Customer Reviews

Werewolf Woman [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This awesome Euro cult film is about Danielle (Annik Borel) who was traumatised in her youth and now, as a young woman, believes herself to be the reincarnation of a long dead werewolf ancestor. She has a phobia of men and sex, and when her sister (Dagmar Lassander) returns home from study overseas with her new husband, she kills him thus begining a decent into madness and murder.

Despite the title, the only werewolf in the film appears in the opening scene in which Danielle is having a nightmare of her ancestor (also played by Annik Borel) dancing naked then transforming before being caught by a mob of pitch-fork brandishing and torch waving villages, who burn her at the state like a witch. So if you want a standard werewolf movie, then maybe you should check out a Naschy instead, but for anyone who likes good a Euro flick or giallo then I highly recomend this one.

The film has a great cinematic style with occasional spatterings of gore and generous helpings of nudity. Annik Borel is brilliant playing the werewolf woman as she manages to look genuinely detached and vunerable then instantly snapping to a furious insane rage. In the hands of a lesser leading lady the film would probually fail.

BUYER BEWARE however. As great as this film is, this 'Shriek Show' DVD version maybe uncut but is however incorrectly framed and missing picture information on all sides. There is a much better R2 Japanese DVD out there (which I own) but it is more expensive and requires region free equipment.

Overall a 5-star film with a poor 1-star DVD presentation.

Just a lot of nudity, yelling, killing, and near misses from rapists.

What we have here is a woman who is apparently the descendant of a woman who was a werewolf. She gets raped and I guess this lets her tap into her ancestery, which in turn lets her just go absolutely nuts for the rest of the movie.

No werewolf transformation, though. She is affected by the moon, but it doesn't turn her into a furball. It just turns her into a murderer. So she goes on a rampage and kills a lot until she finds love. I won't spoil things from there, but if you watch the movie you're going to know where it's going by then.

It's a great movie.

Get it in the Wicked Women three pack though. Same DVD as here, just two other freebies basically.

This is a great deal for the price - 3 movies on 3 seperate disks. I'd have to note that there was a discrepency between the advertised product & what I received - the cover art & description showed the film 'Nightmares' as included but the set actually included 'Wicked Lake' as the third flik. To me this was a little disappointig as I already owned a copy of 'Wicked Lake' - but to others, perhaps, no problem. I actually purchased this set to get the film 'Werewolf Woman' and I was not disappointed in it! This was a totally over the top Italian effort that tells the tale of a family where one of the daughters, purportedly raped as a young teen, develops an aversion to men & sex and forms a psychic bond with a female lycanthropic ancestor. Her psychosis leads her to viciously attack and kill a variety of men and women as the tale unfolds - although she does not actually metamorph into a werewolf in the process. There is a lot of psycho-babble by doctors trying to figure the girl out and detectives also enter the scene as the body count grows - making this a bit of a cross-over between the horror and giallo traditions. Nudity abounds throughout with very attractive Italian actresses shedding their clothes. The film starts with sort of a flash-back sequence behind the titles showing the 'ancestral' werewolf woman who DOES transform into a hairy monster after a wild naked dance - the make-up was produced by a young Carlo Rambaldi who has since gone on to major Hollywood creature spfx fame - the wolf woman features some pretty unusual hairy breasts with long black nipples. Although a little uneven in spots - this one's 'a keeper'! "Wicked Lake" takes much of its' inspiration from the grindhouse 'roughies' - it focuses on 4 really hot girlfriends who are heading off for a weekend at a lakeside cabin - and has a lot of initial elements that are reminiscent of Tarantino's 'Death Proof'. The girl's party is 'crashed' by several assemblages of ner-do-well guys who are determined to have their way with the comely group and they tie the girls up and start to heap humiliation & abuse upon them until the clock strikes 12 and a startling transformation occurs. Seems that the four lovlies are actually immortal witches and the tables are turned with gleeefully gruesome results. This flik has a tongue-in-cheek, self parodying, vibe to it that makes it pretty enjoyable and the girls are gorgeous and get naked a lot. The third disk in the set, "Flesh For the Beast", follows a group of psychic investigators that visit a haunted mansion that was once a bordello established by an evil Alistair Crowley type of individual. As the group of guys wander around the spooky old place looking for paranormal activiy they keep coming upon lovely young ladies who seem to read their sexual fantasies and seduce them before turning into demonic monsters and eating them! There is not a lot of 'character development' before each of the hapless group are horribly dispatched until only one, female, investigator remains at the films 'suprise' conclusion. The definite highlight of this disk are the 'fantasy' sex scenes performed by the ensembles 3 demonesses - a little 'shallow' but it moves right along. All of the DVDs have a goodly selection of 'extras' included making this a pretty sweet package for the money. Recommended, if you like your women 'wicked'!

WEREWOLF WOMAN (LA LUPA MANNARA, 1976): Daniela is a mentally disturbed young woman, whose childhood rape has left her with a psychotic hatred of all men. Obsessed with a supposedly lycanthropic ancestor, Daniela eventually comes to believe that she suffers the same affliction, and soon begins to go on gory male killing sprees at night. Her reign of terror is momentarily ended by a forced visit to a lunatic asylum, but she escapes with the assistance of another female patient who Daniela repays by stabbing to death. The murders continue until the police finally catch up with her. At the end, the viewer learns that the whole shocking story is absolutely true!

Cheap, exploitative euro-trash, much less fun than it should be thanks to Rino Di Silvestro's amazingly shoddy direction, which mostly consists of a preponderance of sloppily utilized handheld cameras and an incredible over reliance on the zoom lens. The infamously poor werewolf "special effects", proudly on view in the hilarious opening credits sequence, are pathetic beyond belief. Lots of nudity and gore, and the presence of the beautiful Dagmar Lassander in a minor role, do nothing to stop this from being one of the very dullest of all Italian horror offerings, as well as possibly the absolute worst lycanthropy themed movie ever made.

The Shriek Show DVD is an anamorphic wide-screen (1.85:1) presentation of this ludicrous effort, utilizing an okay if somewhat weatherbeaten print, with plenty of speckles throughout. Extras consist of a filmed interview with Rino Di Silvestro and a gallery of his graphics work (unrelated to the film), a poster and photo gallery, and theatrical trailers of other Shriek Show releases, TWO ORPHANED VAMPIRES, PLANKTON, GRAVEYARD SHIFT and FIANCEE OF DRACULA. If you are already one of the very few fans of the film, this is a recommended purchase. Otherwise, avoid.

I've seen two or 30 Franco films, but this has Flesh for the Beast / Werewolf Woman / Nightmares Come at Night, I liked Flesh for the Beast, but really disliked Nightmares Come at Night, and Werewolf Woman, so I thought I'd buy some of his titles that have a bigger following.

Well, positive following makes for a fallacious description.

I still need to pick up Exorcism and Venus in Furs.

These titles are kinda Vampyros Lesbos and more slasher genre than anything, fused with all the exploitation elements that make up a typical inadequate Jess Franco film.

Bad collection but you can't go wrong with Hammer and Peter Cushing.

A sheltered rape victim begins dreaming that she is transforming into a wolf by nightfall. It isn't long before dead bodies start turning up all around her, but is she truly becoming a bloodthirsty beast, or is it all in her head? Rino di Silvestro takes a brilliant concept and drags it through the 1970's Eurotrash gutter. The plot consistently falls secondary to the heightened sexuality at every point throughout the film. There are moments where the twist on the lycanthropic theme does shine through, however. The wolf resembles all of the primal urges that Daniela has been trying to repress, which manifest themselves as violence and rage when she becomes aroused. Unfortunately, WEREWOLF WOMAN is poorly acting and overly dramatic, and what is worse is that every attempt at eroticism is spoiled by Annik Borel's old, sagging body and complete lack of sex appeal. Outside of a few gory moments and plenty of nudity, there is very little to watch for here.

-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies

This is one of my favorite films, but this Shriek Show version is the worst possible way to see Anik Borel get naked and freak out. The VHS version is the only way to see the shorter, more entertaining, and properly-framed American cut. This is one of those rare cases where less IS more. The European version tries to pretend this is a serious character study of a woman who imagines herself to be a werewolf to deal with a past sexual trauma, and it is pretty dull. The shorter, American cut realizes this is a great excuse to get a weird-looking, but somehow sexy, woman to take off her clothes and FREAK OUT like an Oscar-hopeful! Her performance is really one of the greatest things ever captured on film. The Shriek Show DVD also cuts off MUCH of the top, bottom and BOTH sides of the image. Why? Who knows? If you plan on buying a VHS copy of this, BEWARE: I bought one through Amazon and it turned out to be a bootleg that was so watery and dark, it was basically unwatchable. The Sinister version is the best DVD copy of this film that I've seen, so far. I haven't seen the Japanese DVD, but don't they still fog parts of the image they think will turn you into a werewolf? I've seen other Shriek Show DVD's that were well-done, so this is the one strike out from an otherwise pretty cool company.

Daniela (Annik Borel) is haunted by the rape she suffered as a child. She begins having visions of her great-grandmother dancing naked and turning into a werewolf. After watching her sister having sex w/ her husband, Daniela lures her brother-inlaw into the woods, where she goes all feral and rips his throat out w/ her teeth! Thus begins her descent into insanity and further neggidness! Daniela is put in restraints in a mental ward, until a spritely nymphomaniac gal lets her loose, only to become another victim. Once out, Daniela is picked up by a dirty old man who tries to rape her. Huge mistake! He is dealt with in grisly fashion! Next, Daniela meets a nice guy who means her no harm. This leads to the only true happiness in Daniela's life. Unfortunately, this is short-lived, as a trio of scumbags follow her home one night and... well, you can probably guess what happens. The rest is a revenge flick w/ the tattered remains of Daniela's mind reaching their final limit. I felt sorry for Daniela and hated (most of) her victims. Who wouldn't cheer her on during the junkyard vengeance scene?? I like this movie a lot, but keep granny and the small-fry far away!...

The only interesting thing about this movie is that the DVD jacket is reversible. I had never seen that before. This only means is that you can have two different covers of a bad movie.

This movie is about a delusional woman who thinks she's a werewolf. There is one dream-like scene at the beginning where she transforms into a...a...a really shoddy looking werewolf. After that nothing but a psychological case study. I gotta tell you I fell asleep shortly after the beginning and woke to an incesant hammering. In that half awake state I couldn't get the hammering out of my head. I thought I was going insane. I woke and knew the hammering was in the movie, but that I my sanity was still in question because there was still 20 minutes left.

It talks about the werewolf, but there is only one scene, which a woman became a wolf at the beginning of the film. I thought that this film is the werewolf movie when I saw the title of this film, but there is no werewolf woman. There is only insane woman who kills people ridiculously. The woman kills people because her ancestor, who was a werewolf, appears and manipulates her to kill people. In addition, she has a memory that she was raped when she was young. After that, she has a terror about the male and also has a disgusting feeling about sex. So, she kills people when they have sex or they are related to sexual actions. The scenes of murder are crude, and bombastic performance as well. I think that this film is trying to explain the poor insane woman why she killed people. However, it is not convincing. On the contrary, it goes to the crudeness.