tek's rating: very sub-meh

Track of the Moon Beast (PG)
IMDb; MST3K Wiki; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 1976, and I watched it on DVD in 2019, just because it was part of a set of bad movies that also included Manos: The Hands of Fate (the only movie in the set that I'd actually heard of). So... there'a a mineralogist (I would have guessed archaeologist) named Paul Carlson, who is surprised one day by a visit from his former professor of anthropology, Johnny "Longbow" Salinas, along with a pair of the professor's current students (who are of no actual importance to the story). Also accompanying the professor is Kathy Nolan, who I guess is like a photojournalist, or something. She quickly becomes a love interest for Paul. And um, a meteor like strikes the moon, which causes fragments of moon rock mixed with the meteor to shoot off toward Earth. One of these fragments lodges in Paul's brain while he and Kathy are watching what was supposed to be a harmless meteor shower caused by the impact to the moon. Soon after that, a lizard-man creature starts killing people at night. It is so incredibly obvious that Paul is transforming into this monster every night, werewolf-style, that I desperately hoped it would turn out that was a red herring, and the monster would be someone or something other than him. I actually had three different theories that would have been just as plausible, I think. But no. There is no twist ending, here. The monster is Paul. Which was disappointing.

I have to say, this movie was not as bad as "Manos," but that's not saying much. It is still definitely one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And now there are ten more movies in the DVD set that I need to watch. Sigh.

Also, very early in the movie, there's a TV news report in which I'm pretty sure the reporter pronounced "national" as if he just added "al" to "nation," without changing the "a" sound. That pretty much set the tone of the whole movie, for me.


B-movies index

The Best of the Worst

Disc 1: Manos: The Hands of Fate * Track of the Moon Beast * The Beast of Yucca Flats * Eegah
Disc 2: The Ape Man * The Amazing Transparent Man * The Atomic Brain * Dementia 13
Disc 3: Unknown World * The Terror * Mesa of Lost Women * The Incredible Petrified World