CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF had several things going for it, not the least of which was Oliver Reed as the adult Leon (the werewolf). Besides Reed, the other truly memorable thing about CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF was the makeup: for my money, it was by FAR the coolest werewolf makeup in Horror Movie history until Rick Baker's stab at the remake of THE WOLFMAN a few years ago. THE LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF revives the CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF look, to good effect. Here we have a Wild Boy, Etoile, raised by wolves, who becomes a werewolf when he reaches adulthood. When he's on the prowl, we see things from his tinted-red point of view, a la THE WOLFEN. He works at the zoo and uses the sewer system to access back alleys and other unlit hunting grounds. Peter Cushing turns up as a pathologist who begins to put two and two together, which results in a brief but violent encounter in the sewer. Cushing, interestingly enough, wants to STUDY the werewolf- who actually SPEAKS to him at one point-, but the men with guns have other ideas about what to do with a werewolf. Not a bad little movie, all things considered.
Review of Legend of the Werewolf
