Legend of the Werewolf was released by the Tyburn production company, who only released a handful of horror films during the mid-seventies. It’s obvious that the studio was trying to imitate the successful Hammer films, and indeed they’ve succeeded in capturing the right style as Legend of the Werewolf looks and feels like a Hammer movie, and the company have even managed to get prolific Hammer director Freddie Francis on board, as well as one of the heavyweights of horror; Peter Cushing. The obvious film to compare this one to is the sixties classic ‘Curse of the Werewolf’, and indeed the two films share a lot of plot elements in common. The film takes place in 19th century France, and focuses on a young boy who was kidnapped and brought up by wolves. Naturally, it’s not long before the circus roll into town and spots this boy. He soon becomes the main attraction at the circus, and in spite of this; he manages to grow into a strapping young man. However, the wolf in him soon comes to surface and he begins to rampage through the local population.
Despite capturing the right atmosphere, this film isn’t as good as the best that Hammer has to offer. The plot simply isn’t all that interesting, and the film doesn’t manage to capture that mini epic feel of the earlier Hammer classic. The plot is also rather mundane and if you’ve seen more than a handful of werewolf movies, you’re likely to have already seen all that this film has to offer. Not even Peter Cushing manages to lift this above the mundane in genre terms, as his performance here doesn’t feature his usual enthusiasm, and is really just a variation on his classic portrayal of vampire hunter Van Helsing. Cushing starred in a handful of low budget films in the seventies in which he barely had any screen time, and I’m pleased to say that here he features quite prominently. The plot line is more than a little bit stretched, and the film suffers quite often because of this. Simply put; there isn’t enough distraction from the central plot idea. Overall, however, this film adequately provides ninety minutes of entertainment, and even though it can’t stand up to most of Hammer’s films; I did enjoy watching it.
