Wednesday 9 March 2016

Track of the Moon Beast (1976)



Man gets hit by moon rock and turns into were-lizard.  Sure, why not.

The first thing you'll probably notice about this film is how bad the acting is.  Because oh boy, there are rocks more animated than some of the people in this film, as they stand around smiling in that slightly strained way that people do when they're stuck in a conversation with someone whose name they can't remember.

So basically the premise here is that a meteor hits the moon, causing a massive cloud of pulverised moon rock to rain down on the Earth.  A tiny sliver of lunar material embeds itself in the forehead of a mineralogist.  Apparently it doesn't really hurt though, and he calmly toddles off home with the larger meteorite that landed nearby, and a young woman he's met while out playing with rocks.

After contriving to ruin his chances with the young woman, at least for that night, our rock-lovin' buddy gets zapped by some kind of energy arc between the meteorite and the fragment in his brain.  This soon leads to him going all man-lizard at night and rampaging around.  Of course, werewolf style, he remembers nothing in the morning.

The authorities start investigating, and show a remarkable broadness of mind in their theories as to what's doing all the killing: at one point they seriously consider the option that a T-Rex has somehow been running around undetected in New Mexico all this time.

Eventually though, they realise it's all got something to do with an ancient Navajo legend ... uh huh.  They even figure out that mineral-boy is the culprit, and - after giving him a medical exam - how his affliction came about.  Alas however, modern science is powerless in the face of moon rocks, and he is condemned to inevitable molecular destabilisation.  Whatever that's supposed to mean.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that were-lizard monsters are no match for Navajo moon rock arrows, and the mineralogist bites the dust.  Which he's probably pretty used to, amirite?

Terrible, and not even amusingly so.

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