A physician removes two silver bullets from a dead man said to be a werewolf, scoffing at the idea that doing so will cause a supernatural beast to return to life. A minute later, the dead man has turned into a hairy werewolf & gone on a rampage.

Thus begins Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (La Noche de Walpurgis, 1971).

Paul Naschy (aka Jacinto Molina) as the werewolf has a certain star appeal no matter how low the low-budget Italian thrillers & horrors he graces.

Naschy/Molina was a genuine fan of Lon Chaney's Wolfman (1941) & had a personal desire to play a werewolf & do it well, which explains the seriousness of his demeanor in the role.

The werewolf make-up was patterned after that of Lon the younger, even though it comes off a little sasquatchy on Naschy, who would make thirteen films in which he played the unhappy Waldemar Daninsky, reluctant werewolf. These films made him for a decade a giant of eurotrash horror, & won him the dubious sobriquet "the Italian Lon Chaney."


Patty Shepherd as the medieval vampire Wandesca is a cult figure from the 1970s, & Barbara Capell as Genevieve, Wandesca's lesbian love interest, is likewise babelicious.

According to the legend of Wandesca (based on history's Elizabeth Bathory), she drank the blood of virgins in order to remain immortally young. But she was laid with a silver cross in her heart & entombed for several centuries.

The angst-driven hunky brooding Waldemar hugely regrets being a werewolf who loses control on every full moon.

He wants to get his hands on the silver cross which can permanently kill him, but only if wielded by the hand of a woman who truly loves him.

Assisted by funky Elvira (Gaby Fuchs), who truly loves him, & is always wearing her licorice candy-stripe op-art dress, they break open Wandesca's tomb, remove the silver cross from her fetid heart, & accidentally drip some of Elvira's blood on the vampire's mouth for good measure. Thus have they foolishly released the deadly female vampire.

Wandesca wants to convert an army of vampire babes starting with Genevieve. Doubly guilt-ridden Waldemar must lay the vampire before he can himself rest. It eventually comes to their physical battle, which is one hoot of a ridiculous climax.

Like for the majority of immortal vampires, immortality doesn't last all that long. Then Elvira can wield the cross to kill Waldemar as well, a little more eagerly than I would've thought the case since she presumedly loves him.

A silly film throughout, sure, it nevertheless has a decent degree of shlock appeal.

For more werewolf films, continue to:
Kibakichi (2003) and Kibakichi 2 (2004)

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl