This really is the bargain basement of film making with duff acting, duff effects and duff props. The dog is by far the star performer in this film. The dad has to be one of the worst actors in film history. He likes to show off his shining teeth and comes out with some inane dialogue delivered in a wooden way. I reckon the script writer was drunk unless they made it up as they went along. The cheapness of it is emphasised by the fact that they include (not very well) stock wildlife footage at various points. This was obviously not taken for this film and is very badly edited in. Even late 70s audiences must have been struck by how basic, cheap and amateurish the whole thing looks. The dad believes it isn't uncommon for humans to have 6 toes. Really. I have never heard of a single case although I suppose it is possible but is certainly not common. They probably spent about 10 minutes knocking up the script, 5 minutes maximum rehearsal and 15 minutes cobbling the whole mess together back in someones front room. It is comical but I don't think it is supposed to be a comedy. It is watchable though simply because it is so bad. Films with much higher budgets have been as bad or worse. However, back in the late 70s it is hard to imagine any adults or kids who would have found this worthwhile.
12 Reviews
I liked The Dog
Temac12 July 2020
Bad
nicholsonbrian24 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Film quality is awful. It looks like it was filmed with a mobile phone. An old mobile phone. Acting and plot coherence is non-existent. One minute they are up on the mountains and the next at ground level and back again throughout the movie.. It must have been edited by a dozen people without any of them seeing what went before. They also did one of those awful plot things where they see something absolutely huge, in this case a town, without almost walking into it and even then one of them doesn't see it until it is pointed out to them by the other one. The father keeps putting his hand on the boys shoulder almost as if the boy can't hear him without human contact.
One for fans of cult and forgotten cinema
Leofwine_draca10 October 2015
Warning: Spoilers
THE FORCE ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN is a long-forgotten B-movie that turns out to be a wilderness film masquerading as a sci-fi flick. Don't let the negative reviews and ratings fool you: if you're a fan of cult and forgotten cinema, like me, then you'll probably enjoy this slow-paced independent production. It's a film that mixes stock footage of the outdoors with a mildly supernatural plot, in a similar way to the '70s craze for Bigfoot and creature flicks.
90% of the narrative consists of a boy and his father trekking through the wilderness and occasionally encountering an inexplicable event (like marks they make on the ground disappearing). Eventually the boy hooks up with an alien, but it's all so resolutely ordinary that that part's not even worth waiting for. Instead, this film serves up a ton of grainy stock wildlife footage, so expect to see copious shots of herons, beavers, and the like.
Occasionally the wildlife intrudes upon our intrepid twosome, at which point they have to fend off grizzly bear and cougar attacks, but it's all rather ho-hum. The quality of the film is awful but maybe that's part of the charm. Needless to say the acting sucks and it doesn't help that the stilted dialogue sounds like it has been dubbed in in post production. Whatever you do, don't watch this expecting a sci-fi movie as you'll be sorely disappointed.
90% of the narrative consists of a boy and his father trekking through the wilderness and occasionally encountering an inexplicable event (like marks they make on the ground disappearing). Eventually the boy hooks up with an alien, but it's all so resolutely ordinary that that part's not even worth waiting for. Instead, this film serves up a ton of grainy stock wildlife footage, so expect to see copious shots of herons, beavers, and the like.
Occasionally the wildlife intrudes upon our intrepid twosome, at which point they have to fend off grizzly bear and cougar attacks, but it's all rather ho-hum. The quality of the film is awful but maybe that's part of the charm. Needless to say the acting sucks and it doesn't help that the stilted dialogue sounds like it has been dubbed in in post production. Whatever you do, don't watch this expecting a sci-fi movie as you'll be sorely disappointed.
One sentence says it all...
VampV24 December 2003
It DOES have a certain charm!
tomclarke-940796 June 2018
Tragic
pale954 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Yeah.. like the 'alien' is an old tramp wot forces the kid to lay down with him for the night. Umm.. see anything inappropriate here?
The kid actor must have nightmares about this fillum.
Dropping a tree by them looked a bit iffy as they actually looked in shot, unlike much of the film where other footage is just randomly interspersed.
Really diabolical.
Dropping a tree by them looked a bit iffy as they actually looked in shot, unlike much of the film where other footage is just randomly interspersed.
Really diabolical.
Absolute rubbish
Victor-fitforlife23 January 2022
This film was terrible. The acting was shocking, the dialogue nonsensical, the picture quality poor. It looked and felt like an old home movie on a cheap camera, shot by an old uncle who had too much to drink.
Poor poor poor!
Poor poor poor!
Mad
Sumpmonster25 November 2020
At the producers or myself for watching this?
There is some nice wildlife footage, but it looks like it's archive. Why anyone thought it would work as a sco-fi movie is bewildering. We get a nothing movie. Scriptless. actorless, just nonsense.
The dog is kind of cool, but seeing as you can't give zero stars it justifies the 1 star review.
A wilderness film
hissy311 April 2006
I think that this is a good wilderness family film, kids like it. It is like the old Disney wildlife films with little plot and terrible acting. Dated, but what isn't in this genre. If you are looking for a thriller this is not your movie, but kind of fun otherwise. There were quite a few of these movies made in the late 70's. They fit into the group of wildlife movies that were independently distributed to counter the mostly R rated movies that were distributed at the time. They tended to do very well up until the mid 80's when production values increased significantly. Still worth looking at for what it is. There are quite a few of these film made but most did not make it to video.
Dreadful
scottbarry-8835824 November 2020
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