O Grito do Lobo

From the Golden Age of the TV movie "Scream of the Wolf" is a time-waster from some pretty big names.

B-movie fans knows that Peter Graves would do anything for a paycheck. So it's no surprise as this movie makes a swift detour towards incoherence early on. Jo Ann Pflug's appearance cinches it. And when super-hunk Clint Walker begins spewing his inane monologues (again and again) you realize all too late that you have entered Z-movie heaven. Because really no one has any business watching "Scream of the Wolf" unless they enjoy watching actors struggling in budget bondage, living in palatial homes which are clearly borrowed for the film and dicing with unseen scary stuff which turns out not to be that scary. But then we are in good hands.

Dan Curtis is a master at low budget television. Dark Shadows is his masterpiece and Trilogy of Terror is still one of the most memorable shows ever on the tube. Burnt Offerings was his first run film....offering, but it's really a beefed up TV movie script that somehow got wings. So with such a resume one would expect "Scream of the Wolf" to be something other than what it is, but it is important to remember that everyone has his bad days. And in the case of co-writer Richard Matheson, this is an understatement. Matheson is not in the minor leagues with Curtis. Matheson is the fantasy-fiction master. Look him up on IMDb and find out. The creator of Omega Man would never have submitted this work as his alone.

A little attention to fine details would have done wonders for this film. In the dialog, in the set design (were there any) and with the casting. A truly wooden set of performances all around. Clint Walker tries to emote passion and complexity but he looks like he's been botoxed. Jo Ann Pflug was better off showing us her stuff on Match Game P.M.. And Peter Graves? This is the Godfather compared to some of the films he's been in.

A series of grisly attacks has the police stumped. So, they call in expert John Wetherby (Peter Graves), who calls in big game hunter Byron Douglas (Clint Walker) who is basically a turtleneck-wearing block of granite with enormous sideburns.

When more deaths occur, Wetherby tries without success to convince Byron to help him track down a creature that defies classification. Byron tries to convince Wetherby that mankind is useless and weak, even terrifying a restaurant patron to prove his point.

When Wetherby's girlfriend, Sandy (Jo Ann Pflug) is nearly killed, he decides to hunt the beast. When Wetherby asks Byron for help again, Byron challenges him to arm wrestle. His misanthropic machismo knows no bounds! Can the monster be stopped, before it mutilates more emasculated milquetoasts of modern mankind?

SCREAM OF THE WOLF is another made-for-TV horror movie from Producer / Director Dan Curtis. While not as stellar as some of his other offerings, it's certainly worth a viewing or two. Be sure not to miss the big, semi-shock finale!...

Director Dan Curtis had an impressive track record after developing the memorable character of Carl Kolchack, played wonderfully by Darren McGavin, in both "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler", and also the one-off "The Norliss Tapes" with Roy Thinnes.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have the same success here, though it does start off strongly with an innocent motorist being killed by a mysterious creature(a werewolf, perhaps?) Several more murders occur, until the twist at the end which is...underwhelming, to say the least. Peter Graves and Clint Walker face off as uneasy friends on opposing sides, since Walker's big game hunter is coldly indifferent to the deaths. He plays it menacingly, but his character(as well as Graves') come off quite flat, and there is little else to distinguish this film and make it memorable. Too bad.

This made for TV movie is from Dan Curtis...and that should come as no surprise as Curtis made a living making low-budget horror films and TV shows--such as the original "Dark Shadows" as well as excellent made for TV films about Dracula, Kolchak (the reporter that investigates monster sightings), possessed African dolls, Frankenstein and others. Most of his work was very good though I wouldn't place "Scream of the Wolf" among his best films.

Some creature has been tearing folks to pieces and John (Peter Graves) is a hunter who's been given the task of killing whatever it is. However, he soon notices that the footprints go from a wolf-like creature to human...but he won't allow himself to believe it's a werewolf. When he tries to get help from a clearly nutty associate, Byron (Clint Walker) has a strange reaction--he's totally disinterested in killing the creature and even seems to be completely ambivalent about all the deaths!! Clearly the viewer is being led to believe that Byron is most likely the wolf-man. And, clearly, Walker's character is about as subtle as a 2x4 upside your head! He's a super freaky weirdo and Walker looks as if he had fun playing this guy. And, although Graves is the leading man in the film, your attention is drawn to Walker whenever he's on the screen. So is Byron the werewolf or is there some other explanation? And, how does this movie end up being very much like the classic film "The Most Deadly Game"?

Considering the budget for this film was pretty low and the ABC movies were made quickly, how they handled the whole werewolf aspect of the story was an interesting idea that worked very well. Not the best movie of the week I've seen but very memorable and fun...in a kooky sort of way. Well worth seeing...and a lot better than the surprisingly low overall score of 5.1 (as of this review).

This film would have been much better if it had some balance. There were no strong supporting actors at all, with Graves and Walker providing outstanding roles and the rest just falling flat on their face.

Graves worked well as the slowly weakening ex-hunter, while Walker did an amazing job portraying the evil and creepy (and still strong) wolf hunter. However, the rest of the actors (especially Graves' girlfriend and the police chief) did a horrible job with their characters.

The fact that the kills really arent portrayed in a gory fashion makes the film feel like less a horror movie and more of a suspense/murder mystery, which bothered me a bit. Additionally, the ending, though a double twist (from not surprising to surprising to not surprising again) was a bit hard to swallow, that and it ends much more abruptly than I would have wished. Overall, not a high recommendation, but still a fairly good representation of low budget 70s fare 5/10.