When is a Frankenstein movie not a Frankenstein movie ? When the production team promise the American distributors a Frankenstein film and make a film featuring werewolves and vampires and leave it to the distributors to come up with a solution why it features Frankenstein in the title . The cheeky chutzpah involved is astonishing as is the simplicity . " Let's put up a credits voice over saying the Frankenstein clan have changed their name to Wolfstein and that will solve everything " . It's very naughty making promises you can't keep and reading the trivia section on this page it seems the production team were at best self deluded mavericks and at worst out and out charlatans . I mean they honestly thought they'd be getting Lon Chaney Jnr as a casting coup ? so if you're expecting some dude with bolts in his neck to stagger about with his arms outstretched this isn't what you'll be getting and HELL'S CREATURES seems a much more appropriate title
What you will be getting is some very low brow horror that firmly falls in to guilty pleasure territory . Yes it's absolute rubbish but as someone who has seen far too many horror films for his own good I've always had a soft spot for this type of movie . Like the Hammer horror movies from Britain this is a European answer to the classic Universal monster movies from the 1930s and 40s . The production values are very similar to that seen in a contemporary Hammer and we've got the same type of imagery of blonde maidens showing off their cleavage along with studio exteriors and greedy people getting their come uppance . It's interesting how much common ground it shares with Hammer that the greedy people here are portrayed as outsiders in that they're Gypsies , you obviously can't trust these foreign types at all . Like so much else surrounding the production the film cheats the audience somewhat . We never get to see the werewolf transformation in any great detail and looks like it's happening during a bad LSD trip . It's also noticeable that the transformation only takes place when the plotting requires it
This is the film that kick started the whole Daninsky franchise that lasted thirty years or at least I think it does . IMDb lists a film previous to this one featuring Paul Naschy as Daninsky but seems to have no surviving print and one wonders if it ever existed in the first place . What is interesting is that does feel like an introductory self contained story with no prior continuity to any other film . It also means however it contradicts the internal continuity of other films in the cycle most notably CURSE OF THE DEVIL from 1973 but I guess the Universal movies also suffered from this so it's not really a valid criticism . Naschy makes an unlikely anti-hero resembling a weight lifter rather than someone with an obvious sexual magnetism but I guess he's much more preferable to Lon Chaney Jnr who would have been 61 when his film was produced and just imagine how unappealing it would have been seeing Daninsky being seduced by the vampire woman if Chaney had played the part . It does seem unlikely that someone with an obviously Slavonic name like Daninsky would have survived the Nazi regime but once again the logic behind this is down to the production team hitting barriers in not being allowed to set the story in Spain or have a Spanish character as a Werewolf hence the German setting but you'd still think a bit more thinking might have gone in to Daninsky's background . That said despite all the flaws it is a fairly entertaining horror film and is miles better than the direct sequel ASSIGNMENT TERROR
What you will be getting is some very low brow horror that firmly falls in to guilty pleasure territory . Yes it's absolute rubbish but as someone who has seen far too many horror films for his own good I've always had a soft spot for this type of movie . Like the Hammer horror movies from Britain this is a European answer to the classic Universal monster movies from the 1930s and 40s . The production values are very similar to that seen in a contemporary Hammer and we've got the same type of imagery of blonde maidens showing off their cleavage along with studio exteriors and greedy people getting their come uppance . It's interesting how much common ground it shares with Hammer that the greedy people here are portrayed as outsiders in that they're Gypsies , you obviously can't trust these foreign types at all . Like so much else surrounding the production the film cheats the audience somewhat . We never get to see the werewolf transformation in any great detail and looks like it's happening during a bad LSD trip . It's also noticeable that the transformation only takes place when the plotting requires it
This is the film that kick started the whole Daninsky franchise that lasted thirty years or at least I think it does . IMDb lists a film previous to this one featuring Paul Naschy as Daninsky but seems to have no surviving print and one wonders if it ever existed in the first place . What is interesting is that does feel like an introductory self contained story with no prior continuity to any other film . It also means however it contradicts the internal continuity of other films in the cycle most notably CURSE OF THE DEVIL from 1973 but I guess the Universal movies also suffered from this so it's not really a valid criticism . Naschy makes an unlikely anti-hero resembling a weight lifter rather than someone with an obvious sexual magnetism but I guess he's much more preferable to Lon Chaney Jnr who would have been 61 when his film was produced and just imagine how unappealing it would have been seeing Daninsky being seduced by the vampire woman if Chaney had played the part . It does seem unlikely that someone with an obviously Slavonic name like Daninsky would have survived the Nazi regime but once again the logic behind this is down to the production team hitting barriers in not being allowed to set the story in Spain or have a Spanish character as a Werewolf hence the German setting but you'd still think a bit more thinking might have gone in to Daninsky's background . That said despite all the flaws it is a fairly entertaining horror film and is miles better than the direct sequel ASSIGNMENT TERROR