6/10
She-Wolf of New Orleans
18 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
(There are Spoilers) Werewolf movie with a twist in that this time around the creature is a woman and there's, probably due to budget restrictions, no long and cumbersome stop motion sequences where the person slowly changes into a werewolf or visa versa.

The story has to do with this group of Gypsies, the Troyincas, who immigrated to the United States from their ancient homes in far off Transylvania. The curator of New Orlean's Occult Latour Museum Dr. Charles Morris, Fritz Leiber, has discovered the Toryinca's secret ceremonies that has to do with their involvement in the occult sciences. This leads to Dr. Morris being murdered by Troyincan Matriarch Marie Latour, Nina Foch, who with the help of fellow Troyincan Jan(Ivan Triesault), who works as the janitor in the museum, hid Dr. Morris' body.

It's when Dr. Morris' son Bob, Stephen Crane, shows up from New York that he suspects that his father, who's body had since been discovered, was not killed by a wild wolf, like the local police believe, but some kind of wolf-like man that his father uncovered in his investigation of Troyincan legend. Bob with the help of his father's assistant Elsa Chavret, Osa Massen, who just happens to have been born and raised in Transylvania finds Dr. Morris' burnt notes that if made legible will reveal the deadly secret that cost him his life.

As expected the evil Marie Latour does everything to stop the truth from coming out about her and the background of her mother, Marie Sr, in that their descendant of werewolves who are descant to rule the Troyincan tribe both in Transylvania as well as in the United States. The film soon turns into a tug of war between the two leading ladies, Marie and Elsa, over the handsome and a bit confused, by the plot, Bob Morris.

Marie seeing that she's getting nowhere with Elsa has her turned into a zombie like android muttering over and over to herself as well as out loud that she in fact was the one who murdered Dr. Morris. If that tactic on Marie's part was to turn Bob against Elas it fell flat on it's face. Bob as naive as he was wasn't convince that Elsa murdered his father since her fingerprints wren't found at the murder scene but, a it later turned out, Marie's were!

***SPOILERS*** The very predictable ending has Marie turn into a werewolf for the very last time but this time around the police lead by Lt. Barry Lane, Barton MacLane, are ready for her. It took a lot of lead to put put the big bad wolf down in a wild and almost five minute long shootout but it was Lt. Lane's movie ending, that was supposed to tie all the loose ends together, statement that really got to me. With the killer werewolf, Marie Latour, lying dead and crumpled on the floor Lt. Lane, a non-believer in these kind of things, is totally awestruck at the sight of a wild animal-werewolf-changing into a human being! The fact is that the dead Maria Latour didn't start changing back from werewolf to human well after Lt. Lane made that statement!
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