Waldemar Daninsky is now an anthropologist and he’s part of an expedition, led by Professor Lacombe (Josep Castillo Escalona), to the Himalayas to find the Yeti, the fabled Abominable Snowman. You have to admit that’s a setup that is very promising.
All the passes have been closed by bad weather. All except one. There is a man who knows of a pass open all the year round. The guy is unfortunately not entirely sane. He is haunted by nightmares of the Demons of the Blue Moon. They scare him more than the Yeti. He is however persuaded to act as guide.
The expedition sets off, with half a dozen or so men and two young women plus the guide and a team of sherpas. You’ll be amused to hear that one of the expedition members is named Larry Talbot.
Daninsky and the guide decide to scout out the pass on their own. They are soon lost and Daninsky finds himself alone.
That’s when he finds the cave. There’s some kind of shrine. And two gorgeous babes. The girls are very friendly. Daninsky has a most enjoyable roll in the hay with the girls but then things get weird and scary.
At this point it becomes obvious that the entire Daninsky backstory from the previous films has been scrapped. This is in fact a radical reboot of the franchise, with a brand-new origin story for Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf. It all starts for him in that cave, with those two scary chicks. Scary chicks with sharp teeth.
The expedition is attacked by bandits. There’s an evil warlord named Sekkar Khan (Luis Induni) to whom the bandits seem to be answerable.
More scarily there’s Wandesa (Silvia Solar). She is beautiful, sadistic evil and lustful. She has a dungeon full of babes and her plans for these girls are decidedly unpleasant.
Sekkar Khan is suffering from some horrible disease. Wandesa is trying to cure him. He thinks Professor Lacombe might be able to cure him. That enrages Wandesa. Her power rests on Sekkar Khan’s belief that she is his only hope.
Daninsky is now a werewolf. Professor Lacombe and the two girl members of the expedition are in Sekkar Khan’s hands. Then Daninsky falls into the hands of the arch-villain as well. Of course it isn’t particularly easy to hold a werewolf captive. Despite the wholly new origin story this is still recognisably Waldemar Daninsky - a brave honourable man cursed by a terrible affliction.
The bad news is that this is not really a yeti movie, although a yeti does put it a brief appearance. This is a werewolf movie. The good news is that it’s a very cool werewolf movie.
It also incorporates hints of other genres - women-in-prison movies, lost civilisation stores and mad scientist movies.
There’s plenty of mayhem and a fair bit of nudity. Exploitation movie fans will not be disappointed by this movie.
Naschy’s script is very good. There’s lots going on in this film. There’s that sense of tragedy about Daninsky, there are thrills and chills. And there’s a love story.
There’s a fine arch-villain and a memorable sexy sinister cruel villainess.
It was obviously made on a very modest budget but it looks quite impressive. The transformation scenes are amazingly well done.
The Werewolf and the Yeti is an interesting werewolf movie with some offbeat touches but enough conventional werewolf stuff to keep werewolf fans happy. Later in his career he made another excellent unconventional werewolf movie, The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983).
An under-appreciated Naschy movie. Highly recommended.
This movie is included in Shout! Factor’s Paul Naschy Collection II Blu-Ray set. The transfer is in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The transfer looks very nice.
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