Here's an addendum to the latest movie poster essay on The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman. I rented out a ratty looking VHS copy that, based on the condition of the cassette and the cover art, must have been at least 15 years old. The version was called Blood Moon, though, and the copy, considering its age, was in pretty good condition, probably because no one's watched it in those 15 years. Which is a shame, because while by conventional criteria, it's not a good movie at all (the usual suspects: Naschy's casual acting style, where he gives El Santo a run for his money for expressiveness and emotional shading; the murky day for night photography, the bane of the zoom; the old saw narrative; half-there filmmaking). But it's not bad either. I would even venture to say that there are moments in La Noche de Walpurgis that approach pure cinema poetry, in the sense that filmic poetry is an instant in a movie that's more unwieldy than any string of words can explain, obfuscate, conceal, or replicate. There was a complication of dumb emotion and clinical eyeballing, a frisson and derision that I experienced watching two vampire women play ring-around-the-rosies in slow motion (in a dream sequence no less). It was an odd moment within the context of the film; but those 15 or so seconds of cinema made the rest of the 90 minute movie seem worthwhile.