Customer Reviews

Paul Naschy : Memoirs of a Wolfman

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Although this book my only interest horror and fantasy film fans, I think it stands as a great piece of film history. Naschy not only focuses on his career in film, but we also get a look at the historical context behind his films and the Spanish film industry. The writing is top notch and makes a for a great reading experience. I find that I keep looking over random chapters again and again sometimes for fun and other times for comfort from the day to day grind of life in general. I wish that Naschy would do a revised edition because I would love to read about his own experience on the beautiful Rojo Sangre.

And I am a Naschy Fan, having picked up two of his recent werewolf DVD's from Anchor Bay. One could pick on Naschy for the immaturity and overly derivative nature of many of his early 70's films, but he could always be counted on to put his all into these "eurotrash" horror spectacles. Naschy's book is a mostly interesting, and undeniably well written, journey through his life and career in the movies. The major weakness with the book is that it spends much too much time on his private life outside of film, which, frankly, isn't all that interesting.

More to the point, despite a career encompassing acting, directing and writing everything from horror movies to satiric comedies to crime thrillers, we get precious little insight into his filmmaking process. If Naschy had pruned out some of his seemingly endless stories of his championship weightlifting prowess (both in his early days and well into middle age), this would have been a much better read. Plus, Naschy's repeated emphasis on his accomplishments (both the weightlifting and a frankly absurd claim of "inventing" the gore genre)adds a rather uncomfortably narcissistic undercurrent to the bio.

As it is, I would recommend this only for fans. An extra bonus is a very good filmography of the "Spanish Karloff" at the end. It is written by an unabashed fan, but is comprehensive and well done nonetheless.

If you are into Nashy-Films this is defenitly a MUST-BUY. The Wolf-Man himself writes about his career, his family, his movie - and as this book is called "Memoirs of a Wolfman" it really covers the whole life of the man who brought Waldemar Daninski and spanish-horror-cinema to life.

It features a lot a strange and funny anecdotes wich will not be found anywhere else.

It's a great, very personal book! Go, get it!