Back on this day, in 1934, Jacinto Molina was born. He would later adopt the name of Paul Naschy for his film work, which happened to be massive by the time of his death in 2009. He wasn’t just an actor, writer, and director, but he was one of us… a lover of the horror genre. I can’t think of too many other people in the industry that has created the work he had in his lifetime, dedicated to this “cinéma fantastique”, as he referred to it. That really puts him in the icon status. Not to mention that he made a hell of a lot of entertaining films!
While it has been 11 years since his passing, I am gratefully impressed with how much his fandom has really exploded since then. One of the last films he appeared in was called La herencia Valdemar, or The Valdemar Legacy, released in 2010. But let’s talk about the “Naschy Legacy”. Since his death, there has been close to 20 of this movies that have seen a release on Blu-ray. Not to sound like the grumpy old man, but when I started seeking out his titles, you were lucky to find any old, beat-up, edited print, in a 5th generation copy bootleg, just so you could see it. But now, not only do you have films that we owned on VHS, most of them probably look even better than when they were released in the theaters. There also has been a ton of titles that never made it over here in the states, or any country, that we get to experience for the first time! And now, with the recent announcement that his thought-to-be-lost film, El huerto del Francés (1977), has been found and receiving a new 4K restoration, just continues this legacy.
There are a lot of people out there that have been working to keep Naschy’s name and work alive, helping to bring new fans into the fold. From Troy Howarth and his book Human Beasts: The Films of Paul Naschy, to Rod Barnett and Troy Guinn’s always entertaining podcast Naschycast, to the T-shirts with the incredible artwork from Gerardo Moreno coming from the Paul Naschy Official Art Shop, the models and toys, to all the other fans posting reviews, thanks to all of you, we are helping newer fans discover the wonderful world of Paul Naschy, and keeping his legacy alive and well, for generations to come.
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