This movie goes by many names. Beyond the translation of the title we used — The Monsters of Terror, it is known as Dracula vs. Frankenstein in the UK, Reincarnator in France, Assignment Terror in the U.S. and was almost titled El Hombre que Vino de Ummo (The Man Who Came From Ummo), in reference to Michael Rennie’s alien character.

Count Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy forever!) has been revived from his death at the end of The Mark of the Wolfman as aliens remove the silver bullets from his body — yes, really! — as part of their plan to use a carnival as the cover to control Tao-Tet the mummy, Frankenstein’s — err, I mean Farancksalan’s — monster and a vampire named Count De Meirhoff. Their plan is to learn why humans fear these monsters and use them to attack humans. I mean, I guess that’s a good plan. They have plenty of technology and it really feels like the kind of scam that an 80’s TV cartoon villain would come up with. But hey — that’s the plan they have and they’re going with it. If you had access to the book Anthology of the Monsters by Professor Ulrich von Farancksalan, you might do the very same thing.

In a bit of irony, these evil aliens are led by Dr. Odo Warnoff. I say that because Michael Rennie also played Klaatu, the good alien that came to warn us all in The Day The Earth Stood Still.  He’s helped by Maleva Kerstein, another dead scientist (Karin Dor, who was Helga Brandt from You Only Live Twice) ready to destroy the world.

Can our werewolf hero save humanity from aliens and their monsters through hand-to-claw combat? Will Inspector Tobermann (Craig Hill, The Blood Stained Shadow) be an effective policeman? Will our Daninsky need to be shot by the woman who loves him, Ilsa (Patty Shephard, who would go on to be Countess Wandesa Dárvula de Nadasdy in The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman and also show up in Edge of the Axe)?

I’ve seen plenty of reviews make fun of this movie. Look, life kind of is horrible. You’d do well to watch this and shut off your brain and experience the wonder of a movie that pits a furry Spanish lothario against every Universal monster minus the budget. Live a little. Remember what fun is like.

You can watch this on YouTube. Or grab the RoninFlix blu ray and do yourself a wonderful kindness.

The movie begins with a child runs through the woods being chased by a werewolf which corners and kills her. All that’s left is a teddy bear which we soon see being held by a drifter named Ian Richards as he tries to get a ride. He gets a job helping to rebuild a church, but by the time the full moon comes back, he’s soon captured by them.

Oh man — The Howling series of films has brought us here to the sixth movie of several films that rarely, if ever, tie together. Are you ready?

This film adds a sideshow angle, complete with Deep Roy — Teeny Weeny from The NeverEnding Story, Fellini from Flash Gordon, the Tin Man in Return to Oz, all of the Oompa Loompas from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Tim Burton film — and a vampire leader of the circus battling the entire town of Canton Bluff.

Director Hope Perello also made the Full Moon kid movie Pet Shop and a drama entitled St. Patrick’s Day.

So how does this all tie in? Mary Lou from The Rebirth has a brief, non-speaking part as an audience member at the beginning of the film. They actually explain this in the next installment, New Moon Rising.

You can watch this on Tubi.

An unofficial remake of Cat People, this Alfred Shaughnessy-directed (he wrote Upstairs Downstairs) film is all about Leonora Johnson (Barbara Shelley, perhaps Hammer’s best-known female actress with roles in Dracula, Prince of Darkness; The Gorgon; Rasputin, The Mad Monk and Quatermass and the Pit), who may have inherited a family curse — when angered, she transforms into a murderous cat — along with an ancestral estate and lots of money.

Somehow, Dr. Brian Marlowe is still Leonora’s psychologist, despite them dating years before. I have no idea how he’s able to serve in this role, which feels like a violation of ethics, nor stay married to his wife Dorothy when Leonora continually is either trying to sleep with him or transform into a wolf and kill her. Dorothy is either a saint or a moron, as she keeps forgiving and helping.

If you were at the drive-in in 1957, you probably could have caught this on a double bill with another American-International Pictures release, The Amazing Colossal Man. Shelly would also star in another cat-themed horror movie, The Shadow of the Cat.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime and Tubi.

Hammer had already made films for Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and The Mummy. Surely it was time for the werewolf, with this being the first furry horror film shot in color, as well as Oliver Reed’s first starring role.

This wolf — Leon — has a wild origin story. His mother (Yvonne Romain, Devil Doll) was a mute jailer’s daughter who was assaulted by a beggar who had the gall to complain at a nobelman’s wedding and ends up imprisoned for 18 years. She had turned down the rich man herself and was sent to the dungeons, which caused her to be impregnated. Once released to “entertain” the nobleman, she kills him instead and runs into the forest.

She gives birth and dies. Because the beggar had died right after attacking her, that makes young Leon an orphan. He’s raised by Don Alfredo Corledo and his housekeeper Teresa. As he was born on Christmas Day, that means that he’s cursed to become a werewolf, already hunting for the blood of goats before he’s even out of puberty.

Leon finds work in a winery, but become despondent when he realizes that his station in life will never allow him to marry the owner’s daughter. When a co-worker takes him to a house of ill repute, his wolf nature comes out and he ends up killing one of the girls and his friend.

Too late, our hero learns that the love of a good woman can keep the wolf in check. Seriously, British werewolves are crazy, because you can become one without being bitten. You just need to not be born on December 25th. And man, if you’re unlucky in love, people are going to get, well, wolfed down.

Eventually, Leon’s adoptive father must make a silver bullet and take care of matters. All of this period drama longing seems to take forever to get to that transformation though. I remember this airing on UHF TV in my single digit years and just fiending for the moment that the man became wolf. It takes nearly sixty minutes of the movie’s 93-minute run time before we get to see Reed go fully hirsute.

Before being released, the British Board of Film Classification gave Hammer Films this edict: This movie could either have scenes of sex or violence, but not both. So they went with violence.

The publicity shots for this and the images of Reed in full werewolf mode were pretty popular. The actual film doesn’t live up to what was in my mind as a kid, but it’s still pretty fun.

I loved Adrián García Bogliano’s Here Comes the Devil, so I was excited for this werewolf film. It’s not as amazing as that film, but there are some interesting parts to this story.

Will McKinley (Ethan Embry, Empire Records) has moved his blind vet dad Ambrose (Stakeland, We Are What We Are) into a retirement home. Ambrose is angry, as he feels that he can live on his own. Despite the attentions of the ladies of this community — Tina Louise (Gilligan’s Island, Evils of the Night) Rutanya Alta (Mommie Dearest, Amityville II: The Possession) and Caitlin O’Heaney (Savage Weekend, He Knows You’re Alone) in great casting — but he only really cares about Shadow, his German Shepherd service dog. Then, one night, a werewolf breaks into his duplex and kills his neighbor (Karen Lynn Gorney, Saturday Night Fever) and his beloved canine companion.

Ambrose uses all his military skills to track down the wolf, as well as his enhanced hearing, as he recognizes a rasp in the breathing of the killer. Could it be the priest (Tom Noonan!)? The man in the iron lung? Or the strange James Griffin (Lance Guest)?

The film kind of plods along until the very intense close and emotional letter that Ambrose sends his son. I just wish that the film had more werewolves and less narrative leaps to make, like a blind man being placed in an unfamiliar home and not knowing where the furniture is.

There are parts of this movie that I realy liked, but I expected so much more. You may enjoy it more than me, so check it out on Amazon Prime.

It’s pretty amazing that this French-language film played cineplexes in the United States, but I saw it twice in theaters during its run and bought the DVD as soon as it came out. This is a film that I am evangelical about, purchasing numerous copies for people and recommending it to countless more.

How many other movies do you know that have incestual werewolves battling the martial arts of a royal naturalist and his Native American companion while Monica Belucci plays a courtesan who is really an assassin for the Pope?

Grégoire de Fronsac, a knight of King Louis XV of France, and his Iroquois friend Mani (Mark Dacascos) have come to the French village of Gévaudan. A mysterious beast has been killing people and seems to be controlled by a human master.

The truth is that the town — in fact the entire country — is consumed in a conspiracy to undermine the king of France. Somehow, this beast will help their cause, as the Brotherhood of the Wolf wants to restore God through blood and chaos.

Not many period pieces combine horror, martial arts and mystery all in one movie, but I’ve always found this combination to be perfect. There’s also an audacious shot of Belucci’s cleavage that transforms into a mountain range that is so ridiculous that I cheered in the theater.

This was based on a true story, as the Beast of Gévaudan was a wolf-like creature that killed 100 people in the Auvergne and South Dordogne regions of France from 1764 to 1767. Also, all od the primary characters, with the exception of Mani, actually were real people who lived during the time of King Louis XV.

Director Christopher Gans also made Crying Freeman, a Japanese anime adaption also with Dacascos, a 2014 reimagination of Beauty and the Beast (starring Vincent Cassel as The Beast, who — spoiler — is a member of The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and video game adaption Silent Hill.

There’s really no other movie like this. I’ve barely scratched the surface of it in my explanation, but that’s because I want you to discover it for yourself.

A sequel to House of Frankenstein, this would be the seventh film to feature Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange*) and the fourth for both Count Dracula (John Carradine) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Although it was a success, it would be the last of the serious Universal Monster films, with the comedic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein coming out in 1948.

Director Erle C. Kenton made 131 movies between 1916 and 1957, including several horror movies for Universal like The Cat Creeps and The Ghost of Frankenstein. He started as an actor with Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops and finished his career on TV, directing shows like The Texan and Telephone Time.

Baron Latos — come on, everyone knows that you’re Dracula — ha come to Visaria to discover a cure for vampirism from Dr. Franz Edelmann (Onslow Stevens, Them!) and his assistants Milizia (Martha O’Driscoll, Ghost Catchers) and Nina (Jane Adams, who was given her first name by American servicemen and played Vicki Vale in the second Batman and Robin movie serial). Of note is that Nina is a hunchback, which is certainly a gender switch way ahead of its time.

Edelmann has been working on the clavaria formosa plant, which has the ability to reshape bone. How this is possible is the kind of horror movie science that requires you to just accept it and move on.

Soon, Larry Talbot also shows up and he wants the cure for his lycanthropy. What, did Edelmann put out an ad in a trade magazine for monsters? They don’t believe him, so he begs Inspector Holtz (Lionel Atwill, who memorable was quoted in Hollywood Babylon as saying, “All women love the men they fear. All women kiss the hand that rules them… I do not treat women in such soft fashion. Women are cat creatures. Their preference is for a soft fireside cushion, for delicate bowls of cream, for perfumed leisure and for a master – which is where and how they belong.”) to lock him up. He transforms and then the doctor theorizes that pressure on the brain is why he turns furry, not the moon. He responds by flinging himself into the ocean, where he survives and washes up inside the castle, where an unresponsive Frankenstein’s Monster still holds the skeleton of Dr. Niemann from House of Frankenstein.

If you’re thinking — I bet Dracula tries to sleep with that comely blonde assistant, because after all Martha O’Driscoll played Daisy Mae in the original Li’l Abner, you’d be right. The quick-thinking Edelmann drags his coffin into the sun and sets him ablaze, but before long, a blood transfusion gone wrong leads to Dracula’s blood making him evil.

By the end, the good doctor is breaking necks, villagers descend on the castle and Talbot ends up being the one to save the day, wiping out every single other monster. This would be Chaney’s last Universal contract film, although they’d bring him back for the aforementioned Abbott and Costello movie.

Throughout the production, his drinking was out of hand. For example, Glenn Strange was stuck in the cumbersome Frankenstein’s Monster makeup and also had to spend the day in quicksand. He could barely feel his feet, so Chaney helped the only way he knew how. He got the actor smashed thanks to a bottle of scotch.

Speaking of sad stories, Atwill died a few months after this movie from lung cancer. The last few years of his life were a mess. He had married socialite Louise Cromwell Brooks, the ex-wife of General Patton, but after their 1939 separation, he went a little wild. So wild that a 1940 Christmas party, where at the least stag loops were shown and at the worst underage girls were assaulted, ended up getting him in front of a grand jury on morals charges. Sure, he was judged guilty of felony perjury and sentenced to five years probation. But thanks to the Hays Office — who also took the fangs )pun intended) out of the original version of this script — his career went from Universal to movie serials and lower than B movies. He died while making one of those serials, Lost City of the Jungle.

This movie was a big part of monster kid’s lives, as it was part of the Son of Shock package that was sold to TV stations in 1958. The other movies are Before I Hang, Behind the Mask, The Black Room, The Boogie Man Will Get You, The Face Behind the Mask, Island of Doomed Men, The Man They Could Not Hang, The Man Who Lived Twice, The Man With Nine Lives, Night of Terror, The Devil Commands, Black Friday, The Bride of Frankenstein, Captive Wild Women, The Ghost of Frankenstein, House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man’s Revenge, Jungle Captive, The Mummy’s Curse and The Soul of a Monster.

Neal Sundstrom — yes, the director of Space Mutiny — made this, the fifth of many werewolf movies that are not always connected. This time, the movie plays out like a furry Ten Little Indians.

We start in Budapest, where the owners of a castle are killed sometime in 1489 by a murderous couple who then kill themselves. Yet before they pass away, they notice that a baby survived.

500 years later, a whole bunch of somehow connected people comes to the same castle, invited by a count. They soon learn that Satan himself once controlled the wolves that would lay waste to the people of this country.

Thus begins a game of “who is the werewolf” with no werewolf break to help us along the way. And yes, in case you wondered, this has nothing to do with the Gary Brandner source material.

Cedric Sundstrom was originally to direct this (he did the third and fourth American Ninja movies), but he was already working on another movie. He recommended his brother, hoping that he would have a better time here than on the aforementioned Space Mutiny, which he took over halfway through filming. Instead, he found himself at war with writer Clive Turner (who was behind the fourth, fifth and Howling: New Moon Rising films in this long and, well I guess storied history of this franchise) and the film’s cinematographer leaving on the first day as since he couldn’t speak English, he couldn’t work with the director.

You can watch this on Tubi.