THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I saw a streaming version of this Paul Naschy werewolf film under the title in the above illustration, but going by memory it seemed substantially the same as my old VHS rental, which bore the title WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN. Though WEREWOLF was the fifth in the "El Hombre Lobo" series-- fourth, if you discount the lost second film-- it's probably one of the better known ones.

One never expects much of a plot in a Naschy werewolf film, but this time, Naschy's script has so many wild incidents that the film takes on a dreamlike quality at times, mainly in the early sections. That said, there's a small attempt to follow up on the previous release, wherein Naschy's cursed character Waldemar  was shot with silver bullets. A doctor has heard the story of Waldemar's werewolfism, but being a scoffer of superstitions, he pulls out the bullets-- and El Hombre Lobo lives again.

Some time later, college students Elvira and Genevieve (Gaby Fuchs, Barbara Capell) visit "the South of France" (as the dubbed version says), looking for the legendary tomb of the Hungarian-sounding Countess Wandessa. The Countess was a witch, a Satanist, and a vampire who, despite having fangs, bled the bodies of female virgins to drink their blood from cups-- patently a take on Elizabeth Bathory. Wandessa was executed as a witch in the 11th century, but the two young girls think they can get a good anthropological paper out of the subject.

Elvira and Genevieve happen across Waldemar, who has somehow managed to acquire a castle in the neighborhood. (Lots of Hungarians in France, I guess.) He invites the girls to dinner but forgets to tell them that he has an insane sister roaming the corridors. The sister tries to strangle Elvira, but then gropes her a bit instead, and later tries the same thing with Genevieve, but without the groping. After a few more scenes the sister simply disappears without explanation, unless she becomes one of the Countess's vampire ladies.

With Waldemar's help the girls rather easily uncover the grave of Wandessa, but Elvira cuts her hand and accidentally bleeds on her remains. Wandessa soon revives and promptly vampirizes Genevieve. Meanwhile, Elvira, who's fallen in love with Waldemar, then learns that not only is Waldemar a werewolf, he's also searching for the same silver cross that originally slew Wandessa, in order to terminate his werewolf life. 

There are a few other disposable subplots-- a young man comes looking for the missing Elvira, an ugly guy tries to make it with Elvira, apparently because he's a servant of Wandessa, and there are a few sapphic touches between Wandessa and Genevieve. But the film's climax, such as it is, at least satisfies the promise of the title and gives the viewer a short battle between the werewolf and the vampire woman-- after which Elvira fulfills wolf-man mythology by slaying the lycanthrope she loves-- at least until the next movie.