Track Of The Moon Beast

The X Files has it all wrong. Aliens don’t come from outer space. Rocks hit us in the head and we become the aliens! That’s what Track of the Moon Beast tries to go for, at least. A meteor hits the moon and sends debris to Earth. When a meteorite strikes Paul in the head it, in conjunction with the moon, triggers a mutation: a lizard man that likes to flail about wildly and kill random people. Paul doesn’t even know what’s happening. Can his friends cure him before he kills again??

The movie tries to be one third sci-fi, one third drama, and one third horror. It manages to be one hundred percent campy. The acting is cheesy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen much worse, but that doesn’t mean this is good stuff.

The monster is worse. I’m not kidding about the flailing. It’s like the director said, “Swing your arms back and forth as often as you can and don’t stop for any reason.”

“But, sir, if I’m supposed to be killing people shouldn't I grab them or…”

“I said swing those arms, boy, or I’ll go get the pellet gun and shoot your butt again!”

The alien doesn’t look particularly lizard-like, either, well except that it has no lips. Other than that it looks like a deformed kid in dark pajamas. Story-wise the thing has no reason to kill. He’s not feeding, threatened, or wronged. He doesn’t even necessarily kill the most convenient victim. Some method to the madness would have helped the story.

The experience as a whole isn’t so much bad as it is just unimpressive. These guys gave it a shot by trying to work in Native American “legend” and some manner of pseudo-scientific explanation. They try to give it some drama with the whole girlfriend trying to save the afflicted guy angle. None of it comes together for much of a movie anyone would care about unfortunately.

MORALITY:

There’s little bit of strong language here.

There’s one gruesome but very short (and campy) scene of violence and a couple of other moments of blood pools and such without much actual murderous mayhem on screen.

There's nothing sexual of note.

SPIRITUALITY:

Pray for all the people the moon has turned into lizards.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Guys, you gave it a shot, but you couldn’t make a movie worth much more than a parody commentary. It’s actually a good candidate for something like that. It's not intolerable, but it is boring.

#TrackOfTheMoonBeast