Hammer Features Week: The Curse of the Werewolf

Welcome back everyone to Hammer Features Week and I thought we would stem away from the Dracula saga and hop into the realm of lycanthropy.   Yes I speak of werewolves and not something that requires a medicated shampoo.  Veteran actor Oliver Reed (His and Hers, The Pirates of Blood River, Night Creatures, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge, Ten Little Indians, The Big Sleep and Gladiator) is finally credited as an actor in this very film and well…the performance is sublime but the material is a bit touch and go.   So gather your holly, melt the silver down for weapons and God be with you.  This is The Curse of the Werewolf.

 

Oh, Dios mío!

On the moors, it is be a spoiler from the devil!!

Directed by Hammer go to man Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Mummy, The Gorgon and Dracula: Prince of Darkness) and set in 18^th century Spain brings a tale of sorrow to haunt more than a generation.  A beggar is imprisoned by the cruel Marques after making comments out of his place at the nobleman’s wedding.   The poor bastard is just left there for over fifteen years and his only human contact was the jailer and his gorgeous mute daughter (Yvonne Romain of Action of the Tiger, Murder Reported, Corridors of Blood, Circus of Horrors and Night Creatures). 

Marque of Da Suede!  ZING!

The young wild eyed girl was tossed in with the beggar after avoiding the decrepit Marques’ advances she is man handled by said beggar.  The next day she was sent up to entertain the Marques but she flees the countryside and is found in the forest by a gentleman scholar name of Don Alfredo Corledo (Clifford Evans of Love on the Dole, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Kiss of the Vampire, The Power Game and One Brief Summer) who nurses her back to health and finds her to be a delight.  She dies giving birth to her child out of wedlock (SCANDALOUS!!) and Don Corledo adopts the boy Leon as his own.  The boy seems different as he wails in the night with an almost murderous rage at the full moon.

Leon grows to a young man to work in a vineyard and his employers take an instant liking to the lad.  All seems well until…the nights of the full moon.  His mood swings being erratic get him dumped in the hoosegow until the vineyard owner’s daughter Cristina (Catherine Feller of The Gypsy and the Gentleman, Blood Wedding, Less Than Kind and Murder in Eden) defends Leon to the hilt and speaks on his behalf.

Sanctuary!!!

I have just a few things to interject about the film.    This is the only werewolf film that Hammer Studios ever made.  Five minutes of the original film were censored for the British release and more so out of the American version given the rape content.  Nothing graphic to that end but it is a very tender subject in any media.    The gravel quarry in Buckinghamshire where Spain allegedly is where most of the Tom Baker Doctor Who era was shot.

I went on my papers!!! I is big boy now!

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