I’m still scratching that itch a year and a half later and I still can’t get enough.  My favorites then (and now) are still the Blind Dead series of films by Amando de Ossorio.  Sure, they’re not as appreciated as films by Jess Franco, Jean Rollin and others, but there is an atmosphere to the first two of those films that you don’t find in American horror and rarely in European horror.   

In obsessing over the Blind Dead films, I started digging into the films that preceded them and that’s when I ran across Paul Naschy.   

Naschy is considered the Spanish Lon Chaney.  He’s portrayed many of the classic monsters and villains onscreen and has 93 credits as an actor in his imdb listing.  In fact, at 74, he’s currently filming a new picture.  Naschy also wrote a number of the films he starred in and the most successful of those were his werewolf movies.   

Thanks to BCI, two of his best are being re-released on DVD to American audiences.  Werewolf Shadow (a.k.a. The Werewolf’s Shadow, La Noche De Walpurgis and The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman) is the first.  The film is the third werewolf film in which Naschy plays Count Waldemar Daninsky (no… not the guy who played Fez on That 70’s Show).  Daninsky is a man stricken with the curse of the werewolf.  In previous films he had been hunted and killed and this film starts out with an autopsy being performed on his body.  Once two silver bullets are removed, Daninsky is back and ripping out throats with the best of them.   

Werewolf Shadow doesn’t follow the werewolf formula though.  Sure, it’s all about changing on the full moon and killing those you love, but Daninsky wants peace.  He wants to die and stay dead and his search for a way out leads him to investigate the legend of an ancient witch who supposedly died from having a silver cross jabbed into her chest.  Daninsky reasons that if he can find that cross, he may be able to find the peace he seeks. 

Enter two students (sexy females Gaby Fuchs and Barbara Capell) who are doing their thesis on the same witch and you have all the ingredients for an atmospheric euro-horror movie.  There are ghosts, undead monks, vampires and an overall feel very similar to the Hammer movies. 

While Werewolf Shadow doesn’t quite get my blood going like Tombs of the Blind Dead (those slow motion shots of the skeletal Templars riding ghost horses by moonlight really do it for me), it’s still a fine movie and I’m glad to have it in my library.  BCI does this one the right way by providing both the uncut Spanish version and the U.S. version, helping to prove something any euro-horror fan has known for some time. 

Americans are prudes.

 
Presentation  
The Spanish version of this film looks amazing.  The colors are rich for the most part and the sound is fine.  The U.S. version does not fare so well.  There are lots of scratches and shitty sound plagues it.  Who really cares though?  That’s the inferior cut anyway as it has a dearth of boobs. 

I have to say I was most impressed with the care and attention given to the menus.  Instead of the cheese-ball frame capture and list of options I expected, I found animated menus that were reminiscent of the ones on the Hellboy Directors Cut set.   They gave this release a lot of attention and I, for one, appreciate it. 
 
Extras  
As mentioned above, the U.S. version is included on here in its entirety.   The differences really amount to a different soundtrack (which the liner notes say many fans prefer but I didn’t), less nudity and a different opening title sequence.  The funny thing is that even though this is a Spanish film, the actors’ lips match the English version.  It was shot with the dub in mind so any actors who could speak English were encouraged to do so when shooting and the others phonetically sounded out their parts.   

Also included is a still gallery, which I have a beef with.  The best part of any still gallery in my opinion is the inclusion of theatrical posters.  With this title, there is a plethora out there as it was released in multiple languages.  However, the still gallery scatters them randomly throughout the presentation and I swear to God, I think they just did screen captures of every fourth frame of the film.  My thumb was worn out from skipping ahead to find the next poster and I never made it to the end. I’d rather have seen the posters either all up front of mixed in more liberally. 

The liner notes are exceptional.  Written by author Mirek Lipinski, they go in depth on the contribution the film made to Spanish Fantastic Cinema and include some interesting footnotes on the filming itself.  Since there’s no commentary on this disc, these are the closest you get to an “inside scoop” of what the filming was like. 
 
The Bottom Line  
Werewolf Shadow is not a perfect movie, however it’s damn enjoyable and from a horror fan/nerd perspective, it’s one that’s required viewing.  It’s arguably the best introduction to Paul Naschy’s work and if you’ve never seen a Naschy movie, you really should. 
 

		Werewolf Shadow (La Noche De Walpurgis)
3.5		Feature - Is good, no? Yes… is good.
3.5		Video - Is good too? Yes… is good.
3.5		Audio - Is all right? Yes… is all right.
3.5		Extras - Is good? Both versions of the film plus killer liner notes means… is good.

3.5