A Lua dos Bruxos

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.

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.

The premise of Warlock Moon is actually pretty simple: girl meets intriguing boy, boy courts her, takes her to a mysterious building, strange things happen, mystery becomes terrifying and then not so, and then ends in a scream. In effect, this is a Gothic Mystery!

Gothic stories always center around an old ruin or haunted building which acts as a center of mystery. The plot device serves to ratchet up the tension by challenging the heroine (sometimes a hero, but not often) to distinguish between what is real, and what is a result of their own nervousness. H.P. Lovecraft used the same sort of device in his famous horror stories. A proper Gothic creates its own atmosphere of mystery and creeping terror. Unlike a mystery, however, a Gothic tale also has an element of romance in it; if, however, the romance can survive the fear that ensues.

Warlock Moon fails, however, because the characters never really emerge from their cardboard-cutout status. It's hard to root for the heroine, Jenny McAllister, because you always want more from her. She foresees the poisoned drink, but never quite breaks free from the mysterious events surrounding her.

Compounding the problem is the stultifying pace of the film. Sometimes it seems as though the actors themselves are deliberately moving slowly so as to use up time blocks. It doesn't help that at times the picture seems to have a "frosted glass" effect on the fringes of the screen, adding to the Gothic feel of the movie.

Filmed in the small town of Livermore, California, the movie still has a bit of celebrity status in that community. When Warlock Moon had finished production, it had a Grand Opening show at the local Vine Theater. All the local residents including notables like the mayor made a great show of attending the premiere screening. Of course the film bombed, which made the event all the more enjoyable, sort of in the style of MST3K!

The setting for the film's climax was at an abandoned tuberculosis treatment facility, which burned down about ten years later. That area is now the site of Camp Arroyo, and is almost unrecognizable from the mysterious ruins shown in Warlock Moon.

A member of the Livermore Heritage Guild, a local historical society, is looking for a copy of Warlock Moon for posterity's sake. He has asked me to relay word to any other filmmakers that he's also looking forward to seeing a much better film made in Livermore.

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.

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!