Films That Witness Madness

review

MOON OF THE WOLF

When trying to decide what to write about this week, I decided to put my decision up to chance. I grabbed one of my many Mill Creek collections - yeah, I know - and placed it in front of me. I took one of my 20-sided dice - oh like YOU don't have a few lying around, too - and gave it a roll. I rolled a 14. I counted down the number of movies and discovered, with a great deal of disappointment, that I would be watching David Janssen bumble his way through MOON OF THE WOLF. Had I rolled a 13, I'd be watching Dwight Esper's deliriously awful MANIAC. A 15 and I'd be watching NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. But it was not meant to be. 14 was my number and MOON OF THE WOLF was, I suppose, my punishment for doing something so stupid as picking up a Mill Creek set off the shelf.

Down in the bayou, something vicious has killed Ellie Burrifors. The locals believe it to be wild dogs. Sheriff Whitaker isn't so sure. Dogs might be the cause of her mutilations but what about the injury to the side of her head? Seems someone knocked her out, maybe even killed her, with a sharp blow to the head, someone left handed. Her brother, Lawrence, doesn't take the news so well. Neither does the the town doctor, Dr. Druten. The good doctor was seeing Ellie in secret and had gotten her pregnant. Could he have killed her? What about Andrew Rodanthe, a person of "high quality" and wealth who was meeting Ellie in the middle of the night? Or his sister, the Sheriff's boyhood crush, Louise, recently returned home from New York? When Lawrence is arrested for assaulting Dr. Druten and locked up for the night, the same thing that murdered his sister comes for him, chewing up a deputy and ripping the iron jail cell bars right out of the wall before mauling Lawrence to death. The Sheriff is baffled. No person could be strong enough to tear apart a jail cell. His thoughts immediately go to Lawrence and Ellie's invalid father. He requests volunteers to keep an eye on old Mr. Burrifors. The only person to accept is Andrew Rodanthe. When they arrive at the Burrifor home, Andrew collapses in a fit. It might have something to do with the strange herb that Mr. Burrifor has had his maid burn in containers on the porch, the smell of which is said to keep werewolves at bay.

That's right. I ruined the film for you. Now you don't have to watch it. Of course, if you couldn't figure out who the werewolf was by mid-way through the film, you obviously weren't paying attention. It's rather obvious, as everything in this film is, and strangely unnecessary. I still don't know why a werewolf was necessary at all in the film. Without it, MOON OF THE WOLF - granted it would have needed a new title - would have been a somewhat respectable little murder mystery. But, as it stands, the film is a confused mishmash of ideas, starting in a giallo-esque vein and ending up as a laughable and poorly executed lycanthropian mess. The final scenes inside a barn have a tinge of classic horror to them and the prison murder scene definitely has that slasher film vibe going for it but the horror is vastly outweighed by the melodrama and the unintentional laughs, many at the expense of our "terrifying" villian. Simply put, if you can't execute werewolf make-up well - that is, if you can't do anything more than slap a fake nose, fangs and hair on someone - don't try. The werewolf in MOON OF THE WOLF looks more TEEN WOLF than AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and you can't help but chuckle every time he makes an appearance.

The original novel by Leslie Whitten did not contain a werewolf, that much I gather from a quick study of the book - thank you, Internet! - and that seems to clear up a few questions I had in mind while watching the film. I found it strange that Whitten - by no means a prolific writer but well-published enough - would lift so much from all the various werewolf movies made over the years. One quick example would be the pentagram that apparently shows on the hand of the next victim, taken from the Universal film. Or the transformation, after death, of the beast back into his human form. Neither one jives with the more naturalistic elements of the film. It's like the supernatural elements were forced upon the story in the writing stage. The man writing the teleplay, Alvin Sapinsley, was no stranger to the supernatural, having written more than a few episodes of Night Gallery, including one of my favorites, an adaptation of Lovecraft's Pickman's Model. But Sapinsley would have been better off leaving those elements out of the story. They clutter it up and confuse it, strangling the film and resulting in a dramatic change in tone that the narrative simply cannot handle.

There are a few positive things about MOON OF THE WOLF. The direction by Daniel Petrie, one of televisions most prolific directors, is sure handed and strong, especially given the films obviously meager budget, and the acting is uniformly fine among the secondary cast - Geoffrey Lewis, generally speaking, is always a stand out. "Made for Television" doesn't always mean weak and incompetent. TRILOGY OF TERROR and WHEN MICHAEL CALLS were both great made for television films and the potential for MOON OF THE WOLF to reach that level is there. You can feel it. But the film is castrated by its strange and ridiculous collapse into the supernatural. That's a shame.

Not recommended.

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