Howl of the Devil

Howl of the Devil (1988)

El aullido del diablo

Hector Doriani is a stage and screen actor who feels himself living in the shadow of his dead twin brother, Alex Doriani, once a famous star of horror movies. Alex’s young son, Adrian, now lives with Hector in an isolated mansion in the countryside. To keep alive the memory of his father, the boy imagines himself visited by the spirit of the dead man, incarnated in a series of classic horror characters from the past. Eric, Alex’s former butler, now also works for Hector. His main role is to locate and bring to the mansion a series of women who are paid large sums of money by Hector to take part in various sadistic sex games. To complicate matters even further, the games always seem to end with the women getting slaughtered in various gruesome ways by a black gloved, masked killer. Also on hand is horror diva Caroline Munro, as Hector’s housekeeper and cook, who is being pursued by a local priest with whom she once had a much-regretted affair.

Date of release
1988-01-01
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (21)
Runtime
1h 37m
Genres
Horror
Director
Paul Naschy
Collection
Daninsky Werewolf Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

Howl of the Devil is a Spanish horror film written, directed by and starring Paul Naschy, along with Caroline Munro, Howard Vernon, and Naschy's son Sergio Molina. The film was finished in 1988 and intended as a comeback vehicle for Naschy, but due to various factors never received any significant theatrical release and was widely unavailable until 2021.

Production

After suffering a number of personal and professional setbacks, including the financial failure of his 1984 film Operación Mantis (El exterminio del macho) which led to the bankruptcy of his production company Aconito Films and the retirement of his friend and frequent co-star Julia Saly, and the death of his father in the same year, Paul Naschy's once-busy cinematic output had slowed considerably.

Due to Naschy playing a former horror actor, the film has been seen to have autiobiographical elements, including elements of Self-criticism. It includes a scene where Sergio Molina's character watches a clip of Naschy's 1983 film Panic Beats, which in context implies a direct comparison between Naschy's career and his character Alex Doriani.

Producer Augusto Boué, in a contemporary interview, described the film's budget as "relatively modest" and praised Naschy's frugality and resourcefulness as a director. Nevertheless, the production was beset with problems, including a stomach illness which swept the cast and crew, and an incident when an exploding dummy brought police officers concerned there had been a terrorist bombing. Naschy said of the production that "...it was hell.

The film was the subject of some dispute over the screenplay; a man named Salvador Sáinz, who had previously contacted Naschy to propose a collaboration, later variously claimed that he had co-written the film or that Naschy had stolen it from him.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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