Warlock Moon

Jenny, a college student meets John, a cub reporter and together they find horror at an abandoned spa.

Like many others, I discovered this on late night TV when WOR in New York showed low budget and forgotten horror films. This is low on gore but great on atmosphere and shocking twists. Laurie Walters (later on Eight Is Enough) and Joe Spano (Hill Street Blues) are likable as the couple. Edna Macafee is creepy as the initially kind old woman they meet. She is the kind of scary old hag you may see in other films of the time like "Lemora-The Lady Dracula" and "Don't Look In The Basement". The low budget and grainy photography, so prevalent in early 1970s horror are great assets in this film. This also touches on subjects such as Satanism, cannibalism and ghosts. Other similar films are the well known "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the lesser know "Terror At Red Wolf Inn".

Don't miss this one if you like these type of films, the ending is a shocker!

A young woman is taken for a long scenic drive by a new male friend. As the day grows shorter, they happen upon a seemingly condemned resort which turns out to be occupied by a strange, but welcoming old woman. The young couple decides to stay there overnight, and they learn the horrible history of the old spa...as the elderly woman's story has it, the resort was once a relaxation retreat for the world's elite and powerful, but was closed down after several ritual murders were committed there by a group of Satanists. Predictably, there is similar carnage in store for the new guests, little of which registers as entirely interesting or especially horrifying.

WARLOCK MOON opens with a pretty strong scene, but the promise of a movie as good as that is unfortunately quashed by a wispy story which is paced poorly and never really gains much momentum. Still, it's mighty quirky in a weird low-budget way which may well appease fans of flyball regional horror flicks.

5/10...Forgiven of its shortcomings, there's enough dodgy appeal here to warrant a recommendation to the 70s trash cinema brotherhood.

My friend Rand Herbert (Bill's brother) and I were in charge of special effects, make-up, sets and general grunt work for this movie, which Bill financed by scraping up the 25K from family and friends (like me) when Bill was at Cal, Berkeley. Considering the budget we had to work with - even in 1972 when most of the movie was shot, I'd say we did a reasonably good job. Rand and I use a variety of aliases for our jobs - as did Bill. My favorites were Jeff D. Dodat and Don U. Dodat ("did you have to do that?" and "Dont you do that" - shades of the Car Guys)

We especially liked that we had a "false" ending (in 1972 - pre-Brian DePalma)- and that the movie continued through the credits. We were trying to get people to stay for the credits). We liked the scene where the axe-man looms behind the glass door then crashes through it.

It's true that Edna McAfee played the role a little over-the-top, buts just what we wanted - this wasn't Shakespeare after all. Did anyone recognize the "Hunter"? Harry Bauerr was also in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run".

We all had visions of eventually working in Hollywood, but after small company in LA "bought" the movie at interlock stage and invested another $75 grand to reshoot a few scenes, score it, blow it up to 35mm and (unfortunately) re title it, it went nowhere.

For REAL trivia buffs - one of the titles we originally wanted was (for a movie that depended on cannibalism as a theme) "The Last Supper". This - of course - was vetoed by the folks in LA.

As I understand it, the principal of that small company was murdered - there was talk of mob hits and all that. The company immediately went bankrupt and the negative for our film was held hostage as collateral for the company's debts by the film processing company.

It took several years of negotiation to "free" our film by which time we were all so disgusted with the whole deal we had each gone our separate ways. Bill sold the now completed film to a film syndicator, which is why you only see the film on late night TV. Other than the "premier" in Livermore where it was shot, and a few test runs in drive-ins in Spokane and somewhere in Georgia, thats the only place its ever been seen. It was "designed" as a drive-in" movie actually - somewhat scary scenes to have your girlfriend want to snuggle - no complicated plot to interfere with the smooching.

Bill went on to a career in real estate, I went to law school after having spent much of the 1970s in Africa and the Middle east and South Asia, some of it with Rand and his then girlfriend, now wife. Rand owns a historical research company in Davis.

Glad to see this film got some sort of cult status eventually.

My absolute favorite story about this film is, when i was working for Thelton Henderson at U.S. District Court in San Francisco, he pointed out a story in the SF Chronicle that two prisoners were suing a local TV station for cruel and unusual punishment for having switched their listed playing of "California Split" on late night TV for a showing of "Warlock Moon". I am conflicted about whether they should have won or lost that suit.

Enjoy the film folks.

WARLOCK MOON is one of the overlooked little classics of the American horror film's fascination with witchcraft & satanic covens that spawned dozens of adventuresome, low budget films that became staples of cult cinema: RACE WITH THE DEVIL, THE DEVIL'S RAIN, BLOOD SABBATH, NECROMANCY, ENTER THE DEVIL, WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS, "Brotherhood Of Satan", etc. Europe had its vampires & werewolves, but the satanic witch covens seemed to be a predominantly American fad, and if the production of this gem had not lead up the blind alley that it infamously went it would have been regarded as a classic of the form.

This time out we meet a perky, cheerful young college coed played by "Eight Is Enough" actress Laurie Walters, who spends the first half of the film wearing a skin-tight sheer blouse that looks painted on with nary a coconut brassiere in sight. If girls dressed like that nowadays we might not have had time for the War On Terror at all let alone going to Mars. I mention her attire only because the first time through her chest was the sole focus of my attention for her entire duration on screen, resulting in my missing a delirious little nightmare of a world that the filmmakers contrived out of next to nothing.

The key feature is the beguiling location they utilized to shoot the bulk of the film: A dilapidated, creepy, run down, unwholesome looking unused health spa out in the middle of nowhere. The place is a marvel of decay, gloom, and Gothic menace worthy of a Euro Horror castle with its misty passageways & cobweb infested dungeons. Only this time its a huge, maze like series of interconnected structures that used to serve as a health resort. The walls are all falling down, the doors half off their hinges, discarded rubbish, broken glass, and household oddments litter the empty, twisting hallways that go nowhere other than claustrophobic little rooms. Some of them have padlocked meat lockers, some have cabalistic symbols drawn on the floor, and the whole setting is something right out of a nightmare.

The story concerns Ms. Walters being smooth talked by a young guy claiming to be a newspaper photographer to accompany him on a semi-romantic picnic in the country. Played by "Hill Street Blues" favorite Joe Spano, the guy comes off as charming & professional, and even though she called the newspaper looking for him and they had never heard his name before, she agrees, and he takes her to see the old spa first. There they encounter a dear little old tottering lady, living alone in a small furnished room where she makes tea and sandwiches and quickly ingratiates herself onto the young couple. The young lady gets lost in the maze of passageways, encounters ghostly figures and bizarre occurrences that the others have a hard time believing.

That's about all I want to say about the plot, which contain just as many twists, empty rooms, and unexpected ends as the spa location itself. To ruin any of the fun would be unthinkable, though it should be added that there are aspects of the movie that might strike some as shortcomings, the most important being the actress playing the elderly woman. Yes she overacts and hams it up, but I would argue that it is exactly what the film required and that she created a memorable character.

And in fact I'd say that one of the film's strengths is how it plays up this idea of forced politeness when confronted with someone so unrelentingly creepy. The social pressure to be polite in situations where things seem a bit odd is something we have all had to endure. One can sympathize with the young woman's natural urge to want to be nice to the lady, and the film does a marvelous job of taking that idea to an almost surreal barrage of increasingly creepy behavior that eventually pushes the girl over the brink in the film's most ingenious scene.

The film is ultimately perhaps more tightly written than its execution might suggest, and filled with startling little touches like the two berserk guys running around with axes, a theme involving cannibalism, some eye popping still frame photography and an unrelenting atmosphere of claustrophobia. The double twist ending is also fun, with the film ending on a decidedly downbeat paranoid 70s note that seems to have predominated in the form. Fans of the genre will be very pleased, and the background of how the movie came to be is even just as fascinating if not more.

7/10

This appears to be the only film Bill Herbert made which is a great pity as it shows a lot of promise. He wrote, produced and directed this thriller about a naive young student Jenny (Laurie Walters) who allows herself to be picked up by journalist John (Joe Spano). On a picnic date they find themselves at an abandoned health spa where the only occupant is a kind grey haired old lady Agnes (Edna MaCafee). However, nothing is what it seems and soon Laurie is in mortal danger. The two leads are excellent in this hodgepodge of witchcraft, cannibalism and axe wielding maniacs. The photography helps along the spooky atmosphere immensely and the editing is excellent. Unfortunately the bad points outweigh the good ones, the script is muddled, the music score is all over the place and the actress playing the old lady over does it dreadfully. It is much to the credit of Bill Herbert that he manages to create an atmosphere of nightmarish uncertainty despite the obvious constraints of a very low budget.