Humpday Horribleness: ‘Track of the Moon Beast’

One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

Title: ‘Track of the Moon Beast’

Release Date: Roughly speaking, 1976.

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 8/5/2009): # 15 (based on 1.492 votes)

Why it’s Here: This movie is here for all the typical reasons… bad acting, terrible script, amateur camera work (although fundamentally not bad) and lame special effects. TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST is the kind of filmmaking that makes you sit there and wonder what it must be like, during the writing process, to believe what you’re writing is quality stuff only later to realize no one to come within 10-feet of the finished product.

Kathy Nolan: But you’re going to kill him with a bow and arrow?
Johnny Longbow: Not with just any old bow and arrow but with this!
[Johnny shows Kathy the bit of meteor that serves as the arrowhead.]

At least, that’s the original reaction to this film from director Richard “Dick” Ashe. It’s not a stretch to realize TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST was Dick’s first and final film. If you see the movie, you’ll know why. However, I imagine the fact that the movie was made in 1972 and was not picked up by a distributor until four years later left a sour taste in Dick’s mouth. In reality, this would be considered a relatively impressive first feature for an amateur backyard filmmaker without a budget. Honestly, I’ve seen much worse filmmaking with much larger budgets.

The acting is forced by every actor in the film, unnatural and the timing is usually anything but successful. The dialogue attempts to be too perfect. No one talks like these characters in real life. Fortunately, Ashe managed to cast some relatively appealing actors, as in not difficult to look at. Chase Cordell plays Paul, the lead character that gets hit in the head with a tiny piece of meteor that turns out to be a moon rock with mystical powers. Cordell’s crowning achievement would end up being a three-episode stint on the TV series VEGA$ at the end of the 70’s.

Leigh Drake certainly is not hard to look at, as far as amateur actresses from the late 70’s are concerned. Drake plays Paul’s girlfriend Kathy. Her big claim to fame would be as the dispatcher in THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). This would also be her last acting role in a film. Fortunately, Drake was kind enough to wear nothing but sinfully short shorts for the entire film. Hooray for short shorts!

When it comes time to for TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST to pay off with special effects, the result is anything but scary. Well, that’s not entirely true. If you find a six-foot tall lizard-man resembling a Komodo Dragon wrapped in bondage leather flailing about making fart noises scary, then yeah… this is a decent horror film. The gore and dismemberment scenes are laughably bad, providing a welcome dose of unintended comic relief.

Lowest of the Low Moments: The scene that sticks out in my mind the most is when Paul and Kathy are hanging out in a local bar/club with a late-era hippie band performing ‘California Lady’ on stage, inter-cut with scenes of Paul and Kathy after they leave the bar. The scene has a sort of evil appeal to it, even though you can’t stand t watch or listen. Sort of like walking into a department store in the middle of August and finding yourself humming along with the inappropriately-early Christmas music being pumped into the store. By the time you realize you’ve actually kind of been subconsciously digging the music it’s too late and you start looking around to make sure no one saw you. (Hey, I’ve been there. I know how it feels!)

The other lowest of the low moment is actually a small collection of crucially failed scenes. These are scenes that would have needed to be original and creatively accomplished to sell a sci-fi/horror film like this. The first scene is Paul’s very first experience with transforming into the deadly lizard-man from the moon creature. His portrayal of this transformation is more like an awkward moaning and light tossing in bed as a result of eating bad ham salad that it is the epic and electrified transformation of Jack into a werewolf in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLD IN LONDON. Shortly following this scene is the first kill scene by the moon beast, attacking a tiny old man on the doorstep of his house. The old man appears frightened, slack-jawed and wide-eyed for about ten seconds longer than is necessary as the moon beast is right on top of him. The creature’s growl literally sounds more like a combination the hocking of phlegm and the flatulent release of gases from a constipated old man. Not pretty! Not pretty at all!

One final note… TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST seems reliant on an element of make-believe Native American folk lore to drive it’s story. As a person who holds a great deal of respect for the Native American people, their traditions and beliefs, I had a difficult time getting past this part of the film. I suppose it’s a valiant attempt at creating an original concept in a genre otherwise filled with cliche’s but it’s use goes mostly unappreciated.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: This difference is, TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST is one of those painfully fun movies that has that legendary bad movie appeal, a yet unrealized cult potential that hopefully will catch up with it’s extremely late 2008 DVD release. Gregorio Sala isn’t entirely bad as Professor John “Johnny Longbow” Salinas, the man who investigates the mysterious murders, figures out the mystery of what the killer is, tracks down the killer and figures out how to kill the moon beast. Hell, Dick Ashe might have well just cast the film as a one man show, starring just Sala. He could have even played the monster. It’s always a good sign of popularity for a film like this when the MST3K crew devotes an episode of their show to the movie as they did with TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST. It’s unlikely to fall off the list completely in the next 100 years, but the cult status of the film will probably lift it higher than it’s current spot at #15 on IMDB’s Bottom 100 List.