Posted by TD
Hammer released numerous Vampire, Mummy, and Frankenstein
flicks over the years, but The Curse Of
The Werewolf was their sole journey into things that go howl into night.
The film begins with a rather bizarre segment showing a
beggar being cruelly forced to act like a fool for food and drink by a hateful
Marquis (Anthony Dawson) at the Marquis’ wedding celebration. The beggar is
then imprisoned for making ill advised comments, and stays that way for 15
years, which seems a bit harsh. He befriends the jailer and his daughter while
serving out his who-knows-how-long sentence. At one point, Marquis De Prick
tries to get into the jailer’s daughter’s pants. When she refuses his advances,
he throws her in the jail cell with the beggar. The beggar then inexplicably
rapes her and promptly dies. The whole sequence is so confusing, and none of it
is really ever explained, so I'm just assuming that is what happens.
The day after being raped by the beggar, the daughter is
released from the jail cell. Marquis apparently hasn’t learned his lesson,
because he again tries to force himself on her, and pays for it with his life to
the delight of all of those who respect women in the audience. She then escapes and is found in the forest by
Don Alfredo Corledo (Clifford Evans) who brings her back to his home. His
housekeeper Teresa (Hira Talfey) then proceeds to nurse her back to health. The
girl soon gives birth to a child that was apparently conceived during the rape
from the beggar and much like the rapist beggar, promptly dies. This happens on Christmas Day and according
to Teresa is bad juju.
And FINALLY we start getting somewhere. All of the above takes an eternity to get going. And we still have no wolf!
And FINALLY we start getting somewhere. All of the above takes an eternity to get going. And we still have no wolf!
Don and Teresa raise the boy , who they name Leon, and they
mercifully flash forward to him as a grown man. I thought they did a great job
aging the actors who played Don and Teresa.
Enter Oliver Reed (Proximo from Gladiator!)
playing the adult and future Werewolf, Leon. Leon leaves home to go work at a
vineyard. And it is finally at this point with over an hour invested in this 90
minute movie that we have a little Wolf action!
I have heard many fellow Horror fans giving this film a lot
of love, and I have to admit, I feel like I’m missing something. Oliver Reed
does a fine job in the role of Leon, the production design is the usual Hammer
standard of excellence, but there just isn’t much aside from those things that
I really liked about the film at all. It takes a millennium to get going, only
to sputter out with a very disappointing ending, just when the whole thing
started to get somewhat interesting. I’m
still surprised that Hammer never released another Werewolf film, but with a
start as poor as this one, that is probably a good thing.
This was kind of a disappointing weekend of Hammer Horror
picks for me. I’m not too worried though. I’ve seen enough of their quality
films to know that the next five could be home runs. As Billy Bob Thornton said
in Bad Santa, “They can’t all be
winners.” Besides, had I not watched this film, I would have never looked at
Oliver Reed’s Wikipedia page and found out that he exited this mortal coil in a
LEGENDARILY badass fashion. Check this out - Reed died of a sudden heart attack
during a break from filming Gladiator
in Valletta, Malta May 2nd, 1999. The heart attack was a result of a
night of hard drinking, which included three bottles of downed rum and arm
wrestling victories over five sailors. He was 61 years old at the time!
Two JAWS Barrels out of five
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