LOVER OF THE MONSTER is the English translation of the title. This movie is somehow linked to another movie starring Klaus Kinski, called THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD. Supposedly both films use some of the same footage although I don't remember seeing it. In both films, Kinski plays the heavy. No surprise there. I had read about both LOVER OF... and HAND THAT FEEDS...for years and was excited when I discovered they were both going to be available on Bluray. The label wisely released THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD first. Watched it. Enjoyed it. Very happy to own it. Satisfying 70s Italian horror. No Oscar winner but it definitely gave me what I expected from it. Then, I saw that LOVER OF THE MONSTER was being released by the same label. Now, I was warned by reviewers that LOVER OF THE MONSTER was painfully short of not only monsters, but blood, gore, and pretty much anything to set it above a made for TV movie. I figured those poor reviewers had seen some abridged version on DVD or VHS and that surely there was blood, gore and horror, if not a monster and would certainly be gloriously restored for this Bluray release, right? Afterall, THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD, allegedly made by the same people, had blood, gore and surgery scenes enough so that there was no doubt as to why Carlo Rambaldi was credited on that film. Rambaldi's handiwork is highly visible in HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD. He is also credited on LOVER OF THE MONSTER. What he did on LOVER OF THE MONSTER is anyone's guess. Little, if any, blood. No gore. Definitely no monsters...at least none created using latex rubber suits or makeup appliances. You have Kinski supposedly turning into a monster running around making weird faces but he still looks about the same as when he is not a monster. Makes me wonder exactly what Rambaldi did on this film. I've searched the internet and can find no behind the scenes stories about LOVER OF THE MONSTER. I don't know if makeup effects were created but edited out for some unknown reason or if prosthetic makeup was created to be worn by Kinski and he refused to wear it. Maybe some stuff was created and the schedule was too tight and they had no time to film it. I guess I'll never know, although a Making of LOVER OF THE MONSTER could only be more interesting than the actual movie. All I can say is; unless you are a fan of seeing Klaus Kinski make faces while running through the woods, there's really not much here to hold your attention. There's definitely more lover than monster here but really not much of either. No real excitement either. Unless your curiosity demands you watch this (as happened to me) or unless you are a Kinski completist, I suggest you skip this one and watch THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD instead. You'll get Kinski who is still an evil scientist and some hot women and a decent amount of cool, if not completely convincing, blood, gore and makeup effects by Carlo Rambaldi before he started working with Spielberg.
