The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

September 4, 2024 10:51 AM

[TRAILER] A child conceived by a nonverbal servant girl transforms from an innocent youth to a killer beast at night with uncontrollable urges.

Starring Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller, Anthony Dawson, Michael Ripper.

Directed by Terence Fisher. Written by John Elder. Based on The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore. Produced by Anthony Hinds for Hammer. Cinematography by Arthur Grant. Edited by Alfred Cox.
Music by Benjamin Frankel.

60% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently streaming in the US on Peacock and Plex. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (2 comments total)

This is a weird one, as it goes from character to character, showing the misfortunes that added up to create the curse, then lets the guy suffer a bit as he realizes. It's lumpy and not great, but interesting and watchable anyway, with all of the usual Hammer things--production design, costumes, solid actors, etc.--to recommend it.

Plus, there's Oliver Reed, being all Oliver Reed as hell.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:53 AM on September 4 [3 favorites]

This one I think is well mounted and Reed is very watchable. I always found it interesting that this one, of Hammer's Universal Monster revisions, along with the Phantom of the Opera (which makes sense) never had a series behind it. I can't imagine the infamously difficult Reed would have returned but they could have had another character actor in the role very easily (as in the later Universal werewolf films). Even Jekyll got two (including an interesting gender bending one and a recent film starring Eddie Izzard) and the Mummy had sequels of a sort. I like to imagine it's the Paul Naschy Waldemar films that are the true sequels to this one. Naschy had the same physicality as Reed I think.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:28 PM on September 4 [2 favorites]