The Curse of the Werewolf

Dir: Terence Fisher

1961

***

Terence Fisher's The Curse of the Werewolf is classic Hammer Horror. Based on Guy Endore's 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris, the people at Hammer thought it best to make a few changes to the original story and 'Hammed' it up to suit their needs. The creation of the Werewolf in the original story is a bit odd, an adolescent girl is raped by a priest and bares a child who is born on Christmas Eve. Said child then grows up to suffer sadistic and sexual desires and has flashback dreams of being a wolf. In the 1961 Hammer adaptation, our Werewolf's mother is a big busted mute (their version of the perfect woman?) who is raped by an imprisoned beggar, which makes for a rather unfortunate swap from the original. The Werewolf child is born on Christmas day, a cursed day for a child born out of wedlock to be born on, and starts to eat the local livestock around his fifth birthday. The original Werewolf is evil and terrifying, a living representation of depravity, uncontrollable blood-thirst and force of chaos. Endore's Werewolf was actually a representation of the unsurpassed brutality of the capitalist system of the Franco-Prussian War in the Paris Commune of 1870. The 1961 Hammer version of the Werewolf is a rather clumsy sleepwalking fur-ball in comparison. The 'horror' scenes generally start with the wolf looking like a cat who is about to be sick and end with it looking like a dog who has just trashed your bedroom with a 'I didn't mean it' expression on his face. People don't love Hammer horrors because they're good though, we love them because they are so bad (in a good way). The beginning sequence is actually rather intriguing and Oliver Reed and Clifford Evans are both great in the lead roles and it is great to spot old favourites such as Warren Mitchell, Peter Sallis and Desmond Llewelyn in supporting roles. So not the best Werewolf film ever made but at least it has Alf Garnet, Q and Wallace (but no Gromit) in the cast!