Face of the Screaming Werewolf is a Jerry Warren masterpiece and that statement can be taken any number of ways. Warren for those that may not know, is much akin to Roger Corman, making movies on the cheap and doing so however possible. The difference between the two men though is that Corman would make his movies from the ground up as it were while Warren would cobble his together from already preexisting films he would license, usually from other countries. Such is the case with this film, made from two Mexican films – La Casa del Terror and La Momia Azteca, both superior pictures to this one. The problem with Warren melding two different movies together like this is that one film was about a werewolf and the other an Aztec mummy and while he did splice in some new footage to try and make a comprehensible narrative, it only somewhat worked.

Such as it was, the story finds a couple of archaeologists discovering a couple of mummies, one of the previously mentioned Aztec variety and the other a werewolf played by none other than Lon Chaney. The two creatures are soon revived and of course, it is to the dismay of those who did the reviving. While this piecemeal tale was all right and truly not the worst thing ever put to film, the creatures ended up being the best part of the movie, simply because trying to follow the story at times was a little harder than it should have been.

Despite all of the negative that comprises this film, it is still quite watchable and that is more than likely due to the lack of dialogue. That was probably the smartest thing that Warren could have done as adding in too much from either of the films that this movie was made from may have hampered it more than anything else. Still, despite the presence of a haggard looking Chaney, there is absolutely no reason to watch this movie when you can watch the two it was made from in the first place.

2 out of 5