(1980)
Dir - Paul Naschy
Overall: GOOD
A strong contender for the most quintessential and all-around best werewolf movie Paul Naschy ever made, El Retorno del Hombre Lobo, (The Return of the Wolf Man, The Craving, Night of the Werewolf), has many attributes coming together in the film's favor. Most prominently of all is the production itself. Cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa's photography is top-notch, endlessly drenching most frames in eerie, Gothic atmosphere. The visual excellence is not limited to the camerawork though as Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky's werewolf makeup easily sets the benchmark not just for his many lycanthropian screen appearances, but wolfman movies in general. Though many entries in the Daninsky series boasted numerous similarities between them, this is the only one that can be seen as a proper remake, updating 1971's La Noche de Walpurgis with the larger budget and a more classy, polished presentation. Unfortunately, the pacing drags even as certain plot points are glossed over, which is also common with Nashy's works. Still, this is undeniably a high, creative watermark for the Spanish wolfman and probably the last approaching-great film he would ever make.
(1981)
Dir - Juan Piquer Simón
Overall: WOOF
Spanish schlock-master Juan Piquer Simón's Mystery on Monster Island, (Misterio en la isla de los monstruos), is a sort-of adaption of Jules Verne's Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery. A co-production between the US and Spain, it barely features Terence Stamp, Peter Cushing, and Paul Naschy within the first five minutes and is an unabashedly goofy adventure film with hilariously bad rubber suite monsters in place of terribly unfunny intended comedy. Much of the latter problem falls on the shoulders of David Hatton, who plays a tortuously grating, bumbling professor who falls down and screams like a child in all of his scenes and is in a predominant amount of them. Then they get a pet monkey and a savage, he tries to teach them proper etiquette, he screams at everything a whole lot more, and it is all about as endurable as you could imagine. As they all get perpetually besieged by monsters and never run out of bullets until the plot tells them to, (bullets which never harm anything anyway), the film reuses about three pieces of stock music over and over again, occasionally at randomly inappropriate times. At over an hour and forty minutes, the movie absolutely feels its length that is for sure.
(1983)
Dir - Paul Naschy
Overall: MEH
A quasi-sequel of sorts to 1972's Horror Rises from the Tomb in that it features the same medieval warlock Alaric de Marnac, Paul Naschy took to the director chair this round with Panic Beats, (Latidos de Pánico). In some ways it can be seen as almost a parody of Naschy films. This time, three different women are either madly in love with him or pretending to be and the topsy-turvy, backstabbing adultery going on reaches comical levels. Thankfully it all results in fun, gruesome comeuppance set pieces even though no gore is shown until a full hour and fifteen minutes in. Naschy's knack for macabre visuals is limited in quantity here though high in quality, especially in the very Tales from the Crypt-esque ending. The plot is pure nonsense, which is not uncommon in many of the man's works. Lines like "We're both evil but I'm more evil than you, idiot!" will unmistakably garnish laughter, but the film itself is played both seriously and melodramatically. It has the usual, silly Euro-horror charm in this respect, just less than would be preferable as most of the screen time is dedicated to endless expository dialog and characters complaining about not being able to wait to kill whoever they are married to in order to get all their inheritance.
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