HALLOWEEN WITH PAUL NASCHY, SPAIN’S KING OF HORROR

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Balladeer’s Blog wraps up its 2025 Halloween blog posts with a look at the horror films of the one and only Paul Naschy, real name Jacinto Molina, Spain’s King of Horror Cinema.

Over the past 15 years of writing this blog I’ve only covered Naschy’s more Psychotronic offerings, like Werewolf vs the Yeti, Dr. Jekyll vs the Wolfman, The Hunchback of the Rue Morgue and my all-time favorite – Assignment: Terror.

However, there’s much more to Paul’s filmography than those oft-recycled staples of Movie Host shows. Naschy also starred as a mummy, as Dracula, as slashers and so on. In honor of Halloween here are my brief takes on more of the man’s star vehicle horror films.

THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN (1968) – Paul Naschy wrote and starred in this first of his many movies as the tormented lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. This movie was also released under the title Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror with an edited-in introduction claiming that a branch of the Frankenstein family was cursed to become werewolves. That was done purely so the distributor could pass this off as a Frankenstein film. 

In Eastern Europe of long ago, a pair of drunken gypsies accidentally revive the werewolf Imre Wolfstein by curiously removing the silver crucifix his heart was impaled with. The revived Wolfstein kills the gypsies and eventually passes his lycanthropic curse on to Polish Count Waldemar Daninsky.

After snacking on a few people during a full moon, Waldemar realizes what he has become. He sends for faraway specialists Dr. Janos de Mikhelov and his wife Wandessa, who can supposedly cure him of his curse.

It turns out the couple are actually vampires who prey on victims all over Europe. They kill a few of Waldemar’s friends and then sic Wolfstein on him. Daninsky wins that battle of werewolves and kills Wolfstein, then fights and kills the Mikhelov vampires.

Waldemar is then shot through the heart with silver bullets by his true love Countess Janice, bringing this story to an end but kicking off an immortal series of movies.   

THE NIGHT OF THE WOLFMAN (1968) – This alleged 2nd Waldemar Daninsky movie has never been proven to exist. None of the people that Paul Naschy claims worked with him on it have ever been found. It is believed Naschy confused it with one of his many other movies or fabricated it as a resume enhancer decades ago.

ASSIGNMENT: TERROR (1970) – Everyone who has ever met me or has read my Naschy-related blog posts knows THIS is my absolute favorite movie of his. It’s perfect for laughing at or just indulging in nostalgia. Michael Rennie, on what must have been The Day His Career Stood Still, starred as an alien intelligence from Planet Ummo who is animating the body of a dead scientist to launch his race’s plan to conquer Earth.

That plan? Revive the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky and round up Dracula, a faux Frankenstein Monster and a Mummy to frighten the human race into submission. Rennie has already killed other humans so that more of his race could inhabit and animate their corpses in order to help him at his laboratory in a castle.

Ultimately, our man Waldemar rebels against the aliens-in-human-corpses and helps a suave Continental secret agent thwart Planet Ummo’s plans. Daninsky and the spy defeat the monsters AND the aliens and Waldemar is once again shot to death by a silver bullet from his new lady love. (Naschy’s lore often claimed a silver bullet can only kill a werewolf if it is fired by a woman who loves him enough to die with him. Weird.) 

To me, this film may be THE So-Bad-It’s-Good treat. If you like, please read my 2010 full-length review of this Golden Turkey to end all Golden Turkeys. I won’t be satisfied until every man, woman and child in the world has watched this movie. (I’m kidding!)

THE WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971) – As the Waldemar Daninsky series rolled along, continuity would become a joke, adding to its appeal to fans of bad movies. However, continuity is still intact for this go-round.

Assignment: Terror saw Michael Rennie revive Daninsky in the present day (1970) by removing the silver bullets that Janice shot him with in the 1800s. This movie starts out with some medical examiners removing the silver bullets that Waldemar was shot with at the end of the film with Rennie. It’s still that same night, so our star turns into his wolfman form and kills the doctors, then flees to his still-standing castle to hide.

The next month, two female college students are searching for the tomb of the medieval vampress Wandessa Darvula de Nadasdy. The ladies ask our reclusive hero if they can stay at his castle for the night and he obliges.

Like an idiot, Waldemar helps the women find Wandessa’s tomb. One of the ladies accidentally cuts herself and bleeds on the vampire woman’s body, which returns her to life in Paul Naschy’s lore. Wandessa turns assorted young women into her subordinate vampires, but the lupine Daninsky eventually fights and kills them all.

Elvira, one of the college students, comes across Waldemar in his werewolf form. She has “fallen in love” with him, which lets her kill him by driving a silver crucifix into his heart. Love hurts, as they say.

FURY OF THE WOLFMAN (1972) – Arriving back home after a trip abroad, Waldemar catches his wife (?) with another man. No idea how Daninsky got brought back to life this time. Anyway, darn the luck, the full moon chooses then to rise. Wolfman Waldemar kills his wife and her side man, then accidentally electrocutes himself to death while trying to flee. (Oh God, these movies are such incoherent fun!) 

A female mad scientist named Dr. Ilona Ellmann recovers his body and brings our hero back to life. She falls in love (uh oh) with Waldemar while subjecting him to treatments that will let her control his wolfman mind the next time he transforms.

There’s trouble in paradise, though, when Daninsky stumbles upon Dr. Ellmann’s hidden dungeon where she imprisons the freakish subjects of her failed experiments. Ilona catches him, unleashing the Fury of the Mad Scientist, just like in our title. Oh, wait …

Ilona chains Waldemar to the wall and whips him repeatedly. To further spite him, she gets her hands on the corpse of his late wife and revives her as a female werewolf. Dr. Ellmann makes the two lycanthropes fight to the death, with Waldemar killing his wife – the murder so nice he committed it twice!

Our wolfman Waldemar then mortally wounds Ilona, but she still loves the big lug after all and is thus able to kill him by shooting him with a silver bullet with her dying act. Hey, the cheesy repetition is part of the Bad Movie fun in Naschyland!

DR. JEKYLL VS THE WEREWOLF (1972) – Waldemar Daninsky is back, baby! Just accept it. And just pretend you don’t already know how the werewolf will get killed at the end of the movie.

Waldemar still longs for a cure for his full moon curse and his latest attempt finds him traveling to London to consult with Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jack Taylor), grandson of the original Dr. Jekyll from the late 1800s. What could go wrong? 

By this point you’d think Daninsky would at least take the precaution of not traveling during the nights of the full moon and would just chain himself up in his castle to keep innocent people safe. Nope. He rushes to London and, while stuck in a stalled elevator with a nurse, transforms into a werewolf when the moon rises and kills her. 

Dr. Jekyll uses the family formula to cure Waldemar of lycanthropy. Trouble is, he starts turning into a kinky and murderous Mr. Hyde on the nights of the full moon. (This is better than being a werewolf?) Waldemar as Mr. Hyde (above) is more violent and more homicidal than when he turns into a wolfman because Hyde kills just for the thrill of it.

Dr. Jekyll and his lovesick lab assistant Sandra (Mirta Miller) try to contain Hyde and we even get a scene at a disco for that quintessential 70s touch. Ultimately, the curse of lycanthropy overpowers the Jekyll Formula and Waldemar is back to werewolf form. Sandra knifes Henry Jekyll and Justine (Shirley Corrigan), a woman who has fallen in love with our main character … well, you know what she does.

SEVEN MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD (1972) – Nothing at all to do with Daninsky in this movie. Instead, Paul Naschy portrays a crippled and embittered former trapeze artist who becomes Scotland Yard’s top suspect when a new Jack the Ripper begins terrorizing modern-day London.

Our hero limps around trying to track down the real murderer to get the Yard off his back. This new Jack the Ripper goes full-on cannibal with his prey, driving the public into a panic.

Seven Murders for Scotland Yard was also released as Seven Cadavers for Scotland Yard, and its original Spanish title of Jack el Destripador de Londres. Viewers get Euro-gore and a chance to see Naschy play a character who isn’t the monster for once.

THE HUNCHBACK OF THE RUE MORGUE (1973) – Another of Paul Naschy’s non-wolfman flicks. This time around he plays Wolfgang Gotho, a simple-minded hunchback who finds work in a morgue.

The hunchback falls in love with a sickly young lady who is the only person who treats him politely. Eventually the woman dies and when her corpse shows up on a slab at the Rue Morgue, Gotho loses his mind.

He then slices up and decapitates some of his fellow morgue attendants and goes on the run from the law. A regulation mad scientist takes him in and lies to Gotho that he can bring the dead girl back to life to fool the hunchback into working for him.

Gotho surreptitiously breaks into the morgue multiple times for the mad doctor, stealing fresh corpses for his experiments. The scientist uses the best parts from each body to build a shambling monster. We now have a Bad Movie Hat Trick as this flick sets Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley spinning in their graves all at once!

The mad scientist dumps the unused cadaver parts into a big acid bath to destroy them, setting up how the film will end after Gotho learns he’s been conned.

COUNT DRACULA’S GREAT LOVE (1973) – Big Paul tries out the role of the most famous vampire of them all this time around! To avoid his constant pursuers, Dracula is posing as Dr. Marlowe, who runs a sanitarium in the Carpathian Mountains.

Drac feeds on some larceny-minded laborers in the sanitarium one night. As luck would have it, a stagecoach transporting four beautiful women loses a wheel in Borgo Pass and the driver is killed in the resulting accident.

This prompts the ladies and their male fellow passenger to seek shelter in “Dr. Marlowe’s” joint. In the nights ahead, Count Dracula turns the man and three of the women into vampires who help him in his new reign of terror.

Karen (Haydee Politoff), the only virgin among the ladies, is spared by Dracula, who falls in love with her. In the end, Drac’s love for Karen prevents him from turning her into one of the undead to share eternity with him. The conscience-stricken count slaughters his four new vampire slaves, then plunges a wooden stake into his own heart rather than harm his beloved Karen.

HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1973) – In this film Naschy gets to play one of Psychotronic cinema’s various disembodied heads who can control other people! As Medieval warlock Alaric de Marnac, our star is denounced for witchcraft by your regulation torch-bearing mob.

Right before his accusers decapitate him and kill his lovely accomplice in sorcery Mabille, Alaric vows to return in hundreds of years to wipe out the bloodlines of his killers in another horror movie trope. Cut to the present day. Paul Naschy does double-duty as Hugo de Marnac, a descendant of Alaric.

Hugo and a party of friends are searching the countryside for the ancient tomb and reputed treasure of his late ancestor. The chest which they think contains the treasure instead contains Alaric’s disembodied head.

The head revives (Hey, the Dude abides but the head revives.) and takes mental control of Hugo and his friends. He makes them resurrect his long dead love Mabille so they can begin a new reign of terror. Alaric and Mabille kill all over the countryside, transforming many of their dead victims into obedient zombies.

The zombies eventually rebel and besiege Alaric’s lair. Amid the chaos, Alaric and Mabille get sent back to Hell by exposure to a sacred amulet.

VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES (1973) – Though zombies may make you hope for Haiti as a location, the movie is actually set in modern-day Europe. Kantaka (Paul Naschy) is an evil Hindu mystic who uses his powers to bring recently murdered beauties back from the dead as obedient zombies.

As the numbers of Kantaka’s legion of undead hotties go higher and higher, his good guy twin brother Krishna (Naschy again) gets involved to oppose Kantaka’s evil deeds. Krishna is depicted as your stereotypical benevolent guru, so the opposite of his twin brother.

Our buddy Paul plays a THIRD role in the movie, depicting Satan himself appearing to Kantaka and his followers during a dream sequence ritual.

Needless to say, Krishna prevails in the end and Kantaka is totally destroyed, harem of zombies and all. 

RETURN OF THE WITCH (1973) – Also released as Curse of the Devil, this film marked Naschy’s return to his Waldemar Daninsky character. Further jumbling the franchise’s continuity, we are shown Waldemar’s Medieval-era ancestor Irineus Daninsky killing Barna Bathory in combat.

Next, Ireneus and his men kill Barna’s evil wife Elizabeth (the historical figure) and her coven of witches. Elizabeth curses Ireneus’ bloodline as she dies.

Hundreds of years later, our hero Waldemar Daninsky kills a werewolf terrorizing the countryside. The werewolf turns out to have been a gypsy, and a gypsy witch sends a seductive lady from their camp to get revenge on Waldemar. (What about Elizabeth Bathory’s curse?)

That sexy gypsy agent sleeps with Waldemar and while he basks in the afterglow, she uses the skull of a werewolf to make its jaws “bite” Daninsky, which we’re told will now curse him with lycanthropy. Oh, and an escaped axe murderer is on the loose and he kills the gypsy girl.

Waldemar starts a love affair (uh oh) with Kinga, daughter of an old man and woman renting a cabin on his estate. Kinga’s sleazy sister seduces Daninsky and is torn to pieces by him on the first night he turns into a werewolf. Also, Elizabeth Bathory returns from the dead. (Just go with it.)

Over time our wolfman kills Elizabeth (again), butchers Kinga’s parents along with several villagers and she – pregnant with Waldemar’s child – kills him with a silver crucifix through the heart since she truly loves him, etc. Years later, Kinga and her son by Waldemar visit his grave, then the son turns into a werewolf. How can anyone NOT love these weirdass turkeys? 

HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN (1974) – Paul Naschy tries his hand at a slasher movie. A drifter named Gilles (Naschy, of course) is hired as a laborer by three strange sisters led by Claude (Diana Lorys), half of whose face and body is deformed. 

The other two sisters are slutty Nicole (Eva Leon) and wheelchair-bound Yvette (Maria Perschy). Nicole starts an affair with Gilles despite how weird and brooding he always is. Little does she know he also has recurring dreams about murdering people.

Women in the area start getting killed by a slasher, who also gouges out their eyeballs, collecting them in a jar. As one does, I guess.

Gilles’ history of violence toward women is revealed and vigilantes chase him into the forest to serve summary justice for the slasher/ eye-gouging murders.

The mob succeeds in killing Gilles.

DEVIL’S POSSESSED (1974) – In this movie, Naschy portrays Medieval Baron Gilles de Lancre, a one-time ally of Joan of Arc who is being led into evil by his sultry wife Georgelle (Norma Sebre). Playing on Gilles’ growing megalomania and his superstitious fascination with black magic, she leads him even further astray.

At length, she and her secret alchemist ally Simon de Braqueville (Eduardo Calvo) con Gilles into believing that Simon can increase his (Gilles) political power AND transmute lead into gold for him. Simon insists that to perform such magic he needs Gilles to unleash atrocities on his people, slaughter any Christian pilgrims who pass through his territory and sacrifice as many virgins as possible.

Gilles falls for it and makes the countryside red with blood. Next, Georgelle and Simon fake a Satanic visitation to Gilles ordering him to find the Philosopher’s Stone for Simon so he will have the strength to turn lead into gold.

Gaston de Malebranch (Guillermo Bredeston), an old army buddy of Gilles, emerges as our hero and leads a peasant rebellion against Gilles, Georgelle and Simon. A chump to the end, Gilles believes that Simon has made him invincible to any harm, so he defies the rebels single-handed only to be killed as his body gets riddled with arrows.

THE WEREWOLF VS THE YETI (1975) – Another of my favorite Paul Naschy films. “Somehow, Waldemar Daninsky returned” you might say, as the tormented lycanthrope is still longing for a cure for his condition.

This time Waldemar joins an expedition to the Himalayas in hopes of locating a legendary herb which can supposedly cure the curse of lycanthropy. In a perfect Bad Movie distortion of lore, we’re told that yetis are really the Himalayan version of werewolves and that’s why no yeti bodies have ever been found.

During his Himalayan adventure, Daninsky encounters a Tibetan warlord, the warlord’s kinky mistress and a pair of ladies who are either cannibals with a few vampiric qualities or vampires with a few cannibalistic qualities.

These she-monsters have a threesome with Waldemar before trying to eat him, but he is able to kill them in self-defense.

Our star finds THE Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr’s character) imprisoned by the warlord for trying to find the same herb Waldemar is after. Daninsky’s werewolf also clashes with a yeti (above right) who wants the herb to cure himself. In the tradition of Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster the title bout lasts a couple minutes. The rest is buildup. Waldemar wins and is cured, getting a happy ending for once.

THE MUMMY’S REVENGE (1975) – The Spanish title for this flick is La venganza de la momia. At last we get to see our man Paul Naschy as a mummy! Millenia ago, Pharaoh Amenhotep (Naschy) and his mistress Amarna provoked the ire of the Egyptian people with their depraved ways, defiling and then killing whoever they wanted. The priest Anchaff treacherously engineers Amenhotep’s death and seals him in his sarcophagus.

In the 20th Century, the pharoah’s tomb is unearthed by Nathan Stark (Jack Taylor) and his wife Abigail (Maria Silva). They have the sarcophagus brought to London so it may be studied by Sir Douglas Carter (Eduardo Calvo).

The sinister Assad Bey (Naschy in a second role) has followed the Starks to London, where he and a female accomplice start murdering people and using their blood to bring Pharaoh Amenhotep’s mummy (above right) back to life. This unleashes the expected rampage.

Sir Douglas’s daughter Helen (Rina Ottolina) looks just like Amarna (of course), the late mistress of the mummy, who wants to perform a ritual to place Amarna’s soul in Helen’s body. Amid much blood and kinkiness, the mummy and Assad Bey are thwarted.

EXORCISM (1975) – Bizarrely, Paul Naschy tried claiming he had written the script for this movie long before Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist. Uh. Yeah.

The film begins at your typically topless Euro-Satanism ceremony with wealthy young Leila (Mercedes Molina) and her current beau Richard (Roger Leveder) among those in attendance. After the ritual’s sex, drugs and incantations, Richard and Leila leave, little dreaming that Leila is now possessed by the spirit of her late devil-worshipping father.

As Leila’s behavior grows increasingly darker and depraved as usual with possession victims, Father Adrian Dunning (a bearded Naschy) is called in. He starts trying to cure Leila but things go from bad to worse. Remember the murder by twisting a head around in The Exorcist? Well this movie gives us a series of such murders, because Naschy does everything bigger and better!

From there we get more Satanic rituals plus the expected projectile vomiting, facial mutation and deep-voiced taunts from the possessee. Ultimately, Father Adrian has no choice but to go Full Metal Exorcist with all the bells and whistles. He exorcises Leila but lives to tell the tale.

CRIMSON: THE COLOR OF TERROR AKA THE MAN WITH THE SEVERED HEAD (1976) – Our buddy Paul portrays ruthless gangster Jack Surnett, whose head is severely wounded during a shootout with police. His subordinate gangsters and girlfriend get him to a place in the country to hide.

With Jack clearly nearing death, his accomplices recruit the services of a scientist who has already performed successful head transplants. Yes, head transplants. Not brain transplants. I have no idea how transplanting Jack’s head onto a different body is going to make up for the way his head wounds are killing him.

At any rate, a criminal enemy of Jack’s is abducted to have their head removed and replaced with Naschy’s. This flick goes even further into the craziness as, rather than Jack now being well and truly in charge of his new body we are told the body of the dead rabid criminal STILL has more influence over it than Jack. 

The involuntary donor of Jack’s new body was even more violent than Jack ever was and somehow makes our main character unleash a reign of terror that is finally ended by the cops.

THE RETURN OF THE WOLFMAN (1981) – Paul Naschy not only wrote and starred as usual, but he directed this film which was also released under the titles Night of the Werewolf and The Craving (not to be confused with the other Craving movie from back then.)

This movie mixes together elements from a few of Naschy’s previous werewolf movies. Happily, he leaves the Waldemar Daninsky of earlier tales out of this one. The protagonist’s name IS Waldemar Daninsky but he’s an ancestor of our usual main character and lives in the 1500s.

Elizabeth Bathory (Julia Saly) is featured once again but in an entirely different context. Now instead of being opposed by the Family Daninsky, Elizabeth is a regal vampire and witch who uses 1500s Waldemar as her werewolf lackey.

The forces of “good” execute Lady Bathory and her coven of witches. For the wolfman Daninsky they stab him through the heart with a silver dagger, then bury him. Jump to 1981. A pair of idiotic graverobbers dig up Waldemar’s body and remove the dagger from his heart. He springs back to life and kills them.

Our hero mixes with some college students, falling in love with one named Karen (Azucena Hernandez). Meanwhile, other girls find the tomb of Elizabeth Bathory, who hypnotizes them and has them perform a ritual to resurrect her as a vampress.

Bathory turns several victims into servile vampires, but when she tries it with Karen, Waldemar’s not having it. In werewolf form he kills off the lesser vamps, then confronts Elizabeth in her crypt, slaying her in battle. Out of control, the wolfman attacks Karen next, but because she “truly loves” Waldermar (eye roll) she kills him with the silver dagger as she perishes from her wounds.   

FOR ALL MY HALLOWEEN SEASON BLOG POSTS OF THE PAST CLICK HERE.