Never in a million years would I have thought this would ever happen. It is one of those legends that you hear about, sometimes even doubting if it was really true, but yes, it actually did exist. And now, fans will have the chance to experience this themselves!
How fitting to see this in the night sky on the birthday of Paul Naschy. Then again, I’m really not surprised. In fact, every month when I see a full moon, I know that somewhere, our tragic friend Waldemar is going through the change and terrorizing the countryside. And his fans are rejoicing.
While is this is a sad day because the lost his friends, family, and his fans, as well as the genre as a whole, felt when he left us, I am so happy in knowing that his legacy will clearly live on. With all the special edition Blu-rays that have been coming out this year alone, it really shows the love and respect he so rightly deserves. And even better, that it will continue to do so. Younger fans will find it so much easier to discover and enjoy the work of Paul Naschy, though the grumpy old man inside me is more than a little jealous since we had to really work at finding his films! But none the less, him and his films are now a permanent chapter in the horror history books and will never be forgotten, and will live on for future generations to come.
Our thoughts are with you, Jacinto Molina Álvarez.
Long Live Waldemar. Love Live Paul Naschy.
Finally! We can happily announce the titles for the Paul Naschy Collection Vol. 2! Now, not to diminish how amazing it was to get the films in Vol. 1 released on Blu-ray, but to be fair, those titles all had been previously released on DVD. BUT…Volume 2 is going to give us some that were not only never released on DVD in the states before, but one of them is probably one of the most sought after titles amongst Naschy fans. That title would be the 1975 masterpiece, The Werewolf and the Yeti (aka Night of the Howling Beast). We’re used to seeing copies from either the Super Video VHS tape, or the Greek PAL VHS, both of which didn’t look that great. The Super Video print was so dark that during the night scenes it was hard to see anything! Well, knowing Shout Factory’s quality, all of that should be corrected now.
This year’s Monster Bash, held once again in Mars, PA, was their 20th Anniversary show. I can’t express how sad I am that I had only started coming to this show a few years ago. For years, I put some serious thought into setting up as a vendor there, but I always talked myself out of it because of the distance being too far and if it would really be worth it. Now, with this show becoming one of my favorite stops on our Kryptic World Tour, I realize just how I wrong I was.
This time out, I would be making the 500 mile journey to the show on my own, since my wife Dawn is taking care of her father. It sucks having to do the show alone, but there are certain things in life that are way more important, and family is one of them. It’s only a couple of hours past where we go for Wasteland, so it should be that bad. Though, looking at the weather in the area for that Friday, it was calling for rain…all…day…long! I’ve never had to unload for a show in the rain and was not looking forward to it. I decided to leave after work on Thursday, drive to Cleveland area and then stop for a few hours of sleep, then drive the last couple of hours the next morning to be there by 8am for set up.
Such a great time to be a Naschy fan, or if you’re not, a great time to start! Having just received my copies of Mondo Macabro’s Inquisition and Scream Factory’s Paul Naschy Collection, we know the Year of Naschy will continue. Code Red had already announced titles like Mummy’s Revenge and Assignment Terror. But now, they have recently announced that they will also be releasing the first movie starring everyone favorite werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky, the 1968 film Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror! Okay, the original title is La Marca del Hombre Lobo, but most American fans first discovered this movie under the title Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, after Sam Sherman came up with that moniker to sell it as a Frankenstein film, even though there isn’t nothing close to that character in the film! But I digress….
Code Red has announced that this new print will be from a brand new 2k scan and will be the uncut international version, not the edited American version. So once again, I will be more than happy to upgrade to Blu-ray to show my support of Naschy’s work, what companies like Code Red are doing to keep these films (and the people that made them) alive! And you should do the same! By buying this release, the fans are showing that we will support this kind of entertainment, than some of the dreck that is coming out of Hollywood these days that they are trying to pas off as quality horror entertainment.
Vive vivo Paul Naschy!
The Werewolf Filmography
By Bryan Senn
Published by McFarland, 2017. 408 pages.
Why a book like this has never been written before is beyond me. Yeah, there was the The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide by Stephen Jones, but that just quickly goes through titles with very little written about them, as well as it covering movies having ANY connection to werewolves or changing into a creature listed. A nice book to chew on, so to speak, but not one to go to for any real meat. But it can also be said that maybe the reason a book like this hasn’t been written before was, as author Senn puts it in his introduction, since the werewolf sub-genre is so huge, there are many, many titles that are far from good. So since the bad definitely outweigh the good, it would be a very tough hill to climb to watch and write about all of them. But Senn has taken on that task, and has done an admirably job!
And yet we have even ANOTHER Naschy title being announced for a Blu-ray release. In fact, I believe this title never even got a DVD release, at least not here in the states. Up until now, we’ve had to deal with dupes off the old VHS tape. But today, Mondo Macabro announced they would be releasing the 1976 film Inquisition, a nice little tale of love, Satanism, and those purveyors of evil…the church!
