Paul Naschy: Spain's Ambassador of Horror pt.5
Wrapping up my five part series on the Hispanic Horror Icon
Howl of the Devil (1987) is a painfully personal film, as though Naschy were exposing his broken heart to the viewer in a cinematic purging ritual. Feeling abandoned and unappreciated by the Spanish film industry, middle-aged and having just survived a heart attack, he threw everything he had into this strange film.
His main role is as Hector, an embittered failed actor who has always lived in the shadow of his famous brother, a Spanish Lon Chaney (also played by Naschy/Molina) who died some years prior and left him with his fortune and his son, Adrián. A truly awful man, Hector has an appetite for prostitutes, with whom he plays theatrical sex games when he’s not berating his nephew (played by Naschy’s son, Sergio Molina) and sexually harassing the maid, Carmen (Caroline Munro). Meanwhile there’s an 80’s-style slasher on the loose offing the ladies of ill repute.
While uncle Hector is banging prostitutes and the local priest is conspiring with the local drunk to get Carmen to be his lover, little Adrián lives in a world of his own where he receives periodic visits from his favorite monster movie characters, all played by Naschy). He knew, as all grown up Monster Kids know, that children are much more likely to identify with monsters than be afraid of them. The effect is both poignant and chilling.
Howl of the Devil plays like a much darker version of the classic Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), in which two young girls go looking for the Frankenstein Monster after seeing the Universal classic. There is little doubt in my mind that both films inspired Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), specifically in the way in which they jump back and forth between the external world of adults and the internal world of a children who are powerless over their surroundings.
On the one hand it’s an obvious playground for its writer/director/star, who gives himself the opportunity to play Rasputin, the Frankenstein Monster, Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera, Waldemar Daninsky, Quasimodo, Fu Manchu and even The Devil himself all in the same film! There’s a gleefulness nastiness in the murders: the killer doesn’t merely slash his victims throats, he saws on them. But there is a sad, even mournful tone to Howl, and a real tenderness in the scenes between Adrián and his beloved monsters, who never fail to show him love and support.
It’s a sad little Horror movie... and boy do I love me a sad little Horror movie.
I find in Naschy one of the most charming and touching figures in the history of Horror cinema. He was a hyper-sensitive man who channeled his feelings of loneliness and alienation into his on-screen stand in, the tormented werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky. As a little boy he took delight and comfort in monster movies, and like most dreamers and wounded souls the loves of childhood carried over into maturity.
It seems strange that an athletically inclined man from a well-to-do family would feel like such an outsider, but the interior lives of people are often inversions of what we perceive on the surface. Naschy was stout and could never be accused of looking like a proper “movie star”, but he also couldn’t be accused of being ugly. Then again, even truly beautiful people can feel ugly. If the mind can make a Hell of Heaven, then surely it can make perfectly ordinary people feel like monsters. Clearly, there was something inside Naschy that made him feel different to the point of monstrosity... even if it was just a love of monsters.
“Quite simply, it's me,” he said of Waldemar Daninsky. “The pity is I can't become a werewolf in true life. All too often I would like to. It's obvious that in the works of every man there is much of his true self. Like Waldemar, I too have been left aside and misunderstood.”
You may have felt left aside and misunderstood, Senor Molina, but you will certainly never be forgotten. Your films will continue to delight and inspire countless new generations of Horror and Monster Movie fans to come. And who knows? Maybe the next is reading this right now and ready to discover the wealth of dark wonders to be found in your filmography. Nothing could delight me more.