 October 4th
Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
In Spain in the sixteenth century a boy, born of a mute serving girl and a beggar grows up with the unfortunate habit of howling at the full moon.
Curse of the Werewolf is not really a horror film in its truest form, its more a character study of affliction and how a young man attempts to cope with it until finally succumbing to it with his untimely demise at the hands of the villagers. Although the werewolf's presence is felt, it is not seen onscreen until the final ten minutes of the film. There are no stalkings or attacks to up the horror elements just scenes of slaughtered animals. Oliver Reed himself doesn't even appear in the films first fifty minutes.
This fifty minutes is superb drama, the early scenes in the banquet hall are nasty and cruel yet unmissable viewing as the revelers humiliate the beggar before throwing him in the dungeon to be forgotten about. The fact that the beggar, years later then rapes the shapely mute wench who tends to his needs ruins all sympathies nurtured in the earlier acts.
Yvonne Romain is excellent as the mute girl and the viewer is allowed time to sympathise with her plight at the hands of the wicked Marques Siniestro, nicely played by Anthony Dawson, before we are left shocked by her brutal actions as she bludgeons him to death.
When the BBFC watched a complete print of the film they were appalled and demanded extensive cuts to several key scenes, namely the rape, the stabbing of the Marques, the transformation, shots of the dead Leon's face and all the werewolf killings, not to mention dialogue which may have been construed as anti religious. In the US only three scenes were cut and finally in the mid 1980's the cut scenes were restored to the British version, so the film could finally be seen as the director intended.
As it is you can tell why Hammer never ventured into werewolf territory again as the film as a whole despite being enjoyable (and cruel) still leaves you with that underwhelmed feeling come the closing credits.
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