“They shot at me with silver bullets. No bullet brought death to me. I’m condemned to wander about the world, a lost soul.”

Shalen’s rating: Seven out of ten silver bullets that cannot, apparently, kill a werewolf.

Shalen’s review: The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman is a keeper, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, it’s bad for you, but in the same way that chocolate is bad for you. It’s fun while it lasts, and afterward you feel slightly guilty, but you still want more. At least, I did.

Watching this film makes me want to go back and re-watch my copy of Count Yorga, Vampire, another bad old seventies vampire flick. I do not, however, recommend watching either film while lifting weights, as it is easily possible to injure yourself if you drop a 50-lb. barbell on your foot while laughing at the dialogue. Trust me on this. I’m just going to tell you about the plot and let it speak for itself, because there is no other way you are going to comprehend its joy and wonder.

It starts with a couple of doctors and a dead guy. The dead guy has two fang marks in the center of a pentagram mark on the left side of his chest. One doctor explains to the other that this is the mark of a werewolf, though I’m not sure from what portion of Eastern European tradition he obtained this information. No, wait, silly me. Later on Waldemar Daninsky says he became a werewolf while traveling in Tibet, so clearly it’s the Tibetans who use a five-pointed geometric shape to indicate supernatural evil of the large and hairy persuasion. Or maybe it’s actually the Mark of the Yeti.

Anyway, one doctor decides to disprove the other one’s superstitious blather by removing the silver bullets from Waldemar’s chest! The other party informs us that “If you remove the silver bullets, the werewolf will return to life.” Little did we know that werewolf hunters must use special low-velocity rounds to prevent through-and-throughs, or their work is all for naught. Anyway, Waldemar regains consciousness, turns big and furry, and slays them both.

Meanwhile, in a bar with a large rack of postcards, Marcel and his apparent girlfriend Elvira (pronounced “El-vee-ra”) are discussing her Ph.D. project, which is about an evil Hungarian countess. You get nowhere with the review board if you do your project on an evil marquise or baroness. Countess Wandesa was a particularly evil woman, as we can see from the flashback that shows her wearing a very seventies-style updo and holding a black mass featuring a large painting of Satan with a face where his genitalia should be. Apparently she drank the blood of virgins to remain youthful, and later some lovers of hers were annoyed by this and thus stabbed her to death with a silver cross. Then they buried her with it. This will be important later.

So Elvira tells Marcel that she and her friend Genevieve have found a map to Wandesa’s tomb, which is in… Northern France! Of course! Those lovers must have really wanted her out of Hungary. Anyway, they go puttering off in their car, which runs out of gas right next to Waldemar’s house. He invites them to stay a couple of nights until the local handyman comes with his truck and ride to the village to get more petrol. Of course Waldemar has no electricity, though his water taps seem to work fine. He serves them some cold cuts for dinner and looks startled at the mention of Wandesa’s name.

He also turns out to have a crazy sister, Elizabeth, who shows up in the middle of the night to fondle Elvira and mutter. This is facilitated by the lack of locks on the interior doors in Waldemar’s house, which is mentioned but really never explained. Frankly, if I had a crazy sibling running around, I’d definitely want some door locks. He apologizes for her behavior, and the next day he goes for a walk with Elvira and they have a nice little chat about how Elizabeth saw their parents die and never got over it.

Then it’s off to look for Wandesa’s tomb, which is supposedly buried at a crossroads, though when we are shown the place it appears to be in the middle of some trees atop a hill. There are eight-inch letters carved into the big stone lid, clearly visible to the naked eye from several feet away, so it’s easy to see why the tomb has remained hidden for so long. Genevieve whips out her camera to take some pictures of the mummylike corpse, while Elvira wanders off to look at the nearby ruined church.

The ruins are apparently occupied by an undead monk, who startles Elvira sufficiently that she shrieks for help. Waldemar runs up and flails at the monk, causing him to disintegrate. Elvira falls into his arms. Genevieve, showing admirable scholarship as well as archaeological skill, reaches right into Wandesa’s coffin and jerks the cross out of her heart. She then promptly cuts herself on its sharp edge, causing blood to drip down onto Wandesa’s open jaws. Then they carefully put the lid back on the coffin and go home, having done an exhausting day’s work.

Cut to that night, when Genevieve hears an eerie voice calling her name and promptly jumps up and runs off into the woods. She meets Wandesa at the coffin, now looking young and lovely and dressed like the love child of Morticia Adams and the Flying Nun. Wandesa nibbles her variously, which judging by Genevieve’s rapturous expression, is lots more fun than boring old sex.

And we’re back at the house again, and Genevieve comes wandering back with newly acquired fangs and blue lipstick. She dances in slow motion up the hallway to Elvira, talking about how great it is to hang out with Wandesa, and Elvira is sold on the concept right away except for dumb old Waldemar showing up with silver cross in hand. Genevieve is none too thrilled with this, and flounces away, apparently pausing on her way out to impale Elizabeth on a pointy-topped gate (we never see this happen, just the body, and it’s never really explained why she was stabbed instead of bitten).

A note on the vampire fangs in this film, by the way. Apparently the costume people realized, as modern filmmakers seldom do, that if you’re going to have fang marks an inch apart the FANGS need to be an inch apart. Human canines, however, are closer to two and a half inches apart. So what they did in this film was to put the fake fangs on over the second pair of incisors, resulting in an adorable bunny-toothed look. This also makes it impossible for the actresses to close their mouths, so they have this permanent grimace of vampiric glee that really detracts from any attempt at either sexiness or scariness.

We see where this is going, right? Elvira is later visited by Genevieve, who manages to nibble her despite her complete and utter lack of resistance, only to be stabbed to death by the loyal Waldemar. Who, by the way, can only be released from his own personal curse by being stabbed through the heart by one who loves him, using Wandesa’s cross. They never really explain why it has to be that particular cross, either, but apparently only a Hungarian cross can lift a Tibetan curse. It makes as much sense as anything else in this movie.

Genevieve’s death nullifies Elvira’s vampirism, leaving her available for Wandesa to kidnap in preparation for Walpurgis Night. Did I mention about Walpurgis? Apparently it’s sort of like Halloween, in the sense that dark powers are at their zenith and so forth. Before this happens, Marcel shows up to try and get Elvira to leave with him. He also threatens Waldemar with the law, since apparently he’s a police inspector. Who knew? Anyway, this leaves him available for kidnapping also.

It turns out that Wandesa wants to summon Satan to rule the world, and Walpurgis is the only time she can do it. She almost succeeds, but Waldemar shows up with that darn cross again, menacing her and the Prince of Darkness (played by a distorted shadow and a growling noise) before sticking the cross into the wall in a convenient spot. Then he turns into a werewolf, not having previously noticed that the moon was full, and he and Wandesa go at it for about thirty seconds. Wandesa dies, apparently from having Waldemar trip and fall on her, and she promptly disintegrates into goo and a number of maggots and, inexplicably, earthworms. Apparently mulch is an important component of your typical Satanic Hungarian vampire.

Elvira decides, at this point, to leap up and display the only moment of initiative she shows in the entire film. She grabs the cross out of the wall and stabs Waldemar with it, saying “Now your soul is free!” He dies, turning back into his full-lipped and depressed-looking self. She falls into Marcel’s arms. Exit both, and the film is mercifully over.

I hope this summary reveals to you, dear readers, exactly what a marvelous cinematic achievement this film is. I haven’t yet mentioned the wonderful Technicolor palette, in which everyone’s skin is either white like paper or orange like fruit, or the seventies eye makeup that just screams “Wash your face!” or the incredible realism of the werewolf transformation scenes. The only thing that could have improved this film would be ninjas. I’m sure someone has already realized this and made The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Ninjas, but until I can find it, watch it, and die, this film will always be the vampire film. I am buying it as soon as I can. I highly recommend you do the same.

Intermission!

• Vampires move only in slow motion.
• When sleeping alone, women often wear heavy eye shadow and mascara.
• Being bitten with fangs feels just great.
• Werewolves look a lot like wookies, only shorter.
• A person turning into a werewolf sounds just like a person throwing up for two minutes straight.
• How very sexy babydoll night gowns were? Especially with huge stiff pleats.
• It’s the full moon almost every night where Waldemar lives.
• What a great name Waldemar is? “Oh, Waldemar, I love you so…” No wonder Elvira calls him “Darling” all the time.
• Elvira gets fondled by, let’s see, every character who is on screen for more than thirty seconds?
• Northern France is a very occult region?
• Frenchmen sometimes have Hungarian accents and sometimes English or American ones.
• When the crazed man stabs Waldemar, the knife obviously just indents his leather jacket. You can see the little marks the dull point leaves.