Doctor Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo

This is the first Waldemar Daninsky movie I've seen, even though it is (the box says) the fifth in a series (perhaps IMDb's years for the titles are off?). I bought it primarily because I've liked all the other Mondo Macabro DVDs I've bought.

It's also the first Paul Naschy movie I've seen, or at least the first one I've seen while knowing him to be a big Spanish horror star.

A couple return to the husband's homeland so he can visit his parents' graves. Unfortunately, the graveyard they're in was abandoned during World War II, and is neglected, rumored to be haunted, and a place where murderous bandits can be found. It's also located near the Black Castle, where a monster lives. The monster is Daninsky, who turns into a wolf-man when the moon is full. As a wolf-man, he kills people or bites chunks of flesh out of them. As Daninsky, well, he kills people too, but he has more of a choice as to who he attacks: he only goes after bad guys.

Daninsky gets taken to see Dr. Jekyll, the grandson of the infamous one, in England. Dr. Jekyll has a plan to cure Daninsky's lycanthropy, but I confess I did not understand it. It involved turning Daninsky into Mr. Hyde, and then somehow having the Mr. Hyde and Werewolf in Daninsky battle it out. That isn't what seems to happen, so perhaps I'm way off. I thought it peculiar that Daninsky turns into Mr. Hyde - Mr. Hyde had been the evil part of Dr. Jekyll. Daninsky's evil side might have been similar, but identical, and they give him the same name...?

It is fairly entertaining, and I'm curious to see some other Daninsky werewolf movies now (this wasn't one of Nachy's more favorite ones), and perhaps some more of Nachy's other horror movies. The DVD is good, has some nice extras including an interview with Nachy and a text covering the short history of Spanish horror movies, and the DVD will be staying in my collection.

It seems he's played the Waldemar Daninsky werewolf character in about thirteen movies, of which perhaps only four are readily available (through out of print videotapes and cheap poor quality DVDs), and the original is not one of them! It would seem a box set is needed, though I have not heard rumors of one.