Track of The Moon Beast (1976)- Chase Cordell (1)

Director: Richard Ashe

Stars: Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, & Gregorio Sala

Genre: Science Fiction/Horror

MPAA Rating: PG (Violent or Disturbing Images)

Running Time: 80 Mins

Tagline: "The Rising Moon Creates A Monster"

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

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

Discussion

Oh man! Where do I begin explaining this mess of a movie? This is a perfect example of a soo bad its good movie. Every element of badness is here; from bad acting to downright cheesy special effects, this one truly has it all. The movie is only 80 min long but it felt like 3hrs. Pacing was the biggest issue here, every scene was extended and elongated for no given reason.  Oh one thing, before we get into the main plot: the cover of the movie, how misleading it is. The way the creature is depicted is as if he is a real threat, but when you actually sit down and see the movie...Completely different story.

This picture to the right is how he really looks in the film. Can you tell the difference between the cover and the finished product? I sure can. Anyways, let’s get into the plot of this odd little film. Early in the movie, we are introduced to our protagonists: Paul, Kathy and Professor Longbow (they always call him Longbone, don’t know why). All of which can’t act for beans. Especially the actress who plays Kathy, all her reactions are stale and lifeless. Anyhow, Kathy and Paul, who are deeply in love (even though they just met 5 min into the film) are sitting in the woods, making out, when all of a sudden a meteorite hits Paul in the head. Fragments of the meteor get inside his head. Paul dismisses it; however he is in for a big surprise...because soon he will turn into: THE MOON BEAST!

That’s as complicated as the plot gets to be honest with you. The rest just involves a Sherriff investigating the mysterious death of civilians, and of course they are being killed by the beast. The beast for some weird reason resembles The Creature of The Black Lagoon...just done really cheaply here. A curious observation, which is pretty obvious through the movie, is 3 things: the sheriff never unhooks his thumbs from his belt, even when sitting down, Paul is seen shirtless for about 80% off the movie, and Kathy is mostly wearing  skanky clothes which distracts most male viewers from the rest of the cheesy mess of a film. I mean this movie was just soo odd, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen LOL. I will admit, it was a guilty pleasure. I might even watch it again, just for the laughs. Trust me, that's definitely what you will get here: laughs. Such as the song they play in a club titled "California Lady" God! How corny can the lines be, there's a part in the song when the vocalist says "My voice been getting froggy I been smoking too damn much" I was bursting out laughing! But at the same time I would see myself later in the day singing the song, I even have it on my I-Pod now. But yeah, this movie is mostly just to sit back on a rainy night and enjoy for the unintentional humor, even if the pacing is slow, there’s a lot of cheesiness to redeem it.

California Lady Song:

Lyrics to "California Lady":

My voice been getting froggy
I been smoking too damn much
Singing songs to the sun that's rising
Rhyming words I cannot touch
Oh I been wandering in circles
With just a guitar in m' hand
Playing one too many barrooms and drinkin' more than I can stand

California lady won't you bring your love to me
California lady she's the one I want to see
My California lady

I'm hung out in Chicago with a California mind
Lady love and lord above
These city mountains aren't my kind
Oh I been wandering in circles
With just a guitar in m' hand
Playing all these funky barrooms and drinkin' more than I can stand

California lady won't you bring your love to me
California lady she's the one I want to see
My California lady
My California lady
My California lady

DVD

I got this movie in a bundle pack; it came in a 50 Chilling Classics Box Set. The box set was only 10 bucks, 50 movies for 10 bucks isn’t bad, even if most of them are as bad as this one. The movie is actually available on YouTube for free, so if you are interested in seeing this cheesy flick, be my guest, I will leave you a link to it. That way you won’t feel guilty about spending money on it. Also, the quality is no different to the one I have on DVD.

Video

Like most cheap DVD's the quality is never anything above average. Presented in 1:33:1, the total feel I got for the picture quality was dark and grainy. Even though the box set said they are "remastered" they aren't, and then again for how bad it is, I’m not expecting it to be anything spectacular in the visual dept. So overall the quality was just bleh. Felt like they transferred it from a second generation VHS

Audio:
Just like the video, The audio is overall a mediocre 2 Channel Mono

Bottom Line:

Man, this is a hard decision, because I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. I wasn’t scarred nor amused by the films effects...I was mostly laughing. If you want to laugh at and see a corny 70's "horror/sci-fi" than this is your treat.

Full movie: