By Geno McGahee
In a horror film, when in doubt, you must rely on Native Americans. They have the answers, especially when it comes to Bigfoot or other natural disasters. They are also big on history. I can’t tell you how many films I’ve watched where the Native American historian saves the day, and in TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST, we see much of the same. It was the 1970s and this sort of approach was popular and I watched this film big screen to give it the old drive in movie feel. I’m glad I was alone. I wouldn’t want a guy next to me trying that old popcorn trick on me.
We begin with Paul (Chase Cordell) walking around the desert without a shirt on. He is often without a shirt and I can’t blame him. If I was in that shape, I would walk around everywhere without a shirt. He comes across Professor Johnny Longbow (Gregorio Sala) and a couple of his students. When I hear “Longbow,” I have to assume the guy is hung like a horse. “You don’t want to bend over in front of Johnny Longbow.”
Paul meets Kathy (Leigh Drake), a photographer, and they hit it off immediately, but I can’t help but to think that Paul has a man crush on Longbow. He can’t stop talking about him. Despite the obvious lust for Longbow, Paul allows the semi-romantic relationship with Kathy.
A meteor comes to earth and a piece of it goes through the head of Paul and that starts a transition for him. When the moon is full, he turns into a lizard man. The police have no idea what to do and call for the help of Johnny Longbow. Why the fuck is he involved in everything?! I know he’s a professor and probably has a good reputation in town, but when a drunk is killed by a potential lizard man, they call Longbow to the scene. The cop walks around with him, with his arm around him at all times. Does everyone want to bend Longbow over and give it to him in this?
The lizard man…well, I should probably call him the Moon Beast because that’s what they call him. The Moon Beast rips open a tent and tit-punches one old dude and then rips the arm off another old dude that seems rather distracted. He just sits there and the Moon Beast rips off his arm completely. It was a cool scene and the Moon Beast going ape shit, flailing his arms around.
Longbow, Kathy and Paul go to a concert where the camera guy seems a bit too focused on the singer’s bulge. I guess this was also BULGE OF THE PANTS BEAST. The lead singer looked like the slow bother of the Bee Gees and the song “California Lady” wasn’t exactly catchy.
Since he’s not feeling well, Paul goes to get tested and Longbow is in everyone’s business and is even telling the doctors what to do. When they do the testing, he transforms into the Moon Beast and now they know that he’s the lizard guy going around and fucking shit up. Paul decides to escape and wants to kill himself rather than be some experiment or maybe he was worried that Longbow’s biggest wish in life was to rape a lizard man. He didn’t want to die getting cornholed by Longbow while in Lizard form.
Paul keeps trying to figure out a way to kill himself, including throwing himself off of a lift. He tried crashing his motorcycle but he lived through it. He tried buying a shotgun but ran for it when he was exposed as a missing criminal. At this point, he should just wait for the moon to come along, turn into the Moon Beast and fuck everyone up that’s making his life hell.
Paul runs up to the mountains and Kathy tracks him down and so do the police, who randomly fire at nothing when they hear screams. These are not good cops. The Moon Beast easily kills those two chumps. More cops and Longbow, AGAIN, shows up. Fucking Longbow is everywhere and, as expected, he will be the one that stops the Moon Beast. Armed with a bow and arrow, he’s going to take down the lizard man.
TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST is a pretty bad monster movie from the 1970s. The Moon Beast was cool when he was on the screen, but he wasn’t there much. Much of the movie was just people talking to or about Longbow. Granted, if I had a friend with the last name “Longbow,” I might discuss him often. If his last name was “Bigfuckingcock”, I’d probably bring it up at parties that I had a friend with such a name, but for this film, we have too much Bigfuckingcock, or Longbow. Pick your poison.
I recommend this if you are bored and just want a bad monster movie from the 70s to watch. That era isn’t without its charm, even when dealing with a relatively shitty movie. With a few tweaks here and there, this one could have been pretty good, but it really misses the mark.
