Los Monstruos del Terror

Los Monstruos del terror
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Hugo Fregonese Eberhard Meichsner Tulio Demicheli
Produced by	Jaime Prades
Written by	Jacinto Molina
Starring	Paul Naschy Michael Rennie Karin Dor
Music by	Rafael Fitó Franco Salina
Cinematography	Godofredo Pacheco
Edited by	Emilio Rodríguez
Production company	Eichberg-Film International Jaguar Cinematografica Producciones Jaime Prades
Distributed by	American International Pictures (USA, theatrical), Castilla Films (Spain)
Release dates	24 February 1970 (1970-02-24) (France)
Running time	85 minutes(Spain)
Country	Spain West Germany Italy
Language	Spanish

Los Monstruos del Terror (English: The Monsters of Terror), also known as Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Reincarnator and Assignment Terror, is a 1970 Spanish-German-Italian horror film directed by Tulio Demicheli, Hugo Fregonese and Eberhard Meichsner. The last two were uncredited in the film's original print. It is the third in a series of movies featuring the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, played by Paul Naschy. It was originally slated to be called The Man Who Came From Ummo, referring to the Michael Rennie character.

An English language one-sheet exists for this film, bearing the title Assignment Terror, so AIP may have theatrically disttributed the film in the U.S. It was shown on American late-night TV in the 70's as Assignment Terror, and was later released on VHS as Dracula vs Frankenstein (not to be confused with the infamous Al Adamson film of the same name). Although most TV prints of this film are faded "pan and scan" messes, there is a DVD release from Luminous Film and Video Wurks that preserves the letterboxed image, has nice color and is apparently uncut (although a bit splicy). Reportedly many of the Luminous DVD-Rs self-destructed after several years due to the thick labels glued onto them, and it's difficult to find one that still works.

Synopsis

Aliens, running a traveling circus as a cover, revive a vampire, a werewolf, a mummy and Frankenstein's monster with a plan to use them to take over the world. They want to discover the reason that these monsters are so frightening to Earthlings. They then plan to create an army of such monsters using their findings.

The werewolf they revive (Waldemar Daninsky) saves the world by destroying the other 3 monsters in hand-to-hand combat and ultimately blowing up the aliens' underground base, although he is shot to death in the process by a woman who loves him enough to end his torment. The werewolf has no specific origin in this film; it is assumed that the events in this film are continued from the ending of La Marca del Hombre Lobo (1968) in which Daninsky was transformed into a werewolf through the bite of a werewolf named Imre Wolfstein. (Strangely, the wolfman was killed in the same exact manner in that first film, but the aliens surgically remove the silver bullets to revive him.)

Monstruos del Terror was followed by a 1970 film called The Fury of the Wolfman.

Production

Lead actor Paul Naschy also wrote the screenplay. The original shooting title was The Man Who Came from Ummo (El Hombre que Vino de Ummo), but the producer changed it to The Monsters of Terror. Direction was split between two people, Tulio Demichelli and Hugo Fregonese. Filming was interrupted because of financial difficulties and also resulted in the script not being filmed as it was written. Whole segments of the script involving flying saucers and a Golem were never filmed as the result of sorely lacking funds.

External links

• Los Monstruos del Terror at IMDb
• Los Monstruos del Terror is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• DVD available at http://www.lfvw.com (distributor)
• Los Monstruos del Terror at AllMovie