This 1961 movie – British horror studio Hammer's only werewolf film – isn't perfect, but in its old-fashioned way it works and this Blu-ray transfer has come up vividly. It plays a little like a macabre fairytale.

The story is set in a very English-sounding and behaving Spain in about the 18th century. It begins with a long and involved backstory narrated by a character whom it doesn't seem possible could have known about it.

A mute servant girl was raped by an imprisoned beggar and the resulting child was born on Christmas Day. But the unfortunate combination of the date and circumstances and date of his birth have cursed him. The orphaned boy is raised by the kindly Don Alfredo Corledo (Clifford Evans). Leon, as he is named, develops an early taste for blood and although an early series of sheep killings is blamed on a dog, we know what's really happening. He grows up (played by Oliver Reed) and goes to work in a vineyard owned by Don Fernando Gomez (Ewen Solon), falling in love with Gomez's daughter Cristina (Catherine Feller). But the curse is still real, and full moons still happen...

The werewolf make-up is striking but not seen until near the end. The film looks good and Reed makes for a sympathetic as well as menacing hero. The pacing is odd: for a relatively short film, it ambles for quite a while, then a lot happens quickly.

The only extra is a trailer.