Before Twilight made monster romance insufferable, before Underworld turned lycanthropy into a leather fetish, La Loba—a.k.a. The She-Wolf—asked the age-old question: What if your therapist was also a werewolf and you both just decided to maul your problems away together? Mexican horror never looked so fuzzy, feral, and strangely romantic.
The Fur Will Fly
At the heart of The She-Wolf is Clarisa Fernández (played by the luminous Kitty de Hoyos), an upper-class Mexican beauty cursed with nightly episodes of transformation and homicide. That’s right—by day, she’s elegant and haunted. By night, she’s a four-legged death machine with a killer blowout. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde, but with more snarling and fewer lab coats.
Enter Dr. Alejandro Bernstein (Joaquín Cordero), a psychiatrist so suave he manages to cure Clarisa’s trauma by revealing he too is a werewolf. How’s that for therapeutic mirroring? It’s less “talk through your issues” and more “tear out the throats of your problems as a power couple.”
Their relationship is the true highlight of the film—Bonnie and Clyde, if Bonnie had claws and Clyde had a problem with full moons. Watching these two fall in love over shared bloodlust is weirdly wholesome. Nothing says romance like locking eyes mid-feeding frenzy.
Beauty and the Beast (and She’s Both)
Kitty de Hoyos carries the film with a blend of fragility and menace. She transitions from socialite to predator with the grace of a dancer and the dead-eyed focus of a housecat with a vendetta. Her werewolf makeup is delightfully retro—think Donkey Kong in a fright wig—but it works. There’s something charming about a movie that lets its monster look like it lost a fight with a thrift-store mascot.
And let’s talk about the kills. This isn’t a splatter-fest, but what it lacks in gore it makes up for in mood: foggy alleys, distant howls, victims who really should’ve known better than to take a shortcut through the ominously named Bosque Negro. Clarisa doesn’t just murder—she murders poetically, with flowing gowns and tortured soul-gazing before the throat-ripping starts.
Puppy Love Has Its Limits
Of course, like all tragic monster romances, this one ends in a blood-soaked whimper. Our lycanthropic lovers are brought down not by torches or silver bullets, but by a trained werewolf-killing dog. You read that right. Not a hunter, not a priest—just a very good boy doing God’s work. That dog deserves a spin-off. Or at least a chew toy shaped like Joaquin Cordero.
Watching Clarisa and Alejandro meet their doom at the paws of Lassie’s Satan-slaying cousin is the kind of twist you don’t see coming. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking, like if Old Yeller ended with a double homicide and a sad mariachi.
Final Verdict: A Hairy Situation Done Right
The She-Wolf might not have the budget of Hammer horror or the prestige of Universal’s monster classics, but it has something those movies lacked: a lady werewolf who looks like she could also host a telenovela. It’s gothic, romantic, and just a little bit campy—with enough dark atmosphere to fog up your screen and enough heart to make you root for the murderous leads.
So if you’ve ever wanted Wuthering Heights meets The Howling on a tequila budget, look no further. Love hurts. But in this case, it also mauls.
★★★★☆ – Four stars. Come for the doomed romance, stay for the emotional support murder mutt.
