Track of the Moon Beast

It is awful, I agree, although arguably it does (sort of) come together near the end of the flick. The Track of the Moonbeast was an inclusion on a DVD trilogy I ordered for the movie Snowbeast, starring Bo Svenson, that's how I ran across it. What an unexpected bonus Moonbeast turned out to be! Assuming, of course that you are into making fun of the 70's. The movie plays like an episode of Barnaby Jones, with elements of the Brady Bunch and Chips and Star Trek and the Incredible Hulk mixed in. The girl is pretty hot, too, in a definite amateur way. The script is poor and forced, and the characters are highly cartoonesque. I love the scene where the Indian professor and the police chief investigate the scene of our first Moonbeast victim. Pure 70's, baby! Great fun! Enjoy!

Student to prof: "That's a great stew. What's in it?"

Prof: "Lots of things. Chicken. Corn. Green peppers. Chili. (sigh) Onions... well, it's an old recipe."

Note: This recipe -- which bores even the (sigh) professor -- has nothing whatsoever to do with the "plot" of this movie.

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.

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 ****

My mom used to say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all". She said this approximately 356 times a week, which helped make me the man I am today. (Thanks, Mom!) So I'll start out with some nice things to say about TOTMB.

Paul and Kathy are a nice looking couple. Paul looks good with his shirt off, kind of a Chippendale dancer physique, and Kathy has spectacular legs. The director realizes this and exploits it for everything he can get.

The guy who plays "Johnny Longbow" has a nice screen presence and a good, sonorous voice. Even saddled with a lugubrious, windy character who makes long, boring speeches, he is the most watchable thing in the film.

The script tries to work in some potentially interesting Indian stories and myths into the film - in real life, Indian lore does exist about the trickster god "Coyote", and some of it is funny as hell. Plus, the idea that there was another moon beast sometime in pre-history whose presence was recorded in ancient scrolls adds just the least little bit of resonance to the story.

Oops. That's about all the good things there are to say.

On the other hand, the blonde is a massive sinkhole of suck. She's not a bad actress, she's the "Anti-Actress". She only delivers effective readings of her lines by accident. 60-70% of her lines are stiff, flat, stilted, or just plain jarring to the ear. You can't believe the director let her get away with these takes, or worse, that these were the best takes they could get from her. She barely sounds like a human being. And there are times when the director, makeup people, and costumers conspire to make her look like a total skank on camera. It makes me wonder: how did she get this part and who did she anger during the course of the film? Did she stop sleeping with someone, and part of their revenge was to make her look like a 45 year old Las Vegas hooker?

"Paul" isn't much better. He's a chunk of beefcake who looks good with his shirt off, but he can't carry a film because he speaks in a dull monotone and shows absolutely no facial expressions that I can see. In a more modern era, with different lighting and film stock and camera angles, he might come across better, but here he's just a Ken doll who goes through the motions. See Malibu Action Ken ride his motor cycle! See Ken pose shirtless! See Ken clutch his head and act dizzy! See Ken wear pajamas and lie on a diagnostic ironing board! See Ken turn into a walking lizard and tear people apart like bread sticks!

And as usual with films like this, no one has any idea of how to pace a scene, or carry the story forward. My favorite example of this is the 2nd scene, where Johnny Longbow and Kathy explain and explain and explain and explain and explain their unfunny practical joke to Paul for what seems like the entire afternoon, while the camera stays frozen like a Jim Jarmusch master shot and all the actors stay rooted to the ground in an awkward chorus line as if they were tent pegs. The whole movie is like this.

There are even more bizarre story-telling choices in other spots. For instance, take the scene where Paul goes to a folk music concert with his new girlfriend and Johnny, only to come down with a case of the vapors. The rest of the scene is a montage alternating between the three folkies on stage singing their drab little stripped-down Eagles song, and Kathy and Johnny putting Paul to bed to the strains of "California Laaaaaadeeeee". This makes no sense at all. What are you trying to tell us, Mr. Director? That the band kept on playing even when Paul had to go home sick? (I think we all assumed that would be the case). That Kathy is Paul's "California Lady?" (But we know literally nothing about her history or origins, and the whole movie takes place in New Mexico). That you filmed some concert footage of some unknown band and got the rights to use their song and by GOD you were going to get your money's worth? (Then why not have Paul get sick near the end of the song, or have something interesting happen at the concert while the song plays, and let the frigging band have their little moment in the sun?) To top things off, Kathy wears the most alarmingly skimpy dress in the history of cinema for this scene, along with a completely different hair style - she displays so many acres of flesh that it completely distracts the viewer from whatever the heck the film is trying to say during the scene.

In summary: Ugly, dull, badly paced, badly shot, badly constructed story, with a mostly talentless cast playing cardboard characters. But I've seen worse. It gets a couple of points for Johnny Longbow, for the great legs on the blonde, for trying to add some depth and mood to the story with Indian lore, and for not trying to be anything more than a drive-in style B movie.