hands and face. He also walks on two legs, which I guess makes it easier for the actor but makes the wolf seem less animalistic. The make-up is pretty well done for it's time, with plenty of dark hair, large claws on his hands and sharp teeth (see third photo down). The transformation sequences are mostly achieved by having him move or fall off frame, then when the camera cuts back to his face he is in the next stage of make-up (see second photo down). At the end of movie, pretty convincing cross-fading is used to show his change back into human form. At first I was a little unsure, but the more I watched the movie, the more I liked the makeup and the overall design of the wolf. And before the time when Rick Baker came along and showed everyone how to create a truly animal werewolf, this was about as good as it got.

Overall: