Night of the Howling Beast review
By whatever name you know it as…Night of the Howling Beast is more of an oddity than a good werewolf movie.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Night of the Howling Beast
Directed by Miguel Iglesias
Screenplay by Paul Naschy
Starring Paul Naschy
Night of the Howling Beast Review
At long last, our lunar based Full Moon Feature has brought us to the films of Paul Naschy. Specifically, the eighth of twelve outings for the Spanish born actor/screenwriter/director. Or perhaps…the seventh of eleven. We’ll get to that in a minute. We have a lot to get to with Night of the Howling Beast. Beginning with the fact that, if you’ve heard of it, you may know it by any number of different names. The safest thing to call it is La Maldicion de la Bestia…as it was titled in its native language. That translates in English to The Curse of the Beast. If you’re wondering why this review is calling it Night of the Howling Beast instead…buckle up.
What’s in a Name?
La Maldicion de la Bestia was released about fifty years ago in Spain. It came to the United States a couple years later as Night of the Howling Beast. Years later…it was released in on home video as Hall of the Mountain King…and The Werewolf and the Yeti. Yes. Both. Also, under the title Night of the Howling Beast. All three. Tubi has it streaming as The Werewolf and the Yeti. Plex has it streaming as Night of the Howling Beast. You can buy it on Blu-ray as part of the second Paul Naschy Collection under the title…The Werewolf and the Yeti. We’re sticking with Night of the Howling Beast because that’s the earliest English title it was given. You can call it whatever you’d like…we have more weird stuff to get to.
The Missing Movie
Let’s circle back to those 12 (or 11) werewolf movies Naschy made. In 1968 Naschy played Count Waldemar Daninsky in La Marca del Hombre Lobo. Also titled The Mark of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror…or a half dozen other things depending on where you live. This is a recurring issue with the Hombre Lobo series. Waldemar Daninsky is the recurring character of the series…although the films aren’t all connected. I’m tired already and see why I put off covering one of these movies for so long. Naschy would return to the role later that year in Las Noches del Hombre Lobo (The Nights of the Wolf Man). Except…that probably didn’t happen.
Here’s where things get weird. Naschy claims there was a movie shot by a director no one has ever heard of (who died immediately after filming) and the film became lost. I don’t know how seriously we’re supposed to take that claim since no one else who was allegedly in the movie ever came forward to agree with him. Also, the fourth (third) movie in the series La Furia del Hombre Lobo had the same plot Naschy claimed this unseen film did and was made just two years later. Depending on which side of the Las Noches del Hombre Lobo debate you fall on…Night of the Howling Beast is either the 8th…or 7th…Waldemar Daninsky film made by Paul Naschy.
Mr. Daninsky…If You’re Nasty
500 words in and we still aren’t that much closer to talking about Night of the Howling Beast. It’s ok though…the movie isn’t that interesting. In fact, these odd bits of trivia are easily the most interesting thing about it. To my mind, by far the most interesting thing about Night of the Howling Beast is that it was one of the 39 section 1 films on the UK’s Video Nasty list.
For those who aren’t familiar…in 1984 the UK cracked down on what it deemed to be obscene movies and created what we now know as the Video Nasty list. 39 movies were successfully prosecuted by the new standard and required editing and resubmission to be released in the UK. If someone was caught selling or renting one of those 39 movies…they’d get in trouble. There were multiple levels to the list…the term Video Nasty actually stems from the third, and most softly penalized, tier of films. Night of the Howling Beast was one of the 39 deemed most severe. Since it was never recut and resubmitted…it’s never been officially released in the UK.
Night of the Howling Beast isn’t the first film we’ve covered from the extended list. The Evil Dead and Possession found themselves on the secondary tier of the list. Both would eventually get released without cuts several years later. Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part 2, Night of the Living Dead, Phantasm and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre all sat on the (third tier) supplementary Video Nasties list. All eventually made their way to release without edits. Because…look at that list. It was ridiculous from the start. Were they banning offensive films or stone-cold horror classics? Night of the Howling Beast is, however, the first movie from the 39 prosecuted films that we’ve covered. This is by far the most interesting thing about this movie. Because it’s all so silly. It’s neither overtly offensive nor a classic.
I Was Promised a Werewolf vs. a Yeti
If you’re still with me and are expecting to read about how vile and depraved Night of the Howling Beast is…I’ve got some bad news for you. It’s just a boring movie with a few scenes of elevated torture horror. That’s it. The damn thing is barely about a Yeti fighting a werewolf…so shame on whoever decided to market it as such in the…fourth place. Yeti have more to do with other parts of the series…but we’ll leave that for another cycle. The story sees Waldemar on an expedition to find a Yeti in the Himalayas, getting captured by women who turn him into a sex slave (and a werewolf), getting captured (again) by a group of bandits…and, eventually, fighting a Yeti. For about a minute.
There are moments of torture that point to why the UK banned it. Frankly, it’s not enough to justify being among the top 39 banned films…but whatever. It’s a slow movie that spends more time looking like an exploitation grindhouse affair than actually being one. But there are a few moments where that works. For the purposes of a Full Moon Feature we generally concentrate on the werewolf aspects of the story. Since we’re at work 1000 and haven’t…I guess now is as good a time as any.
The Hairy Details
Night of the Howling Beast gives us a full werewolf story from curse to cure. It has a rare happy ending for a werewolf movie…Daninsky is cured and walks into the sunset with the woman he loves. I think it’s the only one of the 12 (11) Hombre Lobo series with a happy ending. The lunar cycle is hit and miss here…Waldemar walks around in his Wolf Man form in some broad daylight but eventually changes back to human until we see another full moon in the night’s sky.
Werewolf action features some rudimentary clawing and throat ripping. The transformation uses time lapse makeup/hair effects. It’s fine. The final form of the Wolf Man is like a cheaper, hairier version of the classic Universal Monster. Notably, Waldemar doesn’t attack his love interest when in wolf form. He saves her from an assault and runs away. It’s all perfectly fine werewolf lore. He’s cured by some convenient flowers…which could have been handled better.
In the end…the strange beats surrounding the naming/release/place in the franchise of Night of the Howling Beast are more interesting to discuss than the contents of the film. There is some decent horror imagery here…but you have to be patient to get to it. It’s also related to torture done by a pack of bandits instead of either the werewolf or the (sometimes titular) Yeti. Their battle goes down as one of the biggest disappointments in Wolf Man cinema…but the rest of it is fine-ish. It’s not the best Hombre Lobo movie Paul Naschy would make…and it’s not the worst. It’s not much of a werewolf movie but what it does works well enough. More of an indictment on the UK’s Video Nasty list than a memorable viewing experience.
Scare Value
The most interesting conversations to be had about Night of the Howling Beast involve things that happen off-screen. The movie itself is a strange one…but it does have some unique things to say about the werewolf curse. The promised werewolf vs. Yeti showdown is about as disappointing as it could be…and the road there is more of a grindhouse picture than a full moon feature. A curiosity and not much more.
2/5
