Director: Jean Yarbrough
Year: 1946
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: The Curse of the Allenbys
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
About to get married, a young woman finds herself getting cold feet about the incident with the help of a series of strange murders taking place in the city at the same time, and as she fights the idea that she’s become a werewolf and goes out committing the murders, tries to find out what’s happening.
Review:
Overall, this was a solid enough drama but a lacking genre effort. The idea of this one working a psychological approach to the question of whether she’s become the werewolf in question running around committing murders in the city offers up some of the film’s best aspects. The first half goes through the notion of how she’s come to believe in the story as the background information on the incidents occurring around the outskirts of the main story, the different interruptions that take place at her wedding due to the need for consoling her freakouts, and how all of these interactions paint her as the culprit responsible is all rather impressive. As the clues start to build up, whether it’s her dreams that match the reported incidents on new victims, waking up covered in strange blood, or continually being dismissed about not being responsible for the incidents, there’s a great build-up about the truth surrounding what’s going on that ends up gaslighting her belief with everything coming together to paint her as the one responsible.
While this is going on, none of the activities used here are effective at giving this a genuine horror atmosphere. The closest this gets is several incidents involving police inspectors patrolling the park grounds for the responsible party late at night in fog-riddled trails that effectively evoke the kind of Gothic atmosphere that usually accompanies these kinds of features. Beyond these scenes, the film doesn’t bring about any kind of threatening motion for the idea of her being the werewolf, as everyone placates the idea and tries to cover it up rather than deal with the kind of horrific action taking place if she’s the one genuinely committing everything. If that were to be the case, she’d be in protective custody to prove that, and no one would help further a false mindset she has, which helps to highlight the ruse inadvertently. It would seem likely that there’d be someone looking out for her at night due to the concerning series of clues pointing to her, but there’s none of that, nor even an attempt at special effects, which can make a genre label feel somewhat challenging.
Overview: **/5
A watchable enough if overall troubling feature, there’s a lot to like here, although most of those features are all factors that make it feel like being a genuine genre effort a big question mark. Give it a shot if you enjoy this kind of feature or are unbothered by the drawbacks displayed here, while those expecting the genre fare or even a physical werewolf should outright avoid this.
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