What happens when you take two unrelated Mexican monster movies, some stock footage, a grab bag of confused American actors, one old Lon Chaney Jr. in a sweaty werewolf suit, and blenderize the whole thing like you’re making a cinematic margarita? You get Face of the Screaming Werewolf—a film so incoherent it makes Plan 9 from Outer Spacelook like Citizen Kane.
🧟♂️ Plot: Choose Your Own Misadventure
Calling this a “plot” is like calling a car crash a ballet. A hypnotized psychic named Ann Taylor regresses to a past life and leads a team into an Aztec tomb where they find not one, but two mummies: one is an ancient Aztec warrior, and the other is a Caucasian werewolf because…sure, why not? This was the ‘60s and apparently archaeology was a contact sport.
The werewolf mummy (Lon Chaney Jr., because Bela Lugosi was unavailable due to being dead) is hauled to a lab by a mad doctor, revived, and immediately starts eating people. Meanwhile, the Aztec warrior also comes back to life, attempts to kidnap Ann, and both of them are conveniently killed offscreen by a passing car. Yes, that’s right—the mighty ancient Aztec warrior is taken down not by a sword or a silver bullet, but by a Buick.
The werewolf, refusing to be upstaged by roadkill, kidnaps another woman and gets into a final brawl with Mexican comedian Tin-Tan (whose scenes had mostly been cut, making this feel like the weirdest surprise cameo since Pee-wee Herman in Batman Returns). Tin-Tan beats the beast to death with a flaming torch. End scene. Roll credits. Applaud… yourself for surviving.
🧥 Costumes & Make-Up: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
The titular Screaming Werewolf is played by poor Lon Chaney Jr., who looks like he’s wearing a yak pelt stapled to his face and a jumpsuit stolen from a community theater production of Cats. One gets the sense that Chaney thought he was still on the set of The Wolf Man—except this time, he had to do all his own stunts, fight off actors who weren’t actually in the same movie, and try not to sweat his makeup off before the camera melted.
As for the Aztec mummy? He’s got that signature “two-day corpse from Spirit Halloween” look, with the movement skills of someone who forgot they were in a horror film and thought it was Tai Chi class.
🎞️ Editing: A Hatchet Job with a Blender
Jerry Warren’s editing process appears to have involved closing his eyes and tossing reels of film into the air like confetti. Characters appear, disappear, and sometimes reappear in entirely different genres. One moment you’re in a serious tomb excavation sequence; the next, you’re watching an American newscaster delivering narration like he’s reading the back of a cereal box.
Warren also recycled footage from Attack of the Mayan Mummy, La Casa del Terror, and—allegedly—an Ed Wood fever dream filmed in someone’s garage. The result is a film that plays like a deranged telenovela filmed during an earthquake.
🧠 Dialogue and Logic: MIA
There’s very little dialogue worth quoting here unless you enjoy hearing lines like “There was never a werewolf,” said by a cop standing over a still-smoldering corpse of a werewolf. Logic left the theater about five minutes into this movie, probably in the same car that hit the Aztec mummy.
Ann the psychic seems to exist solely to stand around while everyone else fails around her. The mad scientist revives the werewolf without a single safety precaution—no silver chains, no sedative, not even a muzzle. OSHA would be furious.
🎭 Acting: Or, The Art of Looking Confused
Lon Chaney Jr. mostly growls and grimaces like he just found out this wasn’t a Universal film and the catering was a cheese sandwich and a warm 7-Up. The rest of the cast seems utterly bewildered by the fact they’re even in a movie. You can see it in their eyes—“Wait, who’s that? Didn’t we just kill him? Why is the footage from a different film now?”
And then there’s Tin-Tan. Oh, poor Tin-Tan. His appearance in the final scene is so jarring it feels like Jerry Warren edited in someone’s home movie. He arrives out of nowhere, saves the day, and disappears like your uncle who “just went out for cigarettes.”
🧯 Final Thoughts: Light a Match and Run
Face of the Screaming Werewolf is the cinematic equivalent of rummaging through a Halloween clearance bin with your eyes closed and trying to make a coherent story from what you find. It’s a haphazard, half-baked monster mash that’s more confusing than scary, more awkward than entertaining, and more chopped up than a sushi chef’s cutting board.
It is glorious trash, but not the fun kind of trash—more the “stepped in it and can’t get it off your shoe” kind.
Rating: 1 out of 5 Mummified Werewolves
Because even monsters deserve better than this. If you ever wanted to see a film that asks the question “What if editing didn’t matter?”—this one’s for you. Otherwise, lock your doors, say a prayer, and avoid the VHS bin where this cinematic zombie refuses to stay dead.
