And for the most part, yes, they do! From the very beginning, the film makes the werewolf the emotional focus, showing his made-up eyes in extreme close-up as the credits roll. An occasional tear drops from each eye; from the very start we know that (like The Wolf Man before it) the wolf will be our protagonist, not our villain.
When the movie started, I couldn't help but notice how old Hollywood everything looked. The "old Europe" Spanish sets are amazing, even if the filming itself looks a bit on-the-cheap. The result is a movie which looks like it could have been plucked from the 1930's adventure film era. The costumes are rich, the colors lush, and I really can't stress how amazing some of the sets look. It turns out, part of the reason for the high-quality sets is becuase they were actually built for a war film set in Spain which fell through. Therefore the Universal Monster/Hammer combo were able to use them without building them directly. The result is a film which looks like it had a much higher budget than it likely did. It certainly looks better than Hammer's later Dracula films!
It actually takes a long and semi-confusing time to get to our werewolf protagonist. The story starts before his birth: a beggar goes to a town to ask for some food and eventually winds up at a cartoonishly villainous marquise's wedding. The cruel man treats the beggar like a dog, making him do tricks and crawl on the ground to get bones and scraps from their feast. Then he is locked in the marquise's dungeon (apparently marquises have dungeons?) and forgotten about. There, he goes near-rabid and forgets how to speak.
Working in the dungeon is also a mute girl, who angers the marquise and is also thrown into the dungeon as punishment. There, the beggar rapes her, followed by the mute girl escaping and murdering the marquise. Then she roams the forest "living like an animal" until she is found by a kind noble-man and his servant. The mute woman then gives birth to her baby on Christmas Day, which the servant woman says is an "ill omen," and dies. Yes, there is no literal curse in this film; instead, it is this complicated story of pain, animalistic behavior, and violence that karmically gives birth to the werewolf.
This film is different from it's very-tonally-similar The Wolf Man in that we follow our werewolf from childhood. We get to see the struggles as the family learns about the curse, and as the boy falls into strange trances.
This boy eventually grows into the ever-wonderful scenery chewing Oliver Reed! The adult werewolf, named Leon, grows up not knowing what he is, and every second he wonders about his new job in the vineyards, being in love with his boss's daughter, or whether he should go gambling with his friend, we know the wolf is waiting underneath.
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| Isn't this just a ferocious face? |
The "trigger" in this movie is not the full moon, wolfsbane, or loud noises (all which appear in previous films and legends). Now it is, as the local priest in the film describes, "whatever weakens the human soul...especially during the full moon, when the forces of evil are strong." So it is not the moon itself, but sin and evil forces. It is an interesting tie between the wolf and Christian tradition, and the battle between goodness and sinfulness is a major theme of this film.
I won't ruin any more, since this film is definitely recommended. The wolf-effects are only mildly better than The Wolf Man, though much better in my opinion than I Was a Teenage Werewolf. But what this film really has going for it is its pathos: I always cared about what happened to the characters, especially Leon and his family. And that is essential for the surely-tragic ending to pack any kind of emotional punch.
While a bit slow at times, and with a beginning that is oddly convoluted, The Curse of the Werewolf is still a great werewolf classic that is worth your time!
Rating: 4 out of 5 bites
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