The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman

The Werewolf vs Vampire Woman, by Arthur N. Scarm

No month stated, 1972  G-H Books

Ramble House trade paperback reprint (As The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman), 2007

I’m certain I have a copy of this obscure paperback tie-in somewhere, but I’m unable to find it – thankfully, Ramble House has reprinted The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman, and their reprint might be even superior to the original, as it contains cool interior illustrations by Gavin L. O’Keefe. 

This novelization of an equally-obscure Spanish horror film is probably more well-known today than it was in 1972. In fact it’s interesting that this movie, part of the cycle of werewolf movies starring Paul Naschy, was even slated for a novelization in America; too bad more drive-in fare wasn’t novelized at the time, but at least we’ll always have Coffy. 

I have not seen all twelve (or thirteen, if you count the rumored “lost” film) of the Naschy werewolf movies, but I have seen a few of them, The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman among them, and that’s more than can be said for tie-in author “Arthur M. Scarm,” who clearly has not seen the movie, and here turns in a wholly original novel that is like nothing I have read before…and given the amount of trashy, bizarre stuff I’ve reviewed on here since 2010, that’s really saying something. 

Instead of the Gothic yarn lensed by director Leon Kilmovsky, with Naschy’s werewolf character in rural France and trying to save a pair of cute co-eds from a resurrected black magic sorceress of a vampire, Scarm’s “novelization” is a dark comic epic in comparison, a nasty, mean-tempered, but nonetheless humorous story about a werewolf and a vampire queen, and the havoc they wreak together. 

It’s also insane, and seems to be a booze and/or coke-fueled first draft, jumping wily-nily from one atrocity to another, Scarm laughing madly at the typewriter as he pounds the keys. And yet for all that, there is something to The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman that ascends the nasty nature of the book and instead comes off like the morbid tale of two doomed characters. 

Scarm isn’t content to just make up his own story instead of following the film; he also comes up with a new approach to werewolves and vampires. For the former – well, despite those cool interior illustrations I mentioned in the Ramble House edition, which show “hero” Waldo the Werwolf (presumably Scarm’s version of Waldemar Danisnsky, which is the name of Naschy’s character in the films) as a full-blown wolf man, complete with fur and fangs, Scarm specificies in the novel that Waldo looks for the most part like a normal man…save for a curious “band of hair around his middle,” which is the sign that he is a werewolf. 

As if this wasn’t WTF? enough, we also learn that once a year all werewolves become actual werewolves, ie with the fur and fangs, and Waldo’s night happens to be New Year’s Eve. This is the night the werewolves go really wild and murder with a total bloodlust…not that they don’t kill the same way every other night of the year. Even more strangely, Scarm has it that the werewolves don’t kill by tearing people apart, or by strangling them like Larry Talbot in the old Wolf Man movie; no, Waldo uses stakes, which he carries around in his back pocket and hammers into the hearts of his prey: men, women, and children. 

Vampires in Scarm’s world are also different: they can go out in daylight and they can be photographed and filmed. Actually, Scarm doesn’t mention that this is even notable, giving the impression that he’s not aware that vampires traditionally are supposed to shun daylight and cast no reflection. There are parts where Wandessa, the vampire queen – the same name the character has in the film, though she isn’t referred to as a vampire queen there – looks at her reflection in the mirror, admiring her beauty…not to mention the part toward the end where she becomes a movie superstar. 

I also forgot to mention, but in addition to being “daywalkers” and having reflections/images that can be captured on film, vampires also have “hollow teeth” for fangs, and drink blood direclty through these teeth, like straws. They also don’t seem to be very averse to religious iconography; at least, nothing of the sort is used against Wandessa in the book. 

I’ll refrain from comparing the novelization to the actual film, as there is no comparison. Other than the very beginning, which sees “Waldo” being brought back to life by a foolish coroner who takes the silver bullet out of the dead man’s chest, not believing there’s any such thing as werewolves. As with the film, Waldo kills the man and escapes, and also as with the film, we have a pair of coeds – Genevieve and Elvira – who are interested in the legendary Wandessa, and want to find her for a class project or something. 

It’s here that the novelization deviates, and wildly so, but for posterity, the movie proceeds on an altogether level-headed narrative, at least when compared to Scarm’s story: young Genevieve (hotstuff German actress Barbara Capell) accidentally brings Wandessa to life, and the sexy vampire babe (as played by Patty Shepard) is out for blood – and meanwhile Waldemar and Elivra (big-haired Gaby Fuchs) fall in love. Overall it’s a pretty cool movie, and I’m sure it was a blast to see at the drive-in. 

Scarm says to hell with all that. Genevieve and Elvira are college students who want to find Wandessa, the queen of the vampires, and somehow Waldo the Werewolf hears about this and decides to tag along – that is, when he isn’t banging them, usually both at the same time. Now let me tell you right here and now, while you will often see Arthur Scarm’s The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman described as sleazy, or filled with sex, I want to specify that all of the sex either occurs off-page or is not even described at all. 

Indeed, there is an almost “storytelling” vibe to the tale, a half-assed omniscient tone that gives the impression that Scarm has pulled up a chair and is telling you a tall tale; there is no real attempt at conveying a proper story, and the entire thing comes off more like the booze-fueled recounting of a legend or myth. It also occurred to me that Scarm’s story is like a ‘50s pre-code horror comic, operating as it does in a non-reality, almost fairy tale-like atmosphere, with a vibe that is both vicious and humorous. 

Waldo is certainly a hard character to relate to, and it’s clear Scarm doesn’t intend him to be a hero. Waldo is a murderer, killing hundreds of men, women, and children in the course of the book, if not by a stake to the heart then by other ways. Wandessa is equally as sadistic, though there are several parts where she tries to break free of her vampire ways, “drinking just enough blood” to keep her satiated, but ensuring that her victims don’t die. 

Actually another interpretation of Scarm’s The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman is that it’s a thinly-veiled account of two alcoholics getting on and off the wagon. Waldo is the driver, comfortable with his murderous ways and constantly pushing Wandessa to embrace her bloodlust, and Wandessa will put up a struggle but ultimately fall off the wagon and start killing again. But soon enough they both want to be free of their addictions, leading to crazy parts where they go to a therapist. 

There’s no attempt whatsoever at conveying realism; I don’t expect that from a horror novel, but Scarm sets the novel in an entirely different reality. This is apparent from the beginning, in which a pair of college co-eds want to wake up a vampire queen for their college thesis. Scarm doesn’t even bother much with background material; Wandessa has been “dead” in a coffin since the late 1800s, but cannot remember how she got there, and Scarm never bothers to fill in the blanks. As for Waldo, we have no idea how he became a werewolf, but we know he certainly wasn’t born one, because, in another curious tidbit Scarm relays to us, werewolves are made, not born, because werewolves cannot have orgasms. 

Crazily enough, Scarm sticks to his bizarre supernatural theologisms through the book as if they were holy writ; after reading this novel, I thought maybe I’d missed something and maybe werewolves really did look just like normal people, only with a band of hair around their “middle.” And hell, maybe they do stake their prey instead of strangling them or eating them. Hell, who’s to really say?? 

The first chapter alone is nuts. Waldo comes back to life, hooks up with the coeds, and they go looking for Wandessa’s grave. And as mentioned Waldo has his sexual way with both gals, and while the stuff isn’t explicit we do learn that Waldo has a giant “wang,” which is another indication he’s a werewolf. Oh and there’s a third girl, Ruth, who didn’t even exist in the film, a nurse who fell in love with Waldo when he was brought back to life by the coroner (after which Waldo promptly took advantage of her there in the operating room – but she liked it, of course), and who is now in love with Waldo and wants to go wherever he goes. 

Waldo is a bad guy for sure, and to his credit he tells the girls – and us readers – this from the get-go: “Only expect evil from a werewolf.” He treats the girls roughly (though again, they enjoy it), kills to slake his bloodlust, and secretly plots to drive a stake into Wandessa’s heart when they find her because he hates all vampires. “And yet, I was in love with a vampire once,” Waldo ruminates, but this hint of actual backstory is so quickly cast aside that I actually laughed aloud. 

Scarm is like that throughout; he trades between total lurid vileness and soul-plumbing introspection. To be honest, if I hadn’t known better I would’ve suspected The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman might have been an early novel by Len Levinson, as Scarm’s style is not totally dissimilar. Then again, I might be just as inclined to suspect Russell Smith, given the breathless narrative tone and the overall deranged vibe. But as it turns out, according to the sleuthing of Paul Collins, “Arthur Scarm” was really a writer named Leo Guild…who it turns out I’ve reviewed on here in the past, at least a short piece he wrote about Hollywood for a men's magazine. 

Oh and I forgot to mention, but Scarm (I just prefer to refer to him by his goofy pseudonym) gives werewolves all kinds of bizarre powers…like, Waldo can enter the dreams of people, turning the dream into a nightmare, and also he can…shrink a woman’s breasts, which he promptly does to one of the girls, leading to the unforgettable line, “My wonderful breasts!” Not to worry, as Waldo later grows them back, all via black magic…this scene alone is very Len Levinson-esque and would’ve had me emailing Len asap to see if he wrote the book. 

The novel goes from one atrocity to another as Waldo kills all and sundry – even, suprisingly enough, characters we thought were going to be important to the plot. In one instance Waldo gets so mad that one of the three girls tricked him into having sex with her that he bashes her to pieces…then, in one of Scarm’s frequent bizarre interludes, Waldo runs away and disguises himself as a clown, apropos of nothing, and starts following the two remaining girls as they hunt for Wandessa’s hidden grave. He even buys the circus so he can follow them around “without drawing attention.” 

Unlike the film, Wandessa is the co-protagonist of this novelization; upon her resurrection in a graveyard, she hangs out with the group, fighting against or alongside Waldo for the rest of the book. Waldo plans to kill her, but due to comic reasons is unable to put his silver knife in her heart, but after thinking of it a bit he’s happy because the two can team up and kill people together – the first pairing of a werewolf and a vampire, we’re told. 

Eventually, Wandessa is the only recurring character outside of Waldo who remains in the book, and this only furthers the fairy tale nature of Scarm’s narrative; these two are like the center of the universe, despite being impossible to track down by the police. They rove across the country, killing with abandon – and even here it’s not traditional horror novel stuff, with bizarre, darkly comic stuff like the two of them fixing the switches at an intersection, causing a horrific pile-up of cars, and then Waldo and Wandessa going into the wreckage to kill the maimed survivors. 

Scarm shows no limitations with how far he will go, with an especially repugnant scene where Waldo puts his murderous eye on a group of kids, even luring them back to his apartment so he can kill them. Even Wandessa is sickened when Waldo murders a young boy by smashing his head; for her part, Wandessa “only drinks a small amount” of a little girl’s blood, just enough to satiate herself but to not kill the girl. 

Waldo is even more crazed on his “werewolf night,” ie New Year’s Eve, where he turns into your traditional-looking furry werewolf and goes on a kill spree. Even here Scarm follows his own path; on his special night, Waldo is granted additional powers, and indeed can will himself anywhere he wants just by thinking about it(!). So we have crazy horror movie stuff where he’ll just appear on a train and start staking people in the heart, travelers who find themselves confronted by a werewolf that has come out of nowhere. 

Scarm shows a definite talent for keeping the madcap, vicious plot moving, but it seems clear that he writes himself into a corner, as the second half of the novel goes into freefall. First, Wandessa, who like a recovering alcoholic keeps trying to reform, only to be dragged back down by Waldo, sets her “friend” up with the cops and then takes off to hide in Hollywood…and here we go in an entirely different direction, as a naïve Wandessa somehow lands herself a contract with a movie studio. 

Now it’s essentially a Hollywood novel, only our aspiring starlet is a vampire. Of course Scarm has it that she’s starring in a horror movie, as a vampire no less, and soon Wandessa is using her true vampire nature to become a bigger and bigger star – “actually” biting her co-stars and whatnot. Things get progressively goofier when Wandessa tells the director she knows a “real werewolf” and Waldo gets hired onto the picture! 

Now the narrative has changed entirely, and instead of murderers on a killspree, Waldo and Wandessa are big Hollywood celebrities. They’ve also found true love – though Scarm toys with the idea, he never has Waldo and Wandessa become an item – and are about to get married(!), Wandessa to a black actor and Waldo to a butch sort of stunt woman. Meanwhile the cops are closing in…which is itself goofy, as these two commit atrocities throughout the novel, yet are always “hiding” from the cops…cops who can never seem to catch them. 

Not to make this sound like War and Peace or anything – though to be sure, I’d rather read The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman than War And Peace – but Scarm does a good job working in the “doomed couple” nature of Waldo and Wandessa, particularly when it comes to their (super)natural hatred for one another. This plays out in a rushed but memorable climax which sees Wandessa having some hot lesbian lovin’ with Waldo’s fiance…much to Waldo’s fury. 

I do appreciate that Leo Guild/Arthur Scarm took the opportunity to write an entirely new story, yet at the same time it would’ve been just as cool if he’d novelized the actual film. I haven’t seen all the Naschy vampire movies, just the ones from the ‘70s, and The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman is one of the better ones, and a book that actually told its tale would have been welcome. I’m going to bet Naschy himself was unaware that this novelization told a completely different tale than his movie. 

Thanks again to Ramble House for making this bizarre novel available for the masses – head over to their website for your copy today! Guaranteed to be the strangest book you will read this year…or any other year! To be honest, I feel that I’ve barely even described how whacky and disturbed this novel is. 

Here’s the cover for their edition, with artwork by Gavin L. O’Keefe: