Track of the Moon Beast

This is a delightful mess. I enjoyed the premise of it. The characters were all relatively bad actors, but it had kind of an interesting sense about it. People were likable. The outdoor scenes were good. The poor guy just wants to get it on with the blonde with the long legs, but he turns into a lizard. That puts the blight on it pretty well. I wonder how long these movies would be if the characters didn't speak in long drawling sentences. There are pauses between each of their speeches, as they wait for the next line. The sheriff is nonplussed in this whole thing. He isn't one of those horror show sheriffs who won't believe people till it's too late. This reminded me a little of the Giant Gila Monster, an equally bad movie. There's even one of them in the film. There's the folky music, a signature song which has nothing to do with anything, and that dramatic music as the characters made their ways through the plot. If you just want to have fun, this is OK.

Fragment of meteorite gets lodged in young man's head, causing him to turn into a monstrous lizard-man when the moon rises.

Track of the Moon Beast is a fine example of drive-in B movie schlock! The movie consists of a thin story line, hokey dialog, less than impressive cast, and an all around look of 'we filmed this scene in my back yard'. It's a wonder the movie managed to hide from the people at Mystery Science Theater 3000 for ten years.

Yet despite all its campy trappings, I can't really say that I dislike this movie! Being a lover of B cinema it's rather enjoyable in a non-serious kind of way. I do give the film kudos for its surprisingly decent horror makeup, it's not surprising that this was early work from Rick Baker. The moon beast should have gotten more screen time though. Star Chase Cordell makes for an OK hero/victim and Gregorio Sala is memorable as a long-winded native American expert. Alas the rest of the cast is pretty weak, especially the wooden Donna Leigh Drake who doesn't have a believable line in the whole film! Still the tongue-in-cheek qualities keep it entertaining.

So, for those who enjoy their horror on the cheesy B movie side, you just might like this amusing monster flick.

** 1/2 out of ****

Track of the Moon Beast (1976), aww, this movie brings back memories of watching movies late at night when I was a child. I would stay up late watching horrible movies on UHF channels on an old black and white TV. Curiosity killed the cat they say. These movies are like car wrecks. You know they're bad but something compels you to watch them.

Track of the Moon Beast is one of those. Everything about this movie is bad. The acting, budget and script. The low budget f/x wasn't bad.But there's absolutely nothing to recommend about this film. A young man is bonked in the head by a space rock. Soon he turns into a space creature who maims innocent night owls. His Indian buddy knows all about the curse because it happened to his tribe many moons ago. Can the Indian help his buddy before it's too late? I don't know and don't ask. But if you must, catch it on a re-run of MST3k.

No fun.

Track of the Moon Beast has a simple story to tell you, a meteor falls turning a man into a lizard beast when the moon is full.

At the start some jokers make a howling noise in the hills to mildly surprise their friends. When they emerge after this merry jape they gobble up about ten minutes of screen time explaining the whys and wherefores of this little gag. But it doesn't end there, the entire film is littered with explanations of things you neither care about nor really need to know. Oh remember when you did this? What about the time this happened? Show it, or shut up about it! Most of it isn't relevant anyway.

The acting in this one is just horrible and the script is full of moments where they all laugh and share a warm moment that excludes the audience because what they are laughing about isn't funny and what's going on is really drab and boring. The monster is a joke, day turns to night and night to day randomly and the whole thing alternately looks like it was filmed about six inches from the sun or inside a black hole depending on whether or not they remembered to turn the lighting on before shooting a scene.

This is one boring pointless movie, so little happens that within fifteen minutes of it ending you'll be hard pressed to remember one significant scene. Even bad movie fans will struggle to find anything entertaining with this one.

I really think a rating of 1.6 stars or whatever is a little unfair. Yeah, the movie is ridiculous, but isn't it kind of fun too? In particular, I liked the very earnest portrayal of wise native american scientist Jonny Longbone. His conviction of character when he lamely jokes about Paul switching from anthropology to minerology (to any viewer's befuddlement) is almost charming. I mean, he plays a character whose name, "Jonny Longbow," somehow TRANSLATES into OTHER ENGLISH WORDS ("Warrior's bow that reaches long to its mark"), and yet somehow I completely bought his performance the whole time. I really found him quite endearing, and was sad to learn that this was the only film he ever appeared in. I understand that a lot of people write these incredibly negative reviews after seeing movies made fun of on Mystery Science Theater, and I think the Track of the Moon Beast episode was great and stands out. But there have been many, MANY worse movies shown on Mystery Science Theater than this, right? The Creeping Terror? The Beginning of the End? I think in terms of characters, story, plot, and visual cohesion, this is actually one of the better films ever shown to Mike and his robot friends. I would normally only give this movie 2 stars, but to show that I really believe in its positive merits, I will proudly bestow upon it 3 full stars. Yes it is a terrible movie, but it posseses a level of cohesive realization that some movies that are actually somewhat good do not posses.