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La Noche de Walpurgis (1971)
An enjoyable if somewhat unevenily paced entry in the Waldemar Daninsky series of films. It starts off rather too leisurely and with an excess of expositionary dialogue, but fortunately picks up dramatic steam as it goes along. It’s well directed by León Klimovsky and the use of slo-mo when the vampires appear is an effective touch, especially in the scene in which Wandesa has to flee back to the crypt to avoid the first rays of sunlight. The werewolf attacks (Naschy’s Hombre Lobo make up is a marked improvement over that applied in the previous two movies) are quite dynamic and Gaby Fuchs makes a very appealing love interest. As usual in Euro horrors, the music is all over the place – some effectively creepy and atmospheric, other times incongruously jaunty and upbeat. The final confrontation between wolfman and vampire woman is nicely done, albeit somewhat brief. In spite of all the foregoing horror, the film ends well for two of the characters.
El Retorno Del Hombre Lobo (1980)
A virtual remake of La Noche De Walpurgis, well directed by Naschy himself and with superlative cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa, this film shares some of the problems already exhibited by the original in terms of pacing and dramatic development, exacerbated by a surfeit of solemnity. Luckily it also shares its predecessor’s ‘from less to more’ progression (which is always better than the other way round) and builds up a really unwholesome atmosphere of doom and horror. One other disappointment is the seemingly perfunctory werewolf attacks – a quick bite and that’s it – but the climatic wolfman-vampire woman showdown benefits from being lengthier than last time. The downbeat ending (this time it ends badly for everyone) is retroactively spoiled by the closing title music which sounds like the theme from a TV cop show. But overall its shortcomings are redeemed by the almost painterly compositions fashioned by the director and his DP, the overwrought Gothic atmosphere and the engagingly tragic love story between the doomed Waldemar and his ultimate ‘saviour’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOPaSYRRW7w