El Retorno de Walpurgis, or Curse of the Devil as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, starts in Medieval Europe where Irineus Daninsky (Jacinto Molina under his usual Paul Naschy pseudonym) has a sword fight with some evil spawn of Satan bloke & ends up decapitating him. That night the evil blokes wife Elizabeth Bathory (Maria Silva) & some Satan worshippers hold a sacrificial black mass but are rounded up by Daninsky & his men, as Elizabeth is burned alive at the stake she puts a curse on Daninsky & all future Daninsky's. Centuries later & Waldemar Daninsky (Jacinto Molina again) accidentally shoots a Bathory descendant which sets the curse in motion. A gypsy witch (Elsa Zabala) holds yet another black mass in which some strange guy dressed head to toe in black has his wicked way with various naked women, hey all this gratuitous nudity is an essential part of the story telling process. One of the women Ilona (Ines Morales) is discovered unconscious lying in the middle of the road by Daninsky & his servant Maurice (Fernando Sanchez Polack as Fernando S. Polack). They take her back to Daninsky's castle to nurse her back to health, Daninsky's maid Malitza (Ana Farra) is suspicious of her. One night Ilona pulls some sort of animal skull out & bites Daninsky's nipple with it. From that moment on Daninsky is cursed to turn into a Werewolf at every full moon & kill, things become even more complicated when he brutally kills Maria Wilowa (Maritza Olivares) the young sister of Kinga (Fabiola Falcon) the woman he has fallen in love with...
Directed by Carlos Aured I thought El Retorno de Walpurgis was a very poor film, both technically & conceptually. The script by star Jacinto Molina is a mess, a dull boring mess as well. After a fairly good & exploitative opening few minutes it quickly goes downhill for the remainder of it's duration. The film feels extremely choppy, characters come & go far too readily, the gypsy, Ilona & the policeman to name but three. No one is given any sort of meaningful character development apart from Daninsky (talk about giving yourself all the best lines) & I found it almost impossible to care about anyone or anything. Even though El Retorno de Walpurgis only lasts for 80 odd minutes uncut it felt much longer & I actually started to go to sleep towards the end. The editing is very poor, the film cuts & moves all over the place & at one point a sequence is edited in such a way that it appeared to me that Daninsky wasn't the Werewolf when in fact he was. On the positive side El Retorno de Walpurgis is a handsome film throughout with nice production design, impressive detailed period sets & costumes. Don't expect much blood or gore despite what you read as it's not exactly going to make anyone lose any sleep. A few bites, a scythe through someones body, an impaling & a decapitated head at the start. The blood itself looks very fake, in fact it looks a lot like red paint. There is a fair amount of nudity as well but again it's nothing that's going to amaze or shock you. Forget about the great looking artwork on the DVD/video box as El Retorno de Walpurgis has to feature one of the weakest Werewolves in horror film history, he looks more like a teddy bear with fake perfectly white plastic fangs complete with cute little semi circle ears sticking out the top of his head, bless 'im. The acting seemed poor & the rubbishy English dub probably doesn't do it any favours. Overall I was very disappointed by El Retorno de Walpurgis, I usually really like these cheap Euro exploitation films but I didn't dig this one at all. Despite a good opening sequence & nice period production design there is nothing by which I can recommend El Retorno de Walpurgis as a piece of enjoyable entertainment. Probably one to avoid.
Directed by Carlos Aured I thought El Retorno de Walpurgis was a very poor film, both technically & conceptually. The script by star Jacinto Molina is a mess, a dull boring mess as well. After a fairly good & exploitative opening few minutes it quickly goes downhill for the remainder of it's duration. The film feels extremely choppy, characters come & go far too readily, the gypsy, Ilona & the policeman to name but three. No one is given any sort of meaningful character development apart from Daninsky (talk about giving yourself all the best lines) & I found it almost impossible to care about anyone or anything. Even though El Retorno de Walpurgis only lasts for 80 odd minutes uncut it felt much longer & I actually started to go to sleep towards the end. The editing is very poor, the film cuts & moves all over the place & at one point a sequence is edited in such a way that it appeared to me that Daninsky wasn't the Werewolf when in fact he was. On the positive side El Retorno de Walpurgis is a handsome film throughout with nice production design, impressive detailed period sets & costumes. Don't expect much blood or gore despite what you read as it's not exactly going to make anyone lose any sleep. A few bites, a scythe through someones body, an impaling & a decapitated head at the start. The blood itself looks very fake, in fact it looks a lot like red paint. There is a fair amount of nudity as well but again it's nothing that's going to amaze or shock you. Forget about the great looking artwork on the DVD/video box as El Retorno de Walpurgis has to feature one of the weakest Werewolves in horror film history, he looks more like a teddy bear with fake perfectly white plastic fangs complete with cute little semi circle ears sticking out the top of his head, bless 'im. The acting seemed poor & the rubbishy English dub probably doesn't do it any favours. Overall I was very disappointed by El Retorno de Walpurgis, I usually really like these cheap Euro exploitation films but I didn't dig this one at all. Despite a good opening sequence & nice period production design there is nothing by which I can recommend El Retorno de Walpurgis as a piece of enjoyable entertainment. Probably one to avoid.