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| Saturday, September 26, 2009 03:57 PM |
| On the Viewer - Moon of the Wolf |
 by Fëanor |
For my birthday, poppy got me a 100 Movie Pack of Sci-Fi Classics. As you could probably guess from the fact that there are 100 movies together in one box, the term "classics" is used loosely here. In fact, this is a collection of cheap B-movies, a handful of which I'd seen already on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But that's what makes them great!
The first one we decided to watch was Moon of the Wolf, a TV movie from 1972 (with obvious breaks where the commercials would go - and I'm actually kind of sad they weren't included; I would have gotten a kick out of watching some old '70s commercials) about a sheriff named Aaron Whitaker (David Janssen) working in a small town in Louisiana bayou country investigating the violent death of a young woman (her protective brother is played by Geoffrey Lewis - who, if you saw him, would cause you to exclaim, "Hey, it's that guy! Who was in that one thing!"). His investigation takes him among the upper class folks in the middle of town (where he rekindles a relationship with an old crush, newly returned to the area), and the lower class folks at the edge of the swamp (who include a weird old guy played by Royal Dano! Another "that guy"). He also digs up various dark secrets and scandals. The town's old doctor ("I was third in my class!") was sleeping with the low class young woman who's now been viciously killed! The rich man in town has a strange disease! His sister was dumped by her lover! Then of course we hit upon the biggest secret of all: the killer is a werewolf!
The movie has the occasional bit of corny, melodramatic dialog, and the werewolf effect is pretty bad. But overall, it's actually not that bad. My biggest problem is with a small continuity issue at the end, when the werewolf, who has just escaped from a burning barn, shows up at the house minutes later with his clothes not even singed. But other than that, I found the movie pretty entertaining and engaging, and of course it's always fun to watch David Janssen growl his way across the screen. I'd give it a sold C+/B-. |
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