Video Nasty #12
The Werewolf And The Yeti
1975
TWO BLOODTHIRSTY BEASTS IN DEADLY COMBAT.
HIS LUST FOR BLOOD CANNOT BE SATISFIED...
Original Spanish Title: La Maldicion De La Bestia. Other alternate titles: Hall Of The Mountain King, Night Of The Howling Beast
PAL Running Time: 81:58
Directed by Miguel Iglesias (as M.I. Bonns)
Written by Jacinto Molina
Produced by Jose Antonio Perez Giner and Modesto Perez Redondo
Starring: Paul Naschy, Mercedes Molina, Silvia Solar, Gil Vidal
Body Count: 26!
Availability: Out of print NTSC VHS from Independent-International Pictures as Night Of The Howling Beast
BBFC Status
Why it's a Nasty: Women tied up and tortured, Cannibalism, and Gore murders
What was cut: Nothing. It was banned.
Current BBFC Status: As it has never been submitted for classification, The Werewolf And The Yeti remains banned in the UK. Original Video Nasty cassette released by Video Programme Distributors Limited
The Werewolf And The Yeti was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.
This one's so rare and out of print that I couldn't even find a trailer. Enjoy the opening titles...and Paul Naschy's fuzzy wolfman makeup.
A few things one should keep in mind: La Maldicion De La Bestia was made before both American Werewolf In London and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. In 1975, Rick Baker had not yet revolutionized cinematic lycanthropy, and no one had heard of Indiana Jones. In 1975, when Spanish audiences wanted adventure and excitement, they turned to Paul Naschy and his recurring werewolf character, Waldemar Daninsky.
The eighth Hombre Lobo film begins in the Himalayas. Two hikers are attacked and killed by something hairy. Cut to London, where Waldemar (Naschy) meets with a professor about to lead an expedition to find the Yeti. He has photographs that show the Yeti not as an Abominable Snowman, but just another hairy apething. The professor has a daughter, Sylvia (Mercedes Molina billed as Grace Mills), who falls for Waldemar (since Naschy wrote this thing, nearly all the female characters fall for him somehow) and soon they are off to see Nepal. Waldemar finds a guide who will take them through a secret, dangerous pass that the Sherpas don't want anything to do with. The fact that he found the guide raving and spitting in an opium den should have tipped him off that all might not go well. Sure enough, the guide ditches Waldemar at the first sign of trouble, so our intrepid hero finds his way to a cave where there just happen to be two scantily clad babes to collapse in front of. Their plans for Waldemar seem to be along the line of revive him then rape him, but he's up before they expected and he catches them eating human flesh and worshipping the skeleton of a monster. So, like any rational person, he kills them...but not before one of them bites him with her vampire fangs...which turns him into a werewolf.
Wags might insert a snide comment here about how witches-slash-vampires don't turn men into werewolves when they bite. I'm more impressed that all of that above was crammed into the first 20 minutes of the movie. Diametrically the opposite of Unhinged (see Video Nasty #11), La Maldicion De La Bestia moves so fast that you have trouble catching up to all of the action.
Because this isn't a horror film. Despite the werewolves, vampires, witches and that elusive yeti (who appears only at the beginning and end), this is an action-adventure film that has lots of blood and violence. What clinched its' status as a Nasty are the cannibalism scene near the beginning, and the torture scene near the end where women are tied up and have the skin flayed from their backs. Good times, good times.
Back to something I said above that may have either slipped past or stuck out like a sore thumb: Yes, this is the eighth film in a series featuring the character Waldemar Daninsky...but there's no continuity between any of them, just that Paul Naschy plays the character and he keeps becoming a werewolf for various reasons. I've only seen this one, so I can't speak for the others, but I'm betting the formula is much the same between all of them: chicks in revealing outfits, monsters fighting each other, cliffhanger after cliffhanger until all is resolved in the final reel. Naschy himself is a pretty smooth customer: he looks like the burly love-child of Dick Miller and Joaquin Phoenix, and he fights like...like Paul Naschy. The dude's an original. Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez in 1934, he wrote over forty films, directed over ten, and acted in at least one hundred, until pancreatic cancer took him from us in 2009.
In all, there were twelve Waldemar Daninsky films, although only eleven survive (Las Noches Del Hombre Lobo, one of the earliest Hombre Lobo pictures, has a fate that is still unknown. The director was killed in a car crash in 1968, with the film possibly unfinished. No known print has survived, with Naschy himself unable to locate a copy.), the first in the late 60s, the last, Tomb Of The Werewolf, released direct to video in 2004. Quite a body of work.
If you choose to venture into La Maldicion De La Bestia, remember what I've told you: the makeup is old-school. The adventures fast and furious, with little exposition and lots of gore. And please ignore the British title. Night Of The Howling Beast or Hall Of The Mountain King are definitely better titles - the werewolf and the yeti meet only briefly.
So stay the hell out of mountain caves with weird women. Sure, they might want to have sex with you, but then they'll eat you or turn you into a monster, and that's just not worth it. Heed my warning. I sure will. Because my name's Justin. JustinCase.
A few things one should keep in mind: La Maldicion De La Bestia was made before both American Werewolf In London and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. In 1975, Rick Baker had not yet revolutionized cinematic lycanthropy, and no one had heard of Indiana Jones. In 1975, when Spanish audiences wanted adventure and excitement, they turned to Paul Naschy and his recurring werewolf character, Waldemar Daninsky.
The eighth Hombre Lobo film begins in the Himalayas. Two hikers are attacked and killed by something hairy. Cut to London, where Waldemar (Naschy) meets with a professor about to lead an expedition to find the Yeti. He has photographs that show the Yeti not as an Abominable Snowman, but just another hairy apething. The professor has a daughter, Sylvia (Mercedes Molina billed as Grace Mills), who falls for Waldemar (since Naschy wrote this thing, nearly all the female characters fall for him somehow) and soon they are off to see Nepal. Waldemar finds a guide who will take them through a secret, dangerous pass that the Sherpas don't want anything to do with. The fact that he found the guide raving and spitting in an opium den should have tipped him off that all might not go well. Sure enough, the guide ditches Waldemar at the first sign of trouble, so our intrepid hero finds his way to a cave where there just happen to be two scantily clad babes to collapse in front of. Their plans for Waldemar seem to be along the line of revive him then rape him, but he's up before they expected and he catches them eating human flesh and worshipping the skeleton of a monster. So, like any rational person, he kills them...but not before one of them bites him with her vampire fangs...which turns him into a werewolf.
Wags might insert a snide comment here about how witches-slash-vampires don't turn men into werewolves when they bite. I'm more impressed that all of that above was crammed into the first 20 minutes of the movie. Diametrically the opposite of Unhinged (see Video Nasty #11), La Maldicion De La Bestia moves so fast that you have trouble catching up to all of the action.
Because this isn't a horror film. Despite the werewolves, vampires, witches and that elusive yeti (who appears only at the beginning and end), this is an action-adventure film that has lots of blood and violence. What clinched its' status as a Nasty are the cannibalism scene near the beginning, and the torture scene near the end where women are tied up and have the skin flayed from their backs. Good times, good times.
Back to something I said above that may have either slipped past or stuck out like a sore thumb: Yes, this is the eighth film in a series featuring the character Waldemar Daninsky...but there's no continuity between any of them, just that Paul Naschy plays the character and he keeps becoming a werewolf for various reasons. I've only seen this one, so I can't speak for the others, but I'm betting the formula is much the same between all of them: chicks in revealing outfits, monsters fighting each other, cliffhanger after cliffhanger until all is resolved in the final reel. Naschy himself is a pretty smooth customer: he looks like the burly love-child of Dick Miller and Joaquin Phoenix, and he fights like...like Paul Naschy. The dude's an original. Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez in 1934, he wrote over forty films, directed over ten, and acted in at least one hundred, until pancreatic cancer took him from us in 2009.
In all, there were twelve Waldemar Daninsky films, although only eleven survive (Las Noches Del Hombre Lobo, one of the earliest Hombre Lobo pictures, has a fate that is still unknown. The director was killed in a car crash in 1968, with the film possibly unfinished. No known print has survived, with Naschy himself unable to locate a copy.), the first in the late 60s, the last, Tomb Of The Werewolf, released direct to video in 2004. Quite a body of work.
If you choose to venture into La Maldicion De La Bestia, remember what I've told you: the makeup is old-school. The adventures fast and furious, with little exposition and lots of gore. And please ignore the British title. Night Of The Howling Beast or Hall Of The Mountain King are definitely better titles - the werewolf and the yeti meet only briefly.
So stay the hell out of mountain caves with weird women. Sure, they might want to have sex with you, but then they'll eat you or turn you into a monster, and that's just not worth it. Heed my warning. I sure will. Because my name's Justin. JustinCase.
