Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

A young man is transformed into a hideous "moon beast" due to a meteor fragment lodged in his body.

Director:

Richard Ashe

Writers:

Bill Finger, Charles Sinclair

Stars:

Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, Gregorio Sala

Bottom 100 #9 | See the Bottom 100 movies as voted by our users.

Cast

Cast overview:
Chase Cordell	...	Paul G. Carlson
Leigh Drake	...	Kathy Nolan (as Donna Leigh Drake)
Gregorio Sala	...	Prof. John 'Johnny Longbow' Salinas
Patrick Wright	...	Police Captain McCabe
Francine Kessler	...	Janet Price
Timothy Wayne Brown	...	Dr. Sutton
Crawford MacCallum	...	Dr. Lawrence
Jeanne Swain	...	Caroline Harris
Alan Swain	...	Sid Harris
Fred McCaffrey	...	Dr. Rizzo
Tim Butler	...	Budd Keeler
Gary Kanin	...	The Newscaster
Frank Larrabee	...	Lead Singer
Joe Blasco	...	The Moon Beast

Storyline

Professor "Johnny Longbow" Salina, a man who really knows his stews, introduces Paul Carlson to the practical-joking Kathy Nolan. Paul and Kathy seem to hit it off rather well but, during a meteor storm, a meteorite fragment strikes Paul, burying itself deep in his skull, which has the unpleasant side-effect of causing Paul to mutate into a giant reptilian monster at night and go on murderous rampages. It turns out that this sort of thing has happened before, when Professor Salina rediscovers ancient Native American paintings detailing a similar event many centuries ago. Kathy, however, still loves Paul, and tries to save him.

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Plot Keywords:

meteor | love | meteorite | stew | rampage | 

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Taglines:

The Rising Moon Creates A Monster

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Also Known As:

A Trilha da Fera Lunar

Filming Locations:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Brandon Films, Derio, Lizard Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min 81 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was shot in September 1972 but it took four years before it was released due to difficulties finding a distributor. It was never issued to theaters, going straight to television.

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Goofs

Midway through the movie, when Paul is suffering from the Moon Beast illness, the camera zooms in on an obvious photo of the full moon.

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Quotes

Johnny Longbow: I don't really know, My guess is that there is some unusual element in this fragment that synchronizes with that larger mass over there and it produces some kind of energy reaction!

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Crazy Credits

The movie has no ending credits at all, not even the traditional 'the end' title card. The final scene just fades to black.

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Connections

Featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000: Track of the Moon Beast (1999)

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Soundtracks

"California Lady"
Written by Frank Larrabee
Sung by Frank Larrabee

User Reviews

It Has It All

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.