Werewolf Woman

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that werewolf sure resembles an angry terrier more than it resembles a werewolf. Not that angry terriers aren't horrifying. They can be vicious little bastards. I'm just saying...if you're going to make a werewolf, make a werewolf, not something that resembles your aunts pissy little dog. Then again, we are discussing yet another Italian horror movie made in 1976 which is barely horror from what I've read, so perhaps I'm asking too much from them.

Either way, "Werewolf Woman", which is a terrible title but not nearly as terrible as some of the alternatives which we'll discuss in a second, is yet another example of a film in which a woman is raped, then makes that entire incident her characterization. In fact, the sexual assaults seems to weigh more on her as a person than the fact that, you know, she's a goddamned werewolf. And I'm not trying to speak lightly of people who've endured sexual assault, I myself am a victim of it, I'm just saying that for a long, long, long time, this was the norm culturally for creating "interesting female characters" and giving them motivations in media.

The movie also goes by a handful of other titles, unsurprisingly considering when it's from and the fact that it's foreign. These run the gamut from "Daughter of a Werewolf" (something which is outright untrue considering the woman her lycanthropy is descended from isn't her mother), "She-Wolf", and my personal favorite "Naked Werewolf Woman" which...honestly....yeah. That sounds about accurate considering this is far less horror and far more exploitation. Also I love something that's just super generic like that. All that being said, this piece of art isn't atrocious. In fact this whole design isn't too bad, frankly. I like the title font, I like the blue they mixed with it for the box, I even don't think the actual artwork is outright awful. It's not great, but I've seen worse is all I'm saying.

Like, for instance, literally any of the alternatives.

Sure, this isn't atrocious, or at least not at first glance. The title is once again incorrect but this isn't a legend. This isn't a tale being told by someone else to someone else. This is happening in the film. But even beyond that, the art on the front is so bog standard and even then barely appropriate for what the movie is, while the art on the back looks like an science accident gone awry. Also, and maybe it's just because of the language change, but...they spell her name differently in these. If you look at the blurb on the back of the first box, it has one "L" in Daniela. Here it has two "L"'s. So...which one is it guys?

That being said, this is probably the second most appropriate, design wise, but boy are there some weird artistic decisions being made here. Like, for example, the tagline on the front, which reads "A true story so brutal and horrifying it was kept from the public for over a century!". Again, this isn't a retelling. This is just a movie. If it were a movie about someone telling this story, sure, like a pseudo mockumentary or something, but no. This is just...what's happening in the movie. There's no keeping it from the public. It wasn't hidden away like some sort of secret snuff film. They slapped that on there purely to entice the uninformed. While that front facing art is bad, that back piece is truly the stuff of nightmares here. They couldn't even sort of properly blend the werewolf face with the human face and the whole thing just doesn't work. But you know what's worse than that? This!

Not only did they somehow make it look like it'd been through a deep fryer, but they have the audacity, the sheer gall if you will, to call it a "Special". They also, because the cover wasn't sexualized enough to begin with, added in yet another shot of the lead in what can only be assumed is a wet t-shirt contest. I admit, I do like the fangs on the top and bottom, that's a neat touch. It's just a shame something that unique was slapped haphazardly onto something so terrible. But, like the previous, the back is the real culprit of the visual assault here. This time we're not just given a glance at an awful compositing job on her face, we're given an full look at her werewolf form, which looks much less like a werewolf woman and much more like a model in a cheap Halloween costume while performing in a White Snake music video. They didn't even make the face look remotely wolf like! They just gave her a black nose and some fangs! The previous one might've been bad, but this one they didn't even try! This is the laziest attempt at "werewolfing" I've ever seen!

And yet...and yet, even in light of all these poor artistic decisions, I'd be willing to forgive them, if I hadn't had to see this affront to nature.

This is, hands down, the worst thing I've ever posted. There's no contest. Any box art you've seen on this blog that I've ripped to shreds, that I've called atrocious and not worth the time to use your eyeballs on? Yeah. Those pale in comparison to this. This is it. This is the #1 public enemy of video box art. I'm calling it. I have seen some laughable things in my time doing this blog, I have seen some pieces that were so bad they weren't even worth discussing, some so bad they wound up being funny, and some so bad they were just plain bad. But this? This is the worst. I need to create a medal or a trophy or some kind of recognition to award this hideous monstrosity somebody had the balls to create. This isn't a werewolf. It's barely a woman. This is out and out the single worst thing I've ever seen while doing this blog in the last few years.

Sure, the other examples might be bad, but at least they are moderately dog like. They at least kind of sort of resemble a werewolf, and also a woman. This doesn't. What is this supposed to be? I want to find the person who created this, and ask them outright what this is supposed to be. A bear? It kinda looks like a bear. Actually it kinda looks like a Tasmanian Devil, if we're going to get into specifics, but I guess "Tasmanian Devil Woman" wouldn't work, even if it's a killer band name. I wouldn't be scared if I saw this thing. I'd laugh. I'd try and take pictures with it. I'd drive it to the Spirit Halloween store and show it masks that look better than it does. I would ridicule this creature so intensely that it would find a way to never transform again because it would remember the verbal abuse I unloaded upon it during our brief time together.

And what's even worse, the true cherry on top of this shit sundae, is how to compensate for their failings creatively, they just tacked on some breasts to the bottom. It looks like this thing is going to its senior prom. I've seen Troma artwork that's better than this, because Troma actually cares, and I realize as I'm saying it that that's a ridiculous sentence, but here we are.

So congrats Werewolf Woman or Daughter of a Werewolf or Naked Werewolf Woman or whatever the fuck your name is. Congratulations. You did it. You earned the worst thing to ever be shown on this blog award. I'm going to make a trophy, and then I'm going to beat you to death with it.

Because that's just what you deserve.