Saturday, July 20, 2013

Legend of Wolf Woman 1976

AKA Werewolf Woman, She-Wolf, Naked Wolf Woman  & Terror of the She-Wolf




   Director Rino Di Silvestro sort of lycanthropy (with a couple of left turns into the exorcism & rape revenge genres) 1970's Italian schlock/exploitation fest is the kind of movie that tells what your in for right in the opening minutes. Over the credits we're treated to a naked gyrating woman (Annik Borel) rolling around on the ground while surrounded by fire who turns into a shaggy blond wolf woman (complete with fur covered breasts). Running into the underbrush she's pursued by the the old-standby gang of villagers with pitchforks and torches whereupon she rips the throat out of one of them, plus for good measure buries an axe in his head. Next thing you know she's strung up and being burned by the irate villagers.



   Flash forward to the present and we're introduced to a young woman Daniela Neseri (again Borel) who's staying at her wealthy fathers villa, and as a result of being raped at age fifteen suffers from flashbacks of the wolf women as she's a distant past relative. Soon her sister & brother-in-law show up for a visit and after spying on them having sex, Daniela (while wearing a see-thru nightee) has hallucinations of a monitor lizard crawling on her She then runs out to the woods, strips naked and sees her dead female ancestor who intones to her about her legacy. The brother-in-law heads out to investigate and reverting to a wolf woman flashback Daniela rips out his throat and throws his body down a gully.
  The unlucky wolf woman fodder is blamed on a pack of wild dogs and Daniela is carted off to an asylum/hospital where she's strapped down in bed while cursing & screaming at the staff and her relatives. Thanks to a nighttime visit by a fellow female inmate (who has a raging case of nymphomania) Daniela escapes and knocks off a few more victims -including a doctor in whose car she hid in to escape from the hospital (she bashes her head against the dashboard) a young peasant girl (who she gets with a pitchfork after spying on a roll in the hay with the girl and her boyfriend), plus a random sleazeball/rapist guy who picks her up hitchhiking.  All the while in the best tradition of Euro-horror, a couple of dim-witted policeman wonder about and show up periodically to make unbelievably random plot point connections while coming to WTF (!?) out of left field conclusions.



   Daniela then meets up with a stuntman who lives on a mock up western town set (where more then likely many a spaghetti western had been filmed). Everything finally seems to be going good for her as were treated to a 70's falling in love montage (complete with stunt guy doing stunt falls and running hand in hand along the beach together), plus a bit of tension as we wonder - is she going to perforate him or not ? Soon however their bliss is destroyed by the appearance of three bad guys who kill the nice guy stuntman and rape Daniela. Finally snapping for good she then goes into rape-revenge mode and somehow tracks a couple of the guys down to the junkyard where they work. In one of the movies more bizarre sequences (which is saying something for this film) she forgoes the standard shotgun or .45 automatic and crushes them in a huge claw crane thing (which she learned how to operate by staring at it for about three minutes).




   Except for the opening sequence the werewolf stuff is pretty much forgone thru the remainder on the movie and we're led to believe its all in Daniela's mind as a helpful doctor explains that its as a result of her past attack (not to mention being attacked by every character she meets up with - save the stunt guy). Director Di Silvestro throws so many things into the mix along with bunches of nudity, a WAY too drawn out & long sex scene, plus gore & sleaze that you can't help but be entertained in an "I can't believe what's going on"way. Of course considering that Di Silvestro was also responsible for Deported Women of the SS Special Section (1976) and Women in Cell block 7 (1973) we shouldn't be two surprised. Annik Borel also starred in Truck Turner (1974) with Issac Hayes.






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