July 10, 2009 Maybe with the "Wolfman" hitting screens from Universal, interest in werewolves will increase to the point that this very moldie oldie will be dusted off and given some kind of release.



This now forgotten British werewolf film from the 1970s, borrows liberally from the Hammer production "The Curse of the Werewolf," profiling the life of a "wolf boy" and later werewolf from childhood to adulthood.

One of the last horror films directed by the legendary cinematographer Freddie Francis, this came out the same year as "The Ghoul," another one of Francis' films starring Peter Cushing.



Cusing would not be acting much longer, and was in only a few horror films like this before leaving the acting scene and passing away in 1994.

Cushing plays a doctor in historic Paris who becomes fascinated by a series of brutal killings that, naturally, police believe were performed by a wolf. In fact, a disgruntled and impoverished young man who happens to have a job in a zoo where he takes care of a few domesticated wolves is also a werewolf. His crush on a local prostitute only seems to exacerbate his lycanthropy problem. He generally kills people who frequent the brothel where his love interest works.



Like "Curse" this is about an proletarian wolf man frustrated by the arrogance of the bougeouis in his town. Ultimately his poverty prevents him from getting laid and finding love, the only antidote that can save a wolfman.

But the movie doesn't work nearly as well as "Curse" did. The make-up effects are actually worse, despite the fact that came out about a decade later. It is fun to see Peter Cushing in action and the film's opening, detailing the upbringing of a werewolf, is upliftingly Hammer-like. But all in all the movie just isn't that good. Given the fact it came out in the 1970s, the movie is unforgiveably low on explicit content.




All the same, it's one of the last period horror films starring the late great Cushing and one of the last of that genre to come out of Great Britain. Wortch catching if you can find a copy.

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