Shockingly, some of your universe's critics were harsh to this film. For example, reviewer BA_Harrison writes, "In addition to the terrible editing, nonsensical story and poor acting, Face Of The Screaming Werewolf also suffers from plenty of padding, most notably the native ritual at the beginning of the film that seems to go on forever." Reviewer planktonrules writes, "The film is just as awful as you'd expect given the circumstances under which it was made! And, as a result it's rather random and incomprehensible at times." And reviewer captnemo dismisses the film as "A real mess."
In a mysterious laboratory, three men oversee what appears to be a surgery procedure, but which is actually simply hypnosis utilizing a spinning spiral wheel, on a young woman, Ann Taylor.
After some time, Miss Taylor closes her eyes. “I can see as before,” she says. “The ancient land.” We see her point of view as she witnesses an Aztec ceremony in a stone shrine. Then she relates that in her previous life she would go repeatedly into a great pyramid, despite being warned by her chieftain not to enter the structure.
Then the doctors revive her from hypnosis by placing a gas mask over her face. “Eh, she’s all right,” says the anesthesiologist as she recovers, though she begins crying.
The filmmakers cut to a newscaster who informs us that Dr. Redding, the hypnosis supervisor, is embarking on a trip to the Yucatán Peninsula along with his young son and Ann Taylor in search the great pyramid Miss Taylor saw in her hypnotized state.
The team finds the pyramid immediately and walks around its base. Ann says she recognizes the pyramid, proving her past life experience was accurate. Then the filmmakers cut to an ancient Aztec ceremony in which a woman sings opera for about five minutes.
Ann’s past self dances with some maidens holding bowls of flowers before Ann is placed on a stone altar and (possibly) sacrificed, though we don’t see her die.
the filmmakers cut back to modern day as the Americans climb the pyramid and enter through a doorway.
They penetrate the deepest reaches of the pyramid and eventually find a mummified Lon Chaney Jr.!
The mummy revives immediately and attacks the group. Suspensefully, the filmmakers cut away to the newscaster again as he tells us Dr. Redding has returned from the Yucatán. The newscaster’s special guest commentator says, “Dr. Redding has brought back with him not one but two embalmed creatures that were discovered in a level of the pyramid, located with the help of Ann Taylor. The way it was explained to me, one is an actual mummified inhabitant of an ancient civilization, preserved by a formula unknown to our generation. The other is that of a modern man, placed in the pyramid only recently after an exchange of body fluids with the mummy in an effort to achieve an apparent state of death.” (I must say it is refreshing that newscasters in your universe commit so much time to important matters like archeological expeditions to Aztec pyramids informed by psychic past-life regression mumbo jumbo.)
Fortunately for everyone involved, Dr. Redding has scheduled a lecture displaying the creatures to scientists from around the country to be held that very evening.
In a brilliantly constructed turn of events, as Dr. Redding switches off the lights in the lecture hall to begin his presentation, there are two gunshots, and when the lights are turned back on Dr. Redding is found dead. Not only that, but the two mummies, which were on display in the front of the room, are missing.
Of course, the solution is quite simple. A group of Mexican scientists we have never seen has somehow acquired the Lon Chaney Jr. mummy. They place it into what appears to be a tanning bed, and then into a giant centrifuge, and then they hook it up to various wires and tubes. After several minutes of watching machinery grind and dials turn, the scientists give up, having failed to resurrect Mr. Chaney Jr.
Then, if I understand the plot correctly, the scientists enter a diner in the middle of a thunderstorm and call one of their criminal friends to tell him about a new job. “This is a little different. He wants you to steal a mummy.”
Eventually, Mr. Chaney Jr. wakes up on a laboratory table (which apparently is housed inside a Mexican wax museum behind a secret door), appearing less mummified than he had in earlier scenes. He hears a wolf howling outside in the night and sees there is a full moon. He immediately begins transforming into a werewolf.
As he transforms, we do indeed see the face of a screaming werewolf, so in this case the film’s title is 100% accurate.
The lycanthropic Mr. Chaney attacks the scientists when they arrive, but he does not seem up to the task, as he quickly has a heart attack and the scientists attempt to save him.
Later, the man assigned to steal the mummy is surprised when the mummy attacks him, roaring and knocking him unconscious. The mummy then walks across Mexico to find a sleeping young girl we have never seen before and her sleeping mother, who in an incredibly economical and ingenious shot dissolves into a woman wearing ancient Egyptian paraphernalia, indicating she must be the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian (or possibly Aztec) princess. (The woman might in fact be Ann Taylor.)
Of course, the mummy kidnaps the woman by lifting her and carrying her out of the house. Unfortunately for all involved, however, the mummy gets into a car accident and dies, leading to a particularly helpful newspaper headline.
Meanwhile, the werewolf is imprisoned in the scientists’ laboratory. (The quality of the makeup effects must be underlined here, as the werewolf at this point looks nothing like Lon Chaney Jr. — clearly a triumph of special makeup effects.)
Nearby, the lead scientist (the late Dr. Redding’s rival) hosts a police detective. “I’ll be glad to cooperate. The police are most certainly entitled to any information that would help. I’ve always felt that way.”
The detective says confusingly, “I must say that you’re a rare breed. Having a door shut in one’s face is more or less a policeman’s habit.”
The scientist, Dr. Munson, explains even more confusingly, “Well, I work independently here. It has its disadvantages, but also the advantage of not being tied down in anything of a political nature.” Despite his cooperativeness, however, Dr. Munson brushes off the detective, saying that Dr. Redding had thousands of associates across the world interested in past lives regression.
In the final act, Mr. Chaney Jr. returns to his werewolf form, terrorizes some people, and climbs the outside of a building. Then, in an homage to the original Cat People film, he stalks a woman walking down the street. Instead of being both saved and startled by a bus’s airbrakes, however, the woman reaches her apartment and is attacked by Mr. Chaney Jr. She fends him off for several minutes, but soon she faints at the mere sight of him. He carries her through the city back to Dr. Munson’s laboratory.
In the end, Mr. Chaney Jr. has another heart attack in the burning laboratory (as well as the wax museum in the front of the building). The detectives rush inside after the werewolf has died and reverted to his human form. One detective laughs. “They talk about monsters and werewolves. Just an ordinary guy. Crazy what the imagination can do, huh?”
The 1960s uncovered some fascinating trends in science and pseudoscience; one of the most popular (and, judging by the quantity of cinematic treatments, accurate) trends involved past lives regression. Exposed to hypnosis and machines with spiraling wheels, everyday citizens were able to remember their past selves before they were reincarnated as ordinary humans. It must have been exciting to remember such exotic, adventure-filled lives, and even more exciting must have been the many times the recall of these past lives resulted in transformations into monsters, she-creatures, and of course werewolves! (Note: nothing of this sort occurs in this film.)
Face of the Screaming Werewolf goes even further than the ordinary horror film of the 1960s by including both an Aztec mummy and a (non-Aztec) werewolf, though the two monsters unfortunately do not interact in the film. The film does give its audience even more than it knew it wanted, as first the mummy rampages through the streets, and then the werewolf does the same thing. The structure is much simpler (and one might say more effective) than Universal's monster rallies of previous decades, as there is no need for a complex story bringing various monsters together and perhaps having them fight over a magical object or a woman or something. Jerry Warren's film simply has two monsters discovered in the same location and gives them the opportunity to rampage through the same city at different times. It is unfortunate this structure did not result in a series of films with monsters appearing, being killed, then being replaced by different monsters over and over again. Certainly the cinemagoers of the 1960s would have appreciated this kind of film, and Jerry Warren would have amassed great wealth. Alas, it was not to be, and the 1960s would instead introduce modern films with jump scares and disturbing violence instead of werewolves, mummies, vampires, Frankensteins, etc. Also, Jerry Warren remained a minor but important figure in the history of film rather than a wealthy mogul. But we do have Face of the Screaming Werewolf and a handful of other interesting films to remember him, and the world is a better place for it.