Death has black claws
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Death has black claws |
| Original title | I Was a Teenage Werewolf |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1957 |
| length | 75 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gene Fowler Jr. |
| script | Herman Cohen |
| production | Herman Cohen |
| music | Paul Dunlap |
| camera | Joseph LaShelle |
| cut | George Gittens |
| occupation | |
| |
Death has black claws (originally I Was a Teenage Werewolf ) is an American horror film directed by Gene Fowler Jr. from 1957. The premiere in Germany took place on March 30, 1962.
action
Tony Rivers is a distraught, irascible young man. He tries to get his mental problems under control through hypnotherapy. The hypnotist, Dr. Brandon, however, is a mad scientist who turns his patient into a werewolf. Brandon believes humanity can only be saved if it returns to a pre-evolutionary level.
In his high school gym, Tony transforms into a werewolf, startled by the bell ringing right next to him. He kills a girl who trains there. Becoming human again, Tony is looking for Dr. Brandon, who in turn turns him into a werewolf. The scientist and his assistant Dr. Wagner want to take photos of the event. The phone rings, causing Tony to wake up. Still a werewolf, he kills Brandon and Wagner. When he tries to escape from the building, he is shot by the police.
Reviews
"A simple-minded horror film: What at the beginning still dresses up in the guise of a serious genre film about juvenile seductions, increasingly develops into a trivial horror story."
background
The low budget production ($ 82,000) grossed $ 2 million in the US. The success of the film also boosted Michael Landon's career, who later became famous for his role as "Little Joe" in the television series Bonanza . Landon played his third role in a movie and his first leading role here.
Following this film, the title combination I Was a Teenage… was continued in the USA . In the same year, Herman Cohen produced the film I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (again with Whit Bissell, this time as Frankenstein). A year later followed the sequel How to Make a Monster (German: The Satan with the thousand masks). Both subsequent films were directed by Herbert L. Strock. Other films with the aforementioned combination of titles were I Was a Teenage Mummy (1962), I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) (German: Atomic Thrill) and I Was a Teenage Faust (2002).
In Stephen King's novel It was one of the two horror films that the protagonists watched and thus came closer to solving the scary murders.
Samuel Z. Arkoff , who later worked as a producer of B horror films, introduces the audience to the film as an announcer.
Web links
- I Was a Teenage Werewolf in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Critique of Variety
- Review in the Time Out film guide (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Death has black claws in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed April 14, 2012
- ↑ according to IMDb