Werewolf News

The past couple years have seen a sharp uptick in the number of Paul Naschy films getting Blu-ray upgrades, along with some that had never even seen the light of day on DVD in the States. (Such was the case with 1975’s The Werewolf and the Yeti, a.k.a. Night of the Howling Beast, put out as part of Scream Factory’s The Paul Naschy Collection II set last year.) So it seems like it’s only a matter of time before a company like Mondo Macabro or Scream Factory does the same for the elusive The Beast and the Magic Sword.

Made in 1983, the Spanish/Japanese co-production was Naschy’s last hurrah as Waldemar Daninsky — at least for the next 13 years — and found him sending the cursed Polish count to feudal Japan in search of a cure for his condition. As usual, how he came by it is completely different from how he got cursed in any of the previous installments, but Naschy (who wrote and directed) dispenses with the particulars rather quickly, so I will, too.

Back in 10th-century Germany, one of Waldemar’s heavily bearded ancestors (also played by Naschy) defeated a fierce Magyar warrior (who was said to be the devil, a shapeshifter, and a vampire) in single combat and was allowed to marry the king’s youngest daughter. Unfortunately, this pissed off the warrior’s mistress, a witch who puts a very specific and easily avoidable curse on his family since it only affects the seventh-born son and only if they’re born during the first night of the full moon. “The Daninskys will be a race of murderers, hated and persecuted forever!” the witch cries, not taking into account that they could simply stop having children when they get to six.

Anyway, when we pick up in the action in the late 16th century, Waldemar and the love of his life, Kinga (Beatriz Escudero), are in Toledo, Spain, consulting with Jewish occult expert Salom Yehuda (Conrado San Martín) and his blind niece Esther (Violeta Cela) when the townspeople denounce the lot of them for practicing witchcraft. Even worse, some of the locals decide to save the Grand Inquisitor a trip, throw some makeshift hoods on, and descend upon Salom’s home, mortally wounding him before Waldemar (still in human form) can fight them off. It is at this point that Salom sends them on to Kyoto, making Waldemar Esther’s protector in the bargain.

Once the action shifts to Japan (about 23 minutes in), things pick up considerably, especially in the werewolf attack/transformation department. (There are eight of them, but the first one doesn’t really count since it’s entirely shot from Waldemar’s point of view.) Curiously enough, we meet Kian (Shigeru Amachi), the man Waldemar is trying to find, before he does, and it is Kian who tracks the weary werewolf back to his den. Instead of turning him in to the authorities, Kian agrees to help him find a cure, but his first formula, which uses the leaves of a certain Tibetan snow flower, fails to do the trick. In desperation, Waldemar goes to sorceress Satomi (Junko Asahina), who gives him a potion and locks him in a chamber where he transforms in the most low-tech way possible (in the wake of The Howling and American Werewolf, I guess Naschy decided he just couldn’t compete on that level) and does battle with a tiger named Shere Khan. (This is the image that’s on the poster, so I’m glad the film delivers on the promise of a werewolf in paw-to-paw combat with a tiger.)

As for Satomi, she threatens to do nasty things to Kinga and Esther and keeps Waldemar at bay with a silver katana (the magic sword of the title), which Kian later retrieves so he can be put out of his misery. However, it’s up to Kian’s sister Akane (Yôko Fuji) to do the deed because the killing stroke has to be delivered by somebody who loves Waldemar or else it won’t take. Not that I really believe it will. I’ve seen enough of these pictures (ten of the eleven that are extant) to know a dead Waldemar Daninsky is only a few keystrokes away from getting resurrected at will. It’s the nature of the beast.

Since the full moon falls on Thanksgiving this year, I figured I’d highlight a slightly different kind of movie in this month’s column. While there’s no such thing as a movie about a wereturkey, there is 1972’s Blook Freak, which TCM’s Robert Osborne once sheepishly described as being about “a motorcycle enthusiast who’s turned into a blood-crazed turkey man.” Written, produced and directed by the dream team of Brad F. Grinter (who did the same jobs on 1970’s Flesh Feast and Devil Rider!) and Steve Hawkes (a Croatian-born actor who made this in between stints in a couple Tarzan knock-offs), Blood Freak presents itself as a cautionary tale about the dangers of taking illegal drugs and eating non-FDA-approved foodstuffs.

Hawkes plays Herschell, a ramrod-straight Vietnam vet who finds himself torn between a Bible-quoting drug counselor who gets him work doing odd jobs at a poultry ranch and her hedonist sister who gets him hooked on weed that has been laced with something to make it addictive. That would be bad enough, but since one of his odd jobs at the turkey farm involves eating what the guys in the laboratory cook up, the end result after one of the tests is Herschell’s transformation into a man wearing a rubber turkey mask and a ruff of feathers around his neck. Oh, yes. And he craves blood, which he gets by waylaying drug addicts and pushers and killing and mutilating them. These scenes are accompanied by a repetitive musical sting and one scream that is looped over and over. (Actually, there are two: one female and one male. Neither is particularly convincing.) Meanwhile, the sister who got him hooked feels guilty about what she’s done and worries needlessly about what their children would look like (as if she’s actually contemplating taking Mr. Turkey to bed).

Finally Herschell is put out of his misery by being beheaded (which Grinter and Hawkes depict by cutting to footage of an actual turkey with its head cut off), but it all turns out to be a dream (“My God,” Herschell moans, “I’ve been hallucinating. After eating that turkey, I went through hell.”), which is even more of a cop-out ending than it sounds. As if to further illustrate their contempt for the audience, Grinter and Hawekes periodically cut away to a narrator (played by an uncredited Grinter, obviously reading from a script) who recites deathless lines like “You ever think about this fantastic order of things? And how far does it go?” between drags on his cigarette, and actually goes into a coughing fit right before the final fade-out. Because why would you bother with a second take on something like that? It would only be a waste of film.

Note: This movie is real. I swear I did not make it up. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.