The people at Severin Films continue to do the Lord’s work — or perhaps it’s the Devil’s — with their folk horror series All the Haunts Be Ours, now on its second volume. The first yielded Wilczyca, about a Polish she-wolf bedeviling her husband. The new one, just out this month, brings with it 1975’s Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf, by Argentine filmmaker Leobardo Favio. It revolves around the superstition that a seventh son “will suck devil’s milk and be born a werewolf,” but since this doesn’t happen to the title character at birth, he gets to grow up to be a strapping young lad played by Juan José Camero. Nazareno leans into the “howling at the moon” bit every month to the amusement of his fellow villagers, but otherwise he’s in no danger of sprouting fangs and fur and going running through the woods.
That is, not until he meets and falls head over heels in love with Griselda (Marina Magali), a blond-haired beauty who catches his eye and catches him off-guard when she asks, “What does a wolf do when there’s a full moon?” That’s not a question Nazareno has ever had to seriously entertain, but he changes his tune when he meets a well-dressed stranger (Alfredo Alcón) who has a dire warning for him: Unless he rejects love, he will fall victim to the curse that’s been lying in wait for him his whole life. To sweeten the pot, the stranger offers Nazareno riches beyond his wildest imagining, telling him that “caressing the gold will cure your sadness,” but the young man decides he’d rather find out what it’s like to have a son with Griselda. First, though, he finds out firsthand (or firstpaw) what a wolf does when there’s a full moon.
In short, it gets into an altercation with a shepherd, who is killed along with four of his sheep and two of his dogs, which naturally riles up the townspeople and gets them sharpening their knives and scythes to go on a wolf hunt. Meanwhile, Griselda is distraught because her father wants to join the hunt, but Nazareno sends her a note to put her mind at ease. “They say this is punishment,” it reads. “But I think it’s blessing, you know?” Indeed, I do.
While Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf plays like a folk tale brought to life, Favio actually based it on a “famous serial radio drama” by Juan Carlos Chiappe, which was popular enough to drive audiences to the theaters in droves when it was originally released in Argentina. Now, thanks to Severin’s efforts, the audience for it will only grow from here.