Fear and misunderstanding have dogged the Gypsies ever since they began migrating to Europe around 1000 A.D. A nomadic people with their own traditions, the Gypsies found life difficult as the Crusades deepened Europe's distrust of cultural outsiders. But would their European neighbors have been so eager to persecute them had they understood, as Curse Of The Devil reveals, that, thanks to their allegiance with Satan, Gypsies can control werewolves? Perhaps the ancestor of writer and star Paul Naschy's character would have thought twice before slaying a Gypsy had he realized that his 19th-century descendant would stir up an ancient Gypsy curse. First seen shooting a wolf with the spooky ability to howl out of sync with the movement of its jaw, the castle-dwelling Naschy is bewildered when, instead of a dead wolf, he finds a naked man, a member of a nearby Gypsy clan. Unhappy with the development, a raspy-voiced Gypsy matriarch curses Naschy, after summoning up a figure clad in a black body stocking. After frolicking with several naked women, the black form settles on an especially attractive young woman, who is charged with passing the werewolf curse onto Naschy. Given a wolf skull and told, "The skull of a wolf shall create his hell on earth," the woman opts for the time-tested pretending-to-be-injured-so-Naschy- takes-you-back-to-his-castle-and-falls-in-love- with-you-allowing-you-to-slip-the-wolf-skull-into-his-home-and-thus- turn-him-into-a-werewolf trick. Soon he begins sporting a star-shaped wound that confines him to bed, a respite that perhaps allows him time for some of the other horror films he scripted in 1973, such as House Of Psychotic Women, The Black Harvest Of Countess Dracula, The Hunchback Of The Rue Morgue, Horror Rises From The Tomb, and The Vengeance Of The Mummy. Terror follows when two beautiful sisters throw themselves at him, prompting a series of gratuitous sex scenes. Later, the full moon turns Naschy into a bloodthirsty creature of the night whose unvarying grimace makes him resemble a perpetually confused cat. Several maulings later, the love of a good woman and the blade of a good knife send Naschy to his grave, but a twist ending ensures that the man sometimes called the Lon Chaney of Spain would return for sequels well into the 1990s. His Gypsy foes, however, remain at large, presumably still in Satan's thrall.
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