Happy Birthday to the Wolf Man

In his autobiography, MEMOIRS OF A WOLFMAN, Paul Naschy describes how the scene of his birth on Sept 6th, 1934 looked through the eyes of his father. Naschy writes, "My father once told me that he'd looked up at the sky at dusk and it had seemed to be steeped in blood." He goes on to say that it "was September 6 at six in the morning; it only needed one more six to complete the Satanic triad." So begins the life of Paul Naschy, one that impacted Spanish horror cinema with films like VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY, COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, the recent ROJO SANGRE, and the stunning series of Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies beginning with MARK OF THE WOLF MAN. The still above comes from THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF, a film released in 1980 that Naschy directed as well as starred in.

Soon, BCI will release COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE in anamorphic widescreen, and while they did not go back to the original negative, the results are evidently still very much worth seeing. Go over to this thread at the Latarnia forums to see screen-shots. Also, I'm currently reading BRIDES OF THE IMPALER by Edward Lee, one of my favorite "splatterspunk" authors, and while it's relatively toned down compared to his previous work, it functions as a loving homage to Eurohorror films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, including the films of Naschy. Check it out.