Tomb of the Werewolf (2004)

Tomb of the Werewolf (2004) ** (out of 4) Paul Naschy made his twelfth and final appearance as Waldemar Daninsky in this American production that was quickly thrown together when the Spanish legend came to the States for a quick visit. The film centers on the Daninsky Castle where there's a hidden treasure somewhere. The last relative of Waldemar invites a reality show there to try and find it but an evil servant (Michelle Bauer) decides to bring Waldemar, the werewolf, back to life. Okay, if you're expecting the Waldemar of two decades ago then you're going to be disappointed but at the same time I think this film offers enough for fans of Naschy who aren't going to be offended by what the movie is. There's no question that this film doesn't work but I think some of being overly harsh on it because it doesn't look, feel or smell like the films Naschy was making earlier in his career. This film contains a lot of nudity, various sex scenes and a weak story but at the same time I think the werewolf side of things gets plenty of attention and we get to see Naschy, in full make up, attacking more people here than in any of the other films that this character appears in. The transformation scenes, done through cheap CGI, are extremely bad so thankfully we only have to see them a couple times whereas the wolf just appears in the other scenes. I think Naschy is good at his old tricks of howling, jumping out and biting folks but the screenplay never gives him any dialogue with the make up. I understand how this might upset fans but again, we have to remember how quickly this thing was thrown together. I found the rest of the cast to be entertaining even if they weren't giving the greatest performances out there. Bauer is fine as the vamp with Stephanie Bentley, Danielle Petty and Jacy Andrews turning in fun characters as well. There's plenty of bloody attacks to keep horror fans entertained and plenty of nudity for the teenage boy in all of us. Ray hasn't created any masterpiece or anything ground breaking but I think fans of Naschy should at least check it out to see the man in his most famous role one last time.

I had a suspicion that this was not going to be a blockbuster movie, so I prepared to watch at least a B-movie as entertainment. And sure enough, the special effects were indeed laughably bad, so much so even that I double-checked to make sure this was indeed produced in this millennium, and not some 20 years before it!To sum it up, the movie is probably 50% badly acted soft-porn with the expected music scores you'd find in those movies, with lots of breasts showing, even before the title of the movie there is a long scene of woman to woman action. The other 50% is a very feeble attempt to make all of it fit in some kind of story about a werewolf, who looks like the wolf-man from the early half of the 20th century. The transformation scene cracked me up with how bad it was, as it was something anyone with a PC in their home could have made without knowing the first bit about video editing or CGI.All in all, awful, just awful. Unless of course you don't care about the story of a movie and just want to see a lot of breasts.

Elizabeth Bathory (Michelle Bauer) sells her soul to Satan for eternal youth and (as most of us know) must bathe in the blood of young women (not just virgins, as you will later see!) to retain her youth. She is also responsible for periodically sending her dark lord Lucifer some damned souls by making human sacrifices. Somewhere along the years she crosses paths with Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy), a nobleman in love with Lady Eleanor Daninsky (Stephanie Bentley). When the black plague ravages Eleanor, Elizabeth strikes a deal with Waldemar to return her to life. She does, but then Waldemar is transformed into a werewolf, kills the newly-revived Eleanor and is captured by townspeople who drive a silver cross through his chest. He's then laid to rest in a hidden crypt in the Daninsky family castle and forgotten. (By the way, the time and place of these events are never given.) Flashing ahead to today, descendant Richard Daninsky (Jay Richardson) learns he has just inherited a huge castle reputed to have a treasure hidden somewhere inside. He travels to Europe with the crew from the television series "Current Mysteries" in tow. Amongst the group are arrogant TV reporter Melanie Charles (Kennedy Johnston), her producer boyfriend Tony (Leland Jay), script supervisor Leslie (Beverly Lynne), beefcake cameraman Steve (Frankie C. Cullen) and make-up artist Christie (Jacy Andrews). The group also hire psychic Amanda Collins (Stephanie Bentley), who is a dead-ringer for the long- dead Eleanor because she is actually a ghost. And wouldn't you know it, there in the castle alive and well-preserved is Elizabeth, who is posing as the caretaker and housekeeper, but is naturally up to other devious things.Elizabeth leads Richard down into the dungeon/crypt and tricks him into removing the cross from the corpse of Waldemar. Waldemar returns to life, kills Richard, gets outside and starts biting chunks out of villagers. Meanwhile, the TV crew goof off and get off in assorted combinations. The sex scenes for the video release (including the expected girl-girl encounter) cut to black before they get too racy, suggesting there may be an unrated version out there somewhere. If one does indeed exist, it will probably end up on Cinemax at 3 a.m.; this film is fun and perfect for late-night trash-film fanatics. Director Fred Olen Ray does an OK good job with the return of Naschy's famous Spanish horror character. He's added a little fog, a little ambiance, a little blood and some romanticism to this tale in intentional reverence to the El Hombre Lobo movies of the 1970s. He also stuck pretty closely with the original werewolf design and special effects. The only major difference is that the cheesy time-lapse werewolf transformations of yesteryear have been replaced by the cheesy morphing werewolf transformations of today. The film is nowhere near as atmospheric as the original Spanish productions, but there's plenty of nudity/sex and even a decent amount of blood to keep B movie fans mildly entertained.The period details (aside from the castle and some costumes) are not convincing in the least and neither are the performances from most of the younger cast (Beverly Lynne and Jacy Andrews excluded), but having three veterans in the pivotal roles makes a big difference here. Jay Richardson dies pretty early on, but he's an-always reliable character actor and does just fine here. It's great to see Paul Naschy in an American movie and playing Waldemar again. He has a few English-language lines with his thick Spanish accent, but spends most of the film in make-up or standing off in the background watching the action from afar. But the real star of this one is Michelle Bauer, who is menacing, sexy, sardonic, wickedly funny and delivers her dialog with great camp relish. Pay careful attention to her facial expressions. She never just stands around waiting to say her line; she's always active in what's going on while others around here often seem to be drifting off. It is one of her best performances and largest roles... and none too soon! The 44-year-old (who seems to be growing old gracefully with no signs of reconstruction or Botox face-freeze) is surrounded here by girls who are young, attractive and refreshingly devoid of silicone. Never mind that, Michelle steals the spotlight away from all of them.

A man who recently inherited a European castle with a rumored hidden treasure invites the buxom crew from a television supernatural show to help him find the treasure. I said buxom crew, because, I believe, that is the whole point of this film. After pre-title sequence where our buxom villainies offers a buxom victim to a strangely-annoyed Lucifer, who appears via a bad special effect, we skip ahead a couple hundred years to the present day where the buxom host of the television show starts getting naked on the sofa with her producer boyfriend, and then…. Wait a minute. Was I hitting on a subtle leitmotif? I decided to hit pause button and went to the trusty IMDb to see whether I was watching a horror movie or soft core porn. I was right to suspect the latter. It seems director Fred Olen Ray has done quite a bit of soft core. Oh well. Nothing wrong with that, unless you were hoping to see a horror movie and there wasn't any thing scary here unless you have an unnatural fear of breasts. Ray, however, is a true professional and he moves things along at a brisk pace, so it really doesn't matter too much if the level of acting fails to rise above that of soft core porn or if the 'action' music theme sounds like a refugee from a mid-90's video game. No thrills or scares here, but if you like breasts….