Films That Witness Madness

review

CURSE OF THE DEVIL

How the hell did Paul Naschy get to be a big star? This guy has meandered through so many awful horror films that I've lost count. Maybe it is because the Spanish horror output has been so sparce and so shoddy over the years... Maybe that's it. For the life of me I cannot figure it out. CURSE OF THE DEVIL sure didn't change my opinion. This is yet another in the long line of Naschy werewolf films, slow, wasteful melodramas spiced up now and then with a few dollops of stage blood and a couple of exposed nipples. These are, more or less, vanity pieces for Naschy, poor exercises in Hammer-esque terror in which Naschy wanders around a bit, takes his shirt off and gets to bed a few Spanish beauties.

CURSE OF THE DEVIL stars Naschy as Waldemar Daninsky, a nobleman with a bit of a problem. A few centuries back, an ancestor of his killed the husband of Elizabeth Bathory - yes, THAT Elizabeth Bathory - before laying waste to Bathory and her maidens. Before her death, the Bloody Countess placed a curse upon the Daninsky family. Back in the present, Waldemar accidentally shoots a gypsy man. The gypsies ALSO place a curse on poor Waldemar. They send one of their number out to seduce Waldemar and, while he is sleeping, she uses a wolf's skull to infect him with lycanthropy. From that point on, this becomes something of a retread of THE WOLF MAN, albeit a rather dull and pointless one.

This is just goddamned awful. A pitiful mix of Hammer and Universal horror cliches with a bit of tit thrown in for good measure. I don't even know how to fully describe the sheer, absolute torment this film caused me. It was like watching paint dry for... No, scratch that. Watching pain dry would be an absolute fucking Paradise compared to this film. So many of the plot elements make no sense at all. Elizabeth Bathory was a Satanist? Gypsies carry out black masses? There's a full moon every other day? Werewolves need to be stabbed in the heart with a silver dagger by a woman who loves them? The victims of werewolves can rise from the dead to drink the blood of the living? Seriously?!?

While the film itself contains some very striking visuals, it's tragically flawed in every other way. The editing makes strange jumps between day and night and from location to location without explanation or warning. Characters just sort of wander in. The acting ranges from the high school drama level to the soap opera level. The special effects, in particularly Naschy's werewolf make-up, are terrible. The soundtrack sounds like a third-rate Hammer knock-off. It's also incredibly boring. Nothing much happens during the film. A few werewolf attacks aside, this feels distinctly like a bad made-for-television film. Commercial breaks would have been appreciated.

As I said before, I have no idea why Naschy is so well liked. I really don't. The man has no noticeable talent. His acting, if you can call it that, consists of mostly wandering from scene to scene with the same bored expression on his face. I might have been able to forgive this film's flaws had director Carlos Aured been given a more dynamic actor for the lead role. Watching Naschy try to emote is more painful than having red-hot skewers stuck in my taint.

Awful.

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