cult film freak: MERCEDES MOLINA & PAUL NASCHY 'NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST'

Title: NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST/La maldición de la bestia Year: 1975 Rating: ***1/2

In the 1975 exploitation/horror EXORCISM, tall beauty Mercedes Molina gets possessed by a demon, and priest Paul Naschy has to help... while in the same year's NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST aka THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI, she has to help him after a monstrous transformation...

How it happens is rather complicated, all during a snowy expedition to a hidden cavern where the legendary Yeti (Abominable Snowman) dwells... as Naschy's rogue adventurer is trapped in a cavern with two gorgeous nymphs, which sounds like a problem you want to have... but he winds up turning into a familiar monster for the Spanish actor that's played them all...

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Hence THE WEREWOLF, who only sporadically appears running around in the snow, killing various antagonists... like a rapist who attacked his true love, Molina, who, backed by gorgeous girl-next-door Verónica Miriel, is part of another exploration team: making this BEAST seem like two separate stories that never really connect...

Until the action-packed finale that provided the most blood of any Naschy picture thus far... and while the clean film print is more aesthetically liken to a TV-movie than the kind of grainy Spanish horrors that adorned the 1970's, this 11th hour cram-session of sword battles and last-minute rescues (where a suddenly intrepid Mercedes battles evil vixen Silvia Solar) keeps this NIGHT from becoming yet another hokey howler.